Why+does+Yolanda+pretend+not+to+speak+english?

Yolanda pretends not to speak Spanish because it gives her a sense of security and soothes her tense emotions. She liked to hear herself speaking something they could not understand, and this makes her think of something her teacher used to say to her when she was learning English as a young immigrant girl; "Language is power." Yolanda used her language as her only defense against the men.