Speaking and the Subaltern

We tried to discuss in class whether the not the subaltern are subaltern because they cannot speak, or whether their inability to speak has been caused by being subaltern. I'm not quite sure that we ever got an answer in class so I would like to take the question up here. I believe that they are subaltern because they cannot speak. I would like to quote on of Spivak when she says "[w]hen a line of communication is established between a member of subaltern groups and the circuits of citizenship or institutionality, the subaltern has been inserted into the long road to hegemony" (808). So, once the subaltern has learned to speak, they can be lifted out of that category and placed somewhere else. The pregnant woman was not born into the subaltern class, she was an upper middle class woman with a bright future, but we regard her as subaltern because she could not speak and the only way that she had to speak was to use her body and even that message has been lost or misinterpreted.