The Deaf community, what it means to the Deaf and me.
The Deaf community is a proud community of people with significant hearing loss or who are completely deaf. They also include hearing family members or people who interpret for the Deaf. Like the general population, there are several subgroups in the Deaf community. Those who are completely deaf, those who are hard of hearing, CODAs, interpreters, and those who desire to learn American Sign Language (ASL), as well as men, women, children, and those of various backgrounds, including race and religious backgrounds. Then there are those in the Deaf community who may desire to hear about cochlear implants but those who are entirely against them and are very adamant. This topic is a “hot” topic in the Deaf community. However, those who are capital “D” Deaf have so much more than hearing loss or are so immersed in the Deaf community that the cochlear implants are very often too much of a shock to the person’s system that they don’t comply with the routine of wearing the implants or have absolutely NO desire to talk about them because they feel very comfortable within their own community and deal with others who do hear as little as possible (HBO, 2021). Deaf is a way of life, like being male or female, Republican or Democrat, Christian or Jewish. The Deaf community has a culture all its own. I have been blessed to be a part of their community for over eight years. I was quite surprised to be welcomed into their community because I was not deaf or hard of hearing. I only offered a great desire to learn ASL and about their culture.
So much has changed since I tried in 1988. I had a desire then, but without a parental agreement, this deterred the Deaf community. I had done an English assignment where we had to teach our English class about a subject we cared about. I chose to teach the class American Sign Language. I taught them that the Deaf child cannot understand closed captioning most of the time because in learning ASL, the syntax of sentences does not match. While English sentences follow a subject-verb-object format, ASL follows a subject-object-verb one. While most Deaf get the idea of what closed captioning is trying to say, those who are capital ‘D’ Deaf do not want to understand because most have no desire to learn the English syntax. Just like some hearing Americans have no desire to learn Spanish, German, or French, as well as ASL. While I can understand why someone doesn’t want to learn most other languages, learning ASL can bring so much joy to the Deaf person. When I hear stories about how someone who is learning ASL happens across a Deaf person in the store, and they communicate, and the Deaf person has tears in their eyes because someone is taking the time to learn about them and their language, it brings me so much joy; I get tears in my eyes. I have such compassion for this group.
In another one of my blogs, I mention helping a friend navigate our day camp. Yes, she was blind, but I also had my first taste of ASL and decided to teach her the ASL alphabet. We practiced every day for two weeks. I had her finger spelling her name without the use of feeling her letters with the other hand. I felt pride and loved it the following summer to hear her telling me about a deaf'/blind girl at her new school, and they were learning to sing together. This was my first taste of pride in what I was doing for the Deaf community.
References
HBO. YouTube. 2021. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6LfG7dpK08>.
