The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (15 page)

117 Cornell and Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race; Verkuyten, Social Psychology. On biological resemblance, see Johnson and Erting, "Ethnicity and Socialization." When genealogic facts were uncovered and disseminated they had no effect on kinship myths, suggesting that the myths are rooted elsewhere. See Schneider, "What is Kinship?"

118 Ibid. M. Marshall, "The Nature of Nurture," American Ethnologist 4(4) (1977): 643-662.

119 Smith, Ethnic Origins, quotation from p. 49.

120 Fenton, Ethnicity; W. Petersen, "Concepts Of Ethnicity," in S. Thernstrom, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 234-242.

121 Fishman, Language and Ethnicity; T. Parsons, "Some Theoretical Considerations on the Nature and Trends of Change of Ethnicity," in Glazer and Moynihan, Ethnicity, 53-83.

122 W. Connor, "Beyond Reason: The Nature of the Ethnonational Bond," in Hutchinson and Smith, Ethnicity, quotation from p. 71.

123 Fenton, Ethnicity: Racism, Class and Culture (Lanham, Md.: Bowman and Littlefield, 1999); Waters, Ethnic Options; M. Weber, "Ethnic Groups," in Hughey, New Tribalisms, 17-30.

124gri.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/2008 _ NationalSummary.pdf. (accessed 4/5/09). Gallaudet Research Institute, Regional and National Summary Report of Data from the 2007-2008 Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Youth (Washington, D.C.: GRI, Gallaudet University, 2008).

125 M. L. Marazita et al., "Genetic Epidemiological Studies of Early-Onset Deafness in the U.S. School Age Population," American Journal of Medical Genetics 46 (1993): 486-491, quotation from p. 486.

An enumeration of all Deaf people born Deaf and become so in Northern Ireland found only six cases of Deaf at birth owing to maternal illness. In that study, 424 persons were born Deaf and 183 became Deaf before age six; thus the incidence of hereditary Deaf in this sample was 70 percent. Seventy percent hereditary Deaf may be an underestimate since a child who is Deaf due to heredity may be mistakenly thought Deaf due to some environmental incident or may simply be discovered Deaf belatedly. A. C. Stevenson and E. A. Cheeseman, "Hereditary Deaf Mutism, With Particular Reference to Northern Ireland," Annals of Human Genetics 20 (1956): 177-207; Chung et al. further analyzed these data and report 24 percent dominant, 74 percent recessive, and 2 percent x-linked. C. S. Chung D. W. Robinson and M. E. Morton, "A Note on Deaf-Mutism," Annals of Human Genetics 23 (1959): 357-366.

An analysis of the 1898 Fay survey-in an era when many more people were Deaf as a sequel to illness-yielded 55 percent of all Deaf people who were hereditarily Deaf. E.A. Fay,Marriages of the Deaf in America (Washington, D.C.: Volta Bureau, 1898); K.S. Arnos et al., "A Comparative Analysis of the Genetic Epidemiology of Deafness in the United States in Two Sets of Pedigrees Collected More Than a Century Apart." American Journal Of Human Genetics 83 (2008): 200-207. A survey of the student body at Gallaudet yielded 76 percent hereditarily Deaf. W. E. Nance et al., "Opportunities For Genetic Counseling Through Institutional Ascertainment of Affected Probands," in H. A. Lubs and F. de la Cruz, eds., Genetic Counseling (New York: Raven Press, 1977), 307-331. Y. Delaporte states that the percent of hereditarily Deaf in France is 70 percent. Delaporte, Les Sourds.

126 W. Reardon, "Genetic Deafness," Journal of Medical Genetics 29 (1992): 521-526; quotation from p. 524; C. Morton and W. Nance, "Newborn Hearing Screening-a Silent Revolution." New England Journal of Medicine." 354(20) (2006): 2151-2164: "Genetic causes account for at least 50 to 60 percent of childhood hearing loss in developed countries and can be classified according to the pattern of inheritance, the presence (syndromic) or absence(nonsyndromic) of distinctive clinical features, or the identification of the causal mutation" quotation from p. 2151. For incidence at birth, before oral language learning can proceed, the authors estimate 68 percent genetic causes.

127 When two people are known to carry or express the same gene for the Deaf trait, it is often assumed that if the gene is rare, the couple are likely to have a common ancestor. However, even a common gene associated with the Deaf trait can signal a shared ancestor if one traces the lineage back far enough- with the proviso that the same mutation may arise in two unrelated individuals.

1211 Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity. Johnson and Erting, "Ethnicity and Socialization."

129 S. Foster, "Communication Experiences of Deaf People: An Ethnographic Account," in I. Parasnis, ed., Cultural and Language Diversity and the Deaf Experience (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 117-135.

130 C. Erting, "Socialization in Families with Deaf Children," Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People and Deafness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), 141-147; C. J. Erting and M. Kuntze, "Language Socialization in Deaf Communities," in P. Duff and N.H. Hornberger, eds., Encyclopedia of Language and Education, (2nd ed)., Vol. 8: Language and Socialization (New York: Springer, 2008), 287-300.

Chapter 2

I Johnson and Erting, "Ethnicity and Socialization."

2 For a discussion of the constructivist perspective, see: D. Bell, "Ethnicity and Social Change," in Hutchinson and Smith., Ethnicity, 138-146; Cornell, "Ties That Bind"; Cornell and Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race; Fenton, Ethnicity; Hutchinson and Smith, Ethnicity; Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity; Johnson and Erting, "Ethnicity and Socialization"; Nagel, "Constructing Ethnicity"; To say that we are "deploying ethnicity" in this book in order to facilitate Deaf people achieving their goals is to view the issue solely from a constructivist point of view. In fact, Deaf-World language and culture are centuries old and are the precursor of what is "deployed."

3 Cornell, "Ties That Bind"; Fenton, Ethnicity; Hutchinson and Smith, Ethnicity; Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity; Smith, Ethnic Origins. For a discussion of primordialism in relation to constructivism, see: J. L Comaroff, "Of Totemism and Ethnicity: Consciousness, Practice and the Signs of Inequality," in Grinker and Steiner, Perspectives on Africa, 69-85; Cornell and Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race.

4 Cornell and Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race.

5 Carmel, "Deaf Culture"; H. Lane, "Ethnicity, Ethics and the Deaf-World," in L.R. Komesaroff, ed., Surgical Consent: Bioethics and Cochlear Implantation (Washington, D.C: Gallaudet University Press, 2007), p. 6; Padden and Humphries, Deaf In America; Padden and Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture.

6 T. K. Holcomb, "Social Assimilation Of Deaf High School Students: The Role of School Environment," in Parasnis, Cultural and Language Diversity, 181-200; H. Lane, "The Education of Deaf Children: Drowning in the Mainstream and the Sidestream" in J. Kauffman and D. Hallahan, eds., The Illusion of Full inclusion: A Comprehensive Critique of a Current Special Education Bandwagon (Austin, Tex.: Pro-Ed, 2004), 275-287; J. V. Van Cleve, "The Academic Integration of Deaf Students An Historical Perspective," in J. Van Cleve, Deaf History Reader, 116-135.

7 C. Padden, "Folk explanation in language survival," in Bragg, Deaf-World, 104-115.

8 A. B. Crammatte, Meeting the Challenge: Hearing-Impaired Professionals in the Workplace (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 1987); C. Padden, "From The Cultural To The Bicultural: The Modern Deaf Community," in Parasnis, Cultural and Language Diversity, 79-98.

9 Cornell and Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race. Eldredge describes four ways in which members of the Deaf-World signal their unity and six ways in which they may marginalize others when communicating: Eldredge, Stringham, and Wilding-Diaz, Deaf Studies Today.

10 A. Portes and R. Schauffler, "Language Acquisition and Loss Among Children of Immigrants," in S. Pedraza and R. G. Rumbaut, eds., Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race and Ethnicity in America (New York: Wadsworth, 1996), 432-443.

11 S. Steinberg. The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001).

12 J. Edwards, "Symbolic Ethnicity and Language," in Hutchinson and Smith, Ethnicity, 227-229; C. Erting, "Language Policy and Deaf Ethnicity in the United States," Sign Language Studies 19 (1978): 139-152; Fishman, Language and Ethnicity; Johnson and Erting, "Ethnicity and Socialization"; Waters, Ethnic Options. However, the contact variety of ASL, used primarily with outsiders to the Deaf-World, is another mechanism for maintaining the boundary between Deaf and non-Deaf. Erting, "Language Policy"; F. Grosjean, Studying Bilinguals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

13 N. Groce, Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985); H. Lane, R. Pillard, and M. French, "Origins of the American Deaf-World: Assimilating and Differentiating Societies and Their Relation to Genetic Patterning," Sign Language Studies I (new ser.) (2000): 17-44.

14 T. Humphries, "Of Deaf-mutes, the Strange and the Modern Deaf Self.," in Bragg, Deaf-World, 348-364; see p. 356.

15 Ibid.; see p. 359; paraphrased and abridged.

16 Murray," One Touch of Nature."

17 Smith, "Deaf People In Context"; Schein, Home Among Strangers.

18 V. Achim, The Roma in Romanian History (New York: Central European University Press, 2004).

19 Quotes from Deaf parents on the merits of having a Deaf child will be found in C. J. Erting "Cultural Conflict in a School for Deaf Children," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 16 (3) (1985): 225-243. Reprinted in P. Higgins and J. Nash, eds., Understanding Deafness Socially. (Springfield, Mass.: Charles C. Thomas, 1987).

20 S. Fenton, Ethnicity.

21 Dr. Joseph Murray called this adaptiveness to our attention.

22 Carmel, "Deaf Culture."

23 T. Humphries, "Of Deaf-mutes," quotation from p. 358.

24 Carmel, "Deaf Culture."

25 Ibid. See p. 124: Deaf are hostile to oralists and to hearing society; p. 130; that is, the segment of hearing society that impinges on the Deaf-World. Compare p. 339.

26 Erting, "Language Policy."

27 F. Bowe, "Deaf and Hard of Hearing Americans' Instant Messaging and E-Mail Use: A National Survey" American Annals of the Deaf 147 (2002): 6-10.

28 Fishman, Language and Ethnicity; F. Grosjean, Studying Bilinguals; see "The Bilingualism And Biculturalism Of The Deaf."

29 Cornell and Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race.

30 Delaporte, Les Sourds.

31 The British social scientist Paddy Ladd developed the related concept of Deafhood to capture the process by which Deaf people live out and explain their way in the world given their evolving culture. He describes it further as "collective culture; collective history; collective arts; collective spiritual issues." Ladd documents and analyzes the struggle of Deaf people to counter oppressive forces. All in all, the properties of Deafhood appear to us to flow from Deaf ethnicity. P. Ladd, Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deaf hood (Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters, 2003).

32 Padden and Humphries, Deaf in America; Padden and Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture.

33 Hughey, New Tribalisms, see p. 3. Some authors describe mainstream ethnicity as WASP-White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. Others speak of Euro-American; however that term appears to regroup several ethnicities. D. A. Hollinger, Postethnic America (New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 1995); Hughey and Vidich, "New American Pluralism'; Hutchinson and Smith, Ethnicity; S. Shain, "Multicultural Foreign Policy," in Hughey, New Tribalisms, 299-316; Steinberg, Ethnic Myth. "Long before the onset of mass migration there was a deeply rooted consciousness of the nation's Anglo-Saxon and Protestant origins. From the beginning, the nation's political institutions, culture, and people all had an unmistakable English cast and despite denominational differences Protestantism was the near universal creed." Quotation from p. 13.

Chapter 3

1 D. Baynton, "Beyond Culture: Deaf Studies and the Deaf Body," in Eldredge, Stringham, and Wilding-Diaz, Deaf Studies Today, 37-56; D. Baynton, "Beyond Culture: Deaf Studies and the Deaf Body," in Bauman, Open Your Eyes, 293-313; J. Harris, The Cultural Meaning of Deafness (Aldershot U.K.: Avebury, 1995); Kyle, "Deaf People,"; J. Nash, "Who Signs To Whom: The American Sign Language Community," in P. C. Higgins and J. E. Nash, eds., Understanding Deafness Socially (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1987), 81-100; J. E. Nash, "Policy and Practice in the American Sign Language Community," International Journal of the Sociology of Language 68 (1987): 7-22; D. Parratt, "The State, Social Work and Deafness," in S. Gregory and G. M. Hartley, eds., Constructing Deafness (London: Pinter, 1991), 247-252.

2 E. Gellner, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1978); Nash, "Who Signs to Whom"; Smith, Ethnic Revival.

3 F. Barth, "Ecologic Relations of Ethnic Groups in Swat, North Pakistan," in Y. Cohen, ed., Man in Adaptation: The Cultural Present (Chicago: Aldine, 1958), 324-331; M. W. Hughey and J. Vidich, "The New American Pluralism: Racial and Ethnic Solidarities and Their Sociological Implications," in M. W. Hughey, ed., New Tribalisms: the Resurgence of Race and Ethnicity (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 173-196.

4 N. Kristoff, "Love and Race," New York Times, December 6, 2002, A35.

5 BaMbuti of the east of Zaire: C. M. Turnbull, The Forest People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), quotation from p. 14. See also: R. Bailey and N. R. Peacock, "Efe Pygmies of northeast Zaire: Subsistence Strategies in the Ituri Forest," in I. De Garine and G.A. Harrison, eds., Coping with Uncertainty in Food Supply (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 88-117; L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, ed., African Pygmies (Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1986); L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995); P. Schebesta, My Pygmy and Negro Hosts (New York: AMS Press, 1936); D. S. Wilkie, "Hunters and Farmers of the African Forest," in J. S. Denslow and C. Padoch, eds., People of the Tropical Rain Forest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 111-126.

6 J. Fishman, "Ethnicity as Being, Doing and Knowing," in Hutchinson and Smith, Ethnicity, 63-69; quotation from p. 63.

7 Baynton, "Beyond Culture"; N. Cohen, "The Ethics of Cochlear Implants in Young Children," American Journal of Otology 15 (1994): 1-2.