The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (9 page)

The importance of sign language in maintaining boundaries between the Deaf-World and mainstream ethnicity is supported by reports concerning the island of Martha's Vineyard, which we cited earlier as a significant site in Deaf cultural history. Although the evidence is incomplete, it appears that a great many families on the island had both Deaf and hearing members, and the sign language was widely used by both. In the absence of a language barrier separating Deaf and hearing, there were also few if any cultural boundaries.13 We examine the Vineyard culture and its genealogy in Part II.

The most powerful force in boundary maintenance between the Deaf-World and mainstream ethnicity may be mutual incomprehension, as each group has an incommensurate theory of the other's identity. What is the hearing theory of Deaf identity? HumphriesD has described its major features as follows (adapted):

Polarity (hear/don't hear, speaking/mute, complete/incomplete)

Pathology (having physical and developmental conditions needing medical or prosthetic intervention, behavior related to condition)

Adaptivity (sign, use of prosthetic interventions, adapting resources, use of special procedures, systems, and technology)

Exoticism (noble, special, think without language, visual world, miracles of adaptation, needing to be taught and brought to life)

These can be compared to views Deaf people have about themselves:

Completeness (self-knowing, having a community, whole)

Otherness (one with Deaf people but immersed among others, at risk)

Descendants (recipients and transmitters of ways of being, language)

Morality (value systems based on group experience that define a good life for themselves and their children; ethical)

Aesthetics (possessing concepts of beauty, abstract creators)14

With these different understandings of Deaf identity, there were bound to be profound differences on fundamental issues that create and maintain boundaries. The following are five examples, paraphrased from HumphriesD:

Designation of Deaf people (Deaf vs. hearing-impaired);

Competence to control Deaf institutions (privileged/incompetent);

Shaping the lives of Deaf children (bilingual education/cochlear implants);

Cultural status (ASL recognition/ASL replacement);

Discriminatory practices (job networking /prejudicial job descriptions and hiring).15

The practice of marrying within one's ethnic group is another internal force for boundary maintenance, just as the reverse, marrying out of one's ethnic group, contributes to assimilation.16 Endogamous marriage goes hand in hand with group cohesion. As we mentioned, an estimated nine out of ten Deaf people in the United States marry a Deaf person.'?

It is instructive to compare boundary maintenance in the Deaf-World with that among the Roma (notwithstanding Gypsy poverty).18 Both are stigmatized by the dominant ethnicity, and both have limited crossboundary contact with that ethnicity. In the case of the Deaf, the stigmas concern language and disability. The language of the Deaf has long been seen as much inferior to speech. Furthermore the Deaf-World is stigmatized as a disability group and also stigmatized by disability groups and the mainstream for its denial that it is a disability group. The desire of many Deaf couples to have a Deaf child is stigmatized, as is the wish of members of the Deaf-World to remain Deaf and their scorn for Deaf people who "think Hearing."19 At the same time, language differences impede communication across boundaries (except in some restricted situations). Thus, stigmatized identity, distinct values, and language barriers conspire to limit the interaction that Deaf people have with the mainstream (as in the case of the Roma). As a result, the significant boundary involves excluding the mainstream or holding it at bay.

We have seen that ethnic groups are not just culturally cohesive entities but also, in many arenas, societies unto themselves, networks of businesses, organizations and friendships that allow their members to live out much of their lives within the group. In the box below we list some of the activities that are predominantly carried out by the Deaf for the Deaf. In some of these activities, hearing people also provide limited goods and services.

Those who can resolve life's problems by recourse to existing relationships within their own ethnic group have less reason to cross the boundary. This is particularly true of the Deaf. The choice of a marriage partner, carpenter or tax accountant, the selection of a school for one's children, a career to pursue, an organization to support-all these decisions and countless others can be taken in a way that reinforces the boundary between the Deaf-World and the dominant ethnicity. Conversely, members of an ethnic minority may seek in several ways to cross the boundary with the dominant ethnicity so as to participate in the wider social system: by attempting to pass as a member of the dominant group; by dividing one's time between the two groups; by adopting values and mores of the dominant group; by becoming bilingual.20

Box 2.1 Predominantly by and for the Deaf-World

Alumni associations

Art by and for Deaf audiences

Assistive devices-design, manufacture, and sales

Athletics-Deaf schools, clubs, leagues

Civic associations

Computer user groups; internet vlogs

Conferences, workshops

Consumer goods and services, Deaf-related

Deaf Education, charter, residential and post-secondary schools

Deaf-World culture, research and teaching

Deaf history research, teaching, publishing, archives

Finding employment

Interpreter services for the Deaf

Leisure and social activities

Media-Deaf theater, film, and video

Political activities (state and national)

Publishing-newspapers, magazines, videos, books, internet, etc.

Professional services-counseling, financial, legal, medical

Religious services for the Deaf

Service agencies for the Deaf, Deaf-run

Services: car purchase and repair, child care, trades, etc.

Sign language research and teaching

Despite the attractions of respecting boundaries maintained by outside and inside forces, the Deaf-World does encounter mainstream ethnicity, both close at hand and at some remove. In those encounters Deaf culture reveals both resilience in the face of an engulfing majority and also adaptiveness in reshaping hearing practices.21 In close-at-hand encounters with hearing people-for example, in their family and among their schoolmates-Deaf people promote communication by signing, writing, and mime. They make arrangements for interpreters (and educate the interpreters in the first place) for mainstream ethnic events such as church services. When Deaf people enter professions serving the Deaf, such as teaching, social work, or counseling, or again various businesses, Deaf clients have fuller access to those services. In the academic world, Deaf scholars have conducted ethnically aware research and they have also disseminated the fruits of that research to Deaf and hearing people. As we have seen, such encounters with mainstream ethnicity should respect the code of conduct with hearing people. The Deaf person is expected to use a "contact" variety of ASL that incorporates elements of English grammar. When signing with Deaf people, however, the Deaf person should use ASL. Furthermore, the Deaf person should be cautious about revealing too much of ASL and Deaf culture. The Deaf-World rejects so-called oralists, who try to pass as hearing, insist on using spoken language, associate primarily with hearing people, and espouse hearing values.22 In that rejection the Deaf-World reinforces its boundary with mainstream ethnicity. Deaf people commonly wish to conduct their own affairs and are wary of hearing benevolence. Any claim of sameness, destabilizing the boundary, "is threatening to the Deaf self because most Deaf people are still struggling with, or can remember what it was like, to be totally dominated and defined by others."23 Consequently Deaf people may be aloof in such encounters or even hostile. For many, that caution with respect to hearing people extends to Codas (Children of deaf adults) 24 In the words of Simon CarmelD, an anthropologist who conducted an ethnographic study of the Deaf-World, "Deaf people look at hearing people as 'usurpers' of power once they enter the Deaf-World and usually do not trust or support their efforts in this world."25 Aloofness is reflected in the many Deaf-only activities listed in the box. In a few cases-notably sign language teaching and Deaf publishing-the primary audience is not Deaf. However, only Deaf people have authenticity in matters concerning their language and culture, so other things equal they prefer Deaf to hearing people in those roles. Hearing people who interact with the Deaf, such as special educators and coworkers, make their own contribution to maintaining boundaries through little or no ASL fluency, and through ignorance of Deaf culture, history, and the power imbalance.

Deaf people also participate in the wider society but there are limitations because lack of a shared language is a great barrier. Often the Deaf person's relations with hearing parents, siblings, and relatives, as well as people unrelated to the Deaf-World, must be characterized as remote. Many of these contacts are brief, and writing or gesture suffices, as in grocery shopping. Such "arm's length" interactions with hearing people repeatedly remind Deaf individuals of their daily exclusion from full participation in mainstream life.26 Some Deaf people may use spoken language in these encounters. For many decades, Deaf people used teletypewriters for the Deaf (TTY) for some of these contacts, but that required special equipment, some knowledge of written English, and a relay operator to contact business and other offices that commonly did not have TTYs. In more critical areas, such as medical and legal services, appointments are booked with interpreters. Deaf people can telecommunicate with hearing and Deaf people using email, instant messaging, cell phone texting, blogs, vlogs, and, if both parties know ASL, videophones and webcam.27 The Deaf-World does engage in "outreach" to inform hearing people about its culture and language. In addition to classes for this purpose there are autobiographies, histories, political essays, poetry, folk tales, celebrations, art, plays, and TV productions and more, most available from Deaf publishing houses. However, relatively few Deaf people engage in this outreach with relatively few hearing people.

MULTIETHNICITY