Read The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry Online
Authors: Harlan Lane,Richard C. Pillard,Ulf Hedberg
Tags: #Psychology, #Clinical Psychology
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
The Amish and the Hassidim are two examples of ethnic groups with multiple ethnicities. According to Fishman, for a group to possess two sets of ethnic identities, the group must engage in the distinctive language and behavior required in each of the two ethnic contexts, with little overlap.28 The multiethnic group controls the schools where their children are taught English so that they can engage in the other culture within carefully prescribed limits. The offspring of interethnic marriage may also be multiethnic.29
Deaf people are commonly both multilingual and multicultural. Some ASL signers have an excellent command of English, some may use the telephone, and most switch between their languages and between cultural behaviors as appropriate. For example, a Deaf MexicanAmerican might be multilingual in ASL, Mexican Sign Language, Spanish, and English. A description of the French bicultural DeafWorld by a French ethnologist also applies well to the American DeafWorld. French Deaf people meeting hearing people promptly switch to behavior governed by hearing norms, as follows. They shake the hearing person's hand, instead of greeting them with a sign, a hug, or the ceremony of introductions. They introduce themselves simply, and do not refer to their life history (parents, schooling, and the like) as they would with another Deaf person. They do not touch their hearing interlocutor, for example, to get his or her attention, as they would when seeking to address a Deaf person. They keep a greater physical distance between themselves and a hearing interlocutor than they would with a Deaf one. They do not gaze at length on their interlocutor's face as they would if he or she were Deaf, and, when leaving, they shorten their farewells 30
The Deaf-World of ASL signers takes on attributes of the larger and encircling majority-language world; most Deaf people come from exclusively oral-language homes, attend school with oral-language schoolmates, communicate with oral-language colleagues, and are bombarded as we all are with messages about mainstream American culture. As with biculturalism, so with bilingualism: ASL signers are commonly sign-language dominant but most have some command of English (or other oral language). Bilingualism expert Francois Grosjean points out some similarities between spoken-language bilinguals and ASL bilinguals. In the first place, individuals in both groups vary greatly in their command of their two (or more) languages. Further, some Deaf bilinguals, like their spoken-language counterparts, do not think they are bilingual, either because they are not aware that sign language is a separate language, unrelated to the majority language, or because they have not mastered the oral language. Nevertheless, these bilinguals are able to switch language repertories to talk with different people about different topics, as appropriate.
The larger public often misconstrues the attachment of ethnic groups to their minority language, be it spoken or signed. Critics insist needlessly that the ethnic group should master the majority language, as if the group wanted their children to speak only their minority language. On the contrary, the leaders of ethnic groups generally advocate multiethnicity and its attendant ability to move easily between two or more repertories, both linguistically and culturally. The disagreement is not about goals but about means-the role of the minority language in achieving multiethnicity.
SUMMARY
We undertook to compare ethnic groups and ASL signers with respect to language, bonding to one's own kind, culture, social institutions, the arts, history, territory, kinship, socialization, and boundary maintenance. The language of an ethnic group plays many roles: it is the vehicle for transmission of cultural patrimony through the generations; it expresses traditions, rituals, norms, and values; it is a symbol of ethnicity and a means of social interaction. These are indeed also the roles fulfilled by ASL. Deaf people tend to feel strong and protective ownership of their language. There is no higher priority for the Deaf-World than the flourishing of its language, the more so as it has been the target of repressive language policy over many years, including efforts at outright replacement. This is the fate of many ethnic minority languages, as we have seen.