Benjamin Bahan is a prominent figure in the Deaf community as well as having a tremendous role in American Sign Language literature. Ben is a well-known storyteller and has published many books on Deaf culture, experiences, and issues. Bahan has performed many stories such as The Ball Story and Birds of a Different Feather.
Contents |
Ben Bahan is from New Jersey and attended Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf located in West Trenton, New Jersey. Later he attended Gallaudet University where he received his bachelor’s degree in Biology. After Ben graduated in 1978, he attended The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. There he studied linguistics and acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL). Ben moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1981 to collaborate with a friend in starting a new business.[1] This friend was Joe Dannis and they together founded DawnSignPress, which Ben is vice president of. After a few years in the Bay area, he moved to Boston where he attended Boston University.There he received his master’s degree, as well as a doctorate degree. During his studies at Boston University, Bahan helped operate the Deaf Studies Program in the School of Education. Additionally, he met his wife Sue Burnes at Boston University. Burnes, like Bahan, is Deaf and has Deaf parents as well.[2]
A very popular ASL story performed by Ben Bahan is The Ball Story.[3] This story is about a scientist who is about to combine chemicals together when a boy walks in and is watching him. The scientist continues and his solution blows up. The solution becomes a colorful bouncing ball. The boy, fascinated with the ball, gets on his bike and begins to follow the ball as it bounces out the door. A dog then sees the bouncing ball and the boy on his bike, becomes curious and begins to follow them. A girl on her roller skates notices a bouncing ball, where a boy on his bicycle, and a dog are following. She too becomes inquisitive and skates behind them. An old man is sitting on a bench with his bird and begins to feed it when the ball and all the people trailing behind catch his attention. He becomes interested and props himself up and begins walking slowly after them. His bird too decides to follow and goes flying behind him. A very large woman is sitting and she sees all these people following the bouncing ball. She struggles to get up and begins to hobble along after them. They continue to follow the ball as it goes straight, around corners, up hill, down hill and through a door. The door closes shut behind it and they all one after another hit the door. The door collapses and they all topple on top of one another. They all look up at the ball and the ball is gleaming with colors and smiles at them. Everyone is shocked.[4] This ASL story contains many classifiers. Ben uses a claw or bent 5 hand shape to represent the ball, a number 3 hand shape to describe the boy on his bicycle,the bent v hand shape to show the dog running, the number 1 or a d hand shape to show the girl on her roller skates, an x to show the old man hunched over, a number 1 or d hand shape to show the bird flying, and lastly the y hand shape to show the large ladies big steps. This form of ASL literature does not only contain several classifiers but it also takes on a rhythmic form. The ball story has a 1,2,1,2,3 rhythm.
One of Ben Bahan’s most popular pieces of ASL storytelling is Birds of a Different Feather. In this video Ben Bahan tells the story of a Deaf experience.[5] Throughout his storytelling, Bahan is expressing a metaphor regarding Deaf individuals and their struggle with adapting into a “hearing world.” He does so by telling a story in ASL about how a bird was born different than his other family members. This bird is born with a straight beak when the rest of his family are eagles and have a bent beak. The family carries on a pathological method aiming to “fix” their son. This bird experiences a lot of hardships because he is different. His parents are constantly trying to fix his beak or find a cure that could make him “normal”. They seek advice from many people including: a pastor, a medicine woman, a doctor, and educators. All of these experiences made straight beak feel bad about himself. Until, he met a group of birds that were just like him. They sang beautifully as he found out that he could as well. They also ate berries as he easily could too. The only time he truly felt a sense of belonging was when he was among this group of birds. However, his parents decide that they want to give him an operation that will allow him to be a “proper” eagle. He undergoes the operation and later finds that he can no longer sing and eat berries with the group of birds he connected with. He also feels that even after his operation he is not similar to his family. So, after the operation he does not feel a sense of belonging to anyone. This story speaks very metaphorically of the Deaf world and how, in some experiences, Deaf individuals have felt that their parents have wanted to fix them to be more like hearing people.