Deaf culture

Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d.[1][2]

Members of the Deaf community tend to view deafness as a difference in human experience rather than a disability.[3][4]

The community may include hearing family members of deaf people and sign-language interpreters who identify with deaf culture. It does not automatically include all people who are deaf or hard of hearing.[5] As educator and American Sign Language interpreter Anna Mindess writes, "it is not the extent of hearing loss that defines a member of the deaf community but the individual's own sense of identity and resultant actions."[6] As with all social groups that a person chooses to belong to, a person is a member of the Deaf community if he or she "identifies him/herself as a member of the Deaf community, and other members accept that person as a part of the community."[7]

Deaf culture is recognized under Article 30, Paragraph 4 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which states that "Persons with disabilities shall be entitled, on an equal basis with others, to recognition and support of their specific cultural and linguistic identity, including sign languages and deaf culture."

Acquisition of Deaf culture

Merikartano school for deaf students in Oulu, Finland (February 2006).
Students at a school for deaf students in Baghdad, Iraq (April 2004).

Historically, deaf culture has often been acquired within schools for deaf students and within deaf social clubs, both of which unite deaf people into communities with which they can identify.[3] Becoming deaf culturally can occur at different times for different people, depending on the circumstances of one's life. A small proportion of deaf individuals acquire sign language and deaf culture in infancy from deaf parents, others acquire it through attendance at schools, and yet others may not be exposed to sign language and deaf culture until college or a time after that.[6]

Although up to fifty percent of deafness has genetic causes, fewer than five percent of deaf people have a deaf parent,[8] so deaf communities are unusual among cultural groups in that most members do not acquire their cultural identities from parents.[9]

Diversity within Deaf culture

Educator and ASL interpreter Anna Mindess notes that there is "not just one homogeneous deaf culture".[6] There are many distinct deaf communities around the world, which communicate using different sign languages and exhibit different cultural norms. Deaf identity also intersects with other kinds of cultural identity. Deaf culture intersects with nationality, education, race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and other identity markers, leading to a culture that is at once quite small and also tremendously diverse. The extent to which people identify primarily with their deaf identity rather than their membership in other intersecting cultural groups also varies. Mindess notes a 1989 study, which "found that 87 percent of black deaf people polled identified with their black culture first".[6]

Characteristics of Deaf culture

Sign languages

Members of deaf cultures communicate via sign languages. There are over 200 distinct sign languages in the world. These include 114 sign languages listed in the Ethnologue database and 157 more sign languages, systems, and dialects.[10][11] While the United Kingdom and the United States are both predominantly English speaking, the predominant signed languages used in these countries differ markedly. Due to the origins of deaf education in the United States, American Sign Language is most closely related to French Sign Language. Sign language is just one part of deaf culture. Deaf identity is also constructed around specific beliefs, values and art.

Values and beliefs

Behavioral norms

Reliance on technology

Literary traditions and the arts

A strong tradition of poetry and storytelling exists in American Sign Language and other sign languages. Some prominent performers in the United States include Clayton Valli, Benjamin Bahan, Ella Mae Lentz, Manny Hernandez, C. J. Jones, Debbie Rennie, Patrick Graybill, Peter Cook, and many others. Their works are now increasingly available on video.[17]

Culturally deaf people have also represented themselves in the dominant written languages of their nations.[18]

Deaf artists such as Betty G. Miller and Chuck Baird have produced visual artwork that conveys a deaf worldview.[9] Douglas Tilden was a famous deaf sculptor who produced many different sculptures in his lifetime.[19]

Organizations such as the Deaf Professional Arts Network or D-PAN are dedicated to promoting professional development and access to the entertainment, visual and media arts fields for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.[20]

History

For detailed deaf history, see Deaf history.

Deaf people who sign are intensely proud of their history. In the United States, they recount the story of Laurent Clerc, a deaf educator, coming to the United States from France in 1816 to help found the first permanent school for deaf children in the country.[18]

Another well-known event is the 1880 Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf in Milan, Italy, where hearing educators voted to embrace oral education and remove sign language from the classroom.[21] This effort resulted in strong opposition within deaf cultures today to the oralist method of teaching deaf children to speak and lip read with limited or no use of sign language in the classroom. The method is intended to make it easier for deaf children to integrate into hearing communities, but the benefits of learning in such an environment are disputed. The use of sign language is central to deaf identity, and attempts to limit its use are viewed as an attack.

Shared institutions

Women's art class at State School of the Deaf, Delavan, Wisconsin, c. 1880

Deaf culture revolves around such institutions as residential schools for deaf students, universities for deaf students (including Gallaudet University, South West Collegiate Institute for the Deaf, and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf), deaf clubs, deaf athletic leagues,communal homes(such as The Home for Aged and Infirm Deaf-Mutes in New York City), deaf social organizations (such as the Deaf Professional Happy Hour), deaf religious groups, deaf theaters, and an array of conferences and festivals, such as the Deaf Way II Conference and Festival and the World Federation of the Deaf conferences.

Deaf clubs, popular in the 1940s and 1950s, were also an important part of deaf culture. During this time there were very few places that the deaf could call their own: places run by deaf people for deaf people. Deaf clubs were the solution to this need. Money was made by selling alcohol and hosting card games. Sometimes these ventures were so successful that the building used by the club was able to be purchased. However, the main attraction of these clubs was that they provided a place that deaf people could go to be around other deaf people, sometimes sharing stories, hosting parties, comedians, and plays. Many of today’s common ABC stories were first seen at deaf clubs. The clubs were found in all of the major cities, New York City being home to at least 12. These clubs were an important break from their usually solitary day spent at factory jobs.[9]

In the 1960s, deaf clubs began their quick and drastic decline. Today there are only a few spread out deaf clubs found in America and their attendance is commonly small with a tendency to the elderly. This sudden decline is often attributed to the rise of technology like the TTY and closed captioning for personal TVs. With other options available for entertainment and communication, the need for deaf clubs grew smaller. It was no longer the only option for getting in touch with other members of the deaf community.[9]

However, others attribute the decline of deaf clubs to the end of World War II and a change of the job market. During WWII there was high demand for factory laborers and a promise of high pay. Many deaf Americans left their homes to move to bigger cities with the hope of a factory job. This huge influx of workers into new cities created the need for deaf clubs. When World War II ended and the civil rights movement progressed, the federal government started offering more jobs to deaf men and women. People began switching from manufacturing jobs to service jobs, moving away from solitary work with set hours. Today, deaf clubs are rare, but deaf advocacy centers and other deaf organizations have become widespread and popular.[9]

Deaf African-American institutions

National Black Deaf Advocates, which still exists, was established in 1982 "to promote the leadership development, economic and educational opportunities, social equality, and to safeguard the general health and welfare of Black deaf and hard of hearing people." [22]

Deaf LGBT institutions

The Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf is a nonprofit established in 1977 to, "establish and maintain a society of Deaf LGBT to encourage and promote the educational, economical, and social welfare; to foster fellowship; to defend our rights; and advance our interests as Deaf LGBT citizens concerning social justice; to build up an organization in which all worthy members may participate in the discussion of practical problems and solutions related to their social welfare. RAD has over fifteen chapters in the United States and Canada." [23] There is also the American deaf resource center Deaf Queer Resource Center (DQRC), the Hong Kong Bauhinias Deaf Club, and the Greenbow LGBT Society of Ireland. [24][25]

Deaf religious institutions

There are deaf churches (where sign language is the main language), deaf synagogues, deaf Jewish community centers, and the Hebrew Seminary of the Deaf in Illinois. [26][27][28][29] In 2011 the Conservative Movement unanimously passed the rabbinic responsa, "The Status of the Heresh [one who is deaf] and of Sign Language," by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS). [30] This responsa declared that, among other things, "The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards rules that the deaf who communicate via sign language and do not speak are no longer to be considered mentally incapacitated. Jews who are deaf are responsible for observing mitzvot. Our communities, synagogues, schools, and camps must strive to be welcoming and accessible, and inclusive. Sign language may be used in matters of personal status and may be used in rituals. A deaf person called to the Torah who does not speak may recite the berakhot via sign language. A deaf person may serve as a shaliah tzibbur in sign language in a minyan whose medium of communication is sign language. [31]

Deaf women's institutions

There are 15 chapters of Deaf Women United throughout America; its mission is, "to promote the lives of Deaf women through empowerment, enrichment, and networking."[32] There is also Pink Wings of Hope, an American breast cancer support group for deaf and hard-of-hearing women. [33]

Libraries and the Deaf community

Deaf people at the library have the same needs as every other person visiting the library and often have more difficulty accessing materials and services. Over the last few decades, libraries in the United States have begun to implement services and collections for Deaf patrons and are working harder every year to make more of their collections, services, their communities, and even the world more accessible to this group of under served people.

The history of the role of libraries in the Deaf community is a sordid one at best. The American Library Association readily admits that disabled people belong to a minority that is often overlooked and underrepresented by people in the library, and the Deaf community belongs in this minority group.[34] However, in the last few decades, libraries across the United States have made great strides in the mission of making libraries more accessible to disabilities in general and to the Deaf community specifically.

One of the first activists in the library community working toward accessibility for the Deaf was Alice Hagemeyer. When disabled communities began demanding equality in the 1970s, Hagemeyer decided to go back to school for her master’s degree in library science. While she was studying there, she realized that there was not very much information about the Deaf community at her library or at the libraries of any of her classmates. She soon became an activist for Deaf awareness at her library, and she became the first “Librarian for the Deaf Community” from any public library in the nation. Hagemeyer also constructed a manual of resources for Deaf people and those associated with them called The Red Notebook. This notebook is now an online resource, which is available at the website of the Friends of Libraries for Deaf Action. Hagemeyer was one of the first library activists to make strides for the Deaf community.[35]

Australian librarian Karen McQuigg states that “even ten years ago, when I was involved in a project looking at what public libraries could offer the deaf, it seemed as if the gap between the requirements of this group and what public libraries could offer was too great for public libraries to be able to serve them effectively.”[36] Clearly, not even so long ago, there was quite a dearth of information for or about the Deaf community available in libraries across the nation and around the globe.

New guidelines from library organizations such as International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the ALA were written in order to help libraries make their information more accessible to people with disabilities, and in some cases, specifically the Deaf community. IFLA’s Guidelines for Library Services to Deaf People is one such set of guidelines, and it was published to inform libraries of the services that should be provided for Deaf patrons. Most of the guidelines pertain to ensuring that Deaf patrons have equal access to all available library services. Other guidelines include training library staff to provide services for the Deaf community, availability of text telephones or TTYs not only to assist patrons with reference questions but also for making outside calls, using the most recent technology in order to communicate more effectively with Deaf patrons, including closed captioning services for any television services, and developing a collection that would interest the members of the Deaf community.[37]

Over the years, library services have begun to evolve in order to accommodate the needs and desires of local Deaf communities. At the Queen Borough Public Library (QBPL) in New York, the staff implemented new and innovative ideas in order to involve the community and library staff with the Deaf people in their community. The QBPL hired a deaf librarian, Lori Stambler, to train the library staff about Deaf culture, to teach sign language classes for family members and people who are involved with deaf people, and to teach literacy classes for Deaf patrons. In working with the library, Stambler was able to help the community reach out to its deaf neighbors, and helped other deaf people become more active in their outside community.[38]

Deaf libraries

The library at Gallaudet University, the only Deaf liberal arts university in the United States, was founded in 1876. The library’s collection has grown from a small number of reference books to the world’s largest collection of deaf-related materials with over 234,000 books and thousands of other materials in different formats. The collection is so large that the library had to create a hybrid classification system based on the Dewey Decimal Classification System in order to make cataloging and location within the library much easier for both library staff and users. The library also houses the university’s archives, which holds some of the oldest deaf-related books and documents in the world.[39]

In Nashville, Tennessee, Sandy Cohen manages the Library Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (LSDHH). The program was created in 1979 in response to information accessibility issues for the Deaf in the Nashville area. Originally, the only service provided was the news via a teletypewriter or TTY, but today, the program has expanded to serving the entire state of Tennessee by providing all different types of information and material on deafness, Deaf culture, and information for family members of Deaf people, as well as a historical and reference collection.[40]

Terminology

"deaf" and "Deaf"

In 1972, Professor James Woodward, co-director of the Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong since 2004, proposed a distinction between deafness and the deaf culture.[41] He suggested using deaf (written with a lower case d) to refer to the physical condition of deafness, and Deaf (written with an upper case D) to refer to deaf culture.[1][3][5] This distinction has been widely adopted within the culture.[2]

A U.S. state regulation from the Colorado Department of Human Services defines "Deaf" (uppercase) as "A group of people, with varying hearing acuity, whose primary mode of communication is a visual language (predominantly American Sign Language (ASL) in the United States) and have a shared heritage and culture," and has a separate definition for "deaf" (lowercase).[42]

"hearing-impaired"

The term hearing impaired is more likely to be used by people with a less than severe hearing loss and people who have acquired deafness in adulthood rather than by those who have grown up deaf. By contrast, those who identify with the deaf culture movement typically reject the label impaired and other labels that imply that deafness is a pathological condition, viewing it instead as a focus of pride.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Padden, Carol A.; Humphries, Tom (Tom L.) (2005). Inside Deaf Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0-674-01506-1.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jamie Berke (9 February 2010). "Deaf Culture - Big D Small D". About.com. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Ladd, Paddy (2003). Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood. Multilingual Matters. p. 502. ISBN 1-85359-545-4.
  4. ↑ Lane, Harlan L.; Richard Pillard and Ulf Hedberg (2011). The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry. Oxford University Press. p. 269. ISBN 0-19-975929-4.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Padden, Carol; Humphries, Tom (1988). Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture. Harvard University Press. p. 134. ISBN 0-674-19423-3.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 Mindess, Anna (2006). Reading Between the Signs: Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters. ISBN 978-1-931930-26-0.
  7. ↑ Baker, Charlotte; Carol Padden (1978). American Sign Language: A look at its story, structure and community.
  8. ↑ Mitchell, Ross E. & Karchmer, Michael A. (2004) Chasing the mythical ten percent: Parental hearing status of deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States. Sign Language Studies 4:2, 138–163.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Bauman, Dirksen (2008). Open your eyes: Deaf studies talking. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4619-8.
  10. ↑ Harrigton, Thomas. "Sign language of the world by name". Galllaudet University Library. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
  11. ↑ Harrington, Thomas. "Sign language of the world by name." n. page. Print.
  12. ↑ Gannon, Jack. 1981. Deaf Heritage–A Narrative History of Deaf America, Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf, p. 378 (photo and caption)
  13. ↑ "New Closed-Captioning Glasses Help Deaf Go Out To The Movies : All Tech Considered". NPR. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  14. ↑ "Banks face massive payouts to deaf customers - Action On Hearing Loss: RNID". Action On Hearing Loss. 2012-02-21. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  15. ↑ Tsymbal, Karina (2010). "Drum: Deaf Space And The Visual World – Buildings That Speak: An Elementary School For The Deaf". Hdl.handle.net. Retrieved 2012-04-15.
  16. ↑ "Matthew 1 | American Sign Language" (in (Assamese)). Bible.is. 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  17. ↑ Bauman, Dirksen (2006). Jennifer Nelson and Heidi Rose, ed. Signing the Body Poetic: Essays in American Sign Language Literature. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22975-4.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Krentz, Christopher (2000). A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing 1816–1864. Gallaudet University Press. ISBN 1-56368-101-3.
  19. ↑ "Douglas Tilden facts and information". Deafness.answers.com. Retrieved 2015-04-17.
  20. ↑ "Ability Magazine: Sean Forbes â€“ Not Hard to Hear" (2011)". Abilitymagazine.com. Retrieved 2012-04-04.
  21. ↑ Baynton, Douglas (1996). Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-03964-1.
  22. ↑ "About Us | Content Pages". Nbda.org. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  23. ↑ "Home". Deafrad.org. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  24. ↑ ">> social sciences >> Deaf Culture". glbtq. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  25. ↑ "Other LGBT Organisations". LGBT Diversity. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  26. ↑ "A Rabbinical School for Deaf and Hearing". Hebrew Seminary. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  27. ↑ "Encyclopedia of Disability - Google Books". Books.google.com. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  28. ↑ "Churches for Deaf". Ohsoez.com. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  29. ↑
  30. ↑ "Hearing the Needs of the Jewish Deaf - Aspire - JWM". Jwi.org. 2012-05-05. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  31. ↑ "JDRC Salutes Conservative Judaism’s Ruling to Include Deaf Jews as Equals | Deaf Network of Texas". Deafnetwork.com. 2011-06-20. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  32. ↑
  33. ↑ "About". Pink.deafinc.org. 2009-10-11. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  34. ↑ "Library Services for People with Disabilities Policy | Association of Specialized & Cooperative Library Agencies (ASCLA)". Ala.org. 2001-01-16. Retrieved 2015-04-17.
  35. ↑ Hagemeyer, A. L. (2001). Achievement: From a lack of knowledge to an appreciation of Deaf history. IFLA Conference Proceedings, 1–3.
  36. ↑ McQuigg, K. (2003). "Are the deaf a disabled group, or a linguistic minority? Issues for librarians in Victoria’s public libraries". Australian Library Journal. 52(4).
  37. ↑ Day, J. M. (2000). Guidelines for library services to deaf people (Report no. 62). The Hague: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
  38. ↑ Hollander, P. (1995). Deaf-advocacy at Queens Borough PL. American Libraries, 26(6), 560–562.
  39. ↑ Harrington, T.R. (1998). The Deaf collection at the Gallaudet University Library. Education Libraries, 22(3), 5-12.
  40. ↑ Cohen, S. (2006). Have you heard about the Library Services for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing? Tennessee Libraries, 56(1), 51–56.
  41. ↑ "James Woodward biography". Deaf Dialogue. 24 August 2010. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  42. ↑

Further reading

External links