From Deseret News archives:
The (Deaf) Culture Wars
What is it like to be Deaf with a capital D?
That's the famous motel joke, signs Minnie Mae Wilding-Diaz. She is sitting in her living room in Riverton with her husband, Julio Diaz, who is also deaf. In the kitchen, her three deaf children are playing with Legos.
In Wilding-Diaz's motel joke, the tables have been turned. The Deaf man has used sound and the hearing world's predictable attentiveness to it to his advantage. In the joke, the hearing world has to accommodate.
In reality, says Wilding, it has been the hearing who have historically been in charge, the hearing who have decided what the rules are, what's normal and what's not. "Audism," some people call that. Or "phono-centric." Or even, sometimes, "colonialism."
The 16th Winter Deaflympics are in full swing in Salt Lake City this week, which makes this a good time to see some elite skiing and hockey and also to explore what it means to be Deaf with a capital D. For people who can hear, that exploration sometimes feels like visiting a foreign country, across an ocean of silence and a cultural divide.
"Deafness doesn't hurt, it doesn't kill you, it isn't a disease," says Julie's hearing husband, Bryan, who heads the American Sign Language and Deaf studies program at Utah Valley State College. "It's just a kind of existence. A perfectly acceptable existence. But hearing people have always been uneasy with people who aren't like them."
Recent comments
Wow...this article is very informative especially as a student who is...
Julie | May 7, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.
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Katie | Sept. 6, 2007 at 9:12 p.m.
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Katie | Sept. 6, 2007 at 9:09 p.m.
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