Deaf Culture

I

Introduction

Deaf Culture, shared beliefs, values, and behaviors of deaf or hard-of-hearing people who use sign language as a primary means of communication and who are members of local deaf communities. Historically, communities of deaf people have existed in most countries of the world, each with a unique cultural heritage, and often, a distinct sign language.

In the United States, culturally deaf people are joined together by a common language (American Sign Language, or ASL), a common history, and many common traditions. Most culturally deaf people are deaf or hard of hearing from birth or a young age. They also grow up using sign language for most of their lives. Between 21 million and 28 million people in the United States are hard of hearing or deaf. However, only a relatively small number of people (between 100,000 and 200,000) consider themselves culturally deaf. Most other deaf people either lose their hearing after childhood or grow up without using sign as their primary language.

Culturally deaf people live throughout the United States. Particularly large communities of culturally deaf people are found in and around such cities as Chicago, Illinois; New York City; San Francisco, California; and Washington, D.C. Although they may not live together in the same neighborhoods, they frequently socialize with one another and meet together at sign language events.

II

Characteristics of Deaf Culture

The term culture refers to a group of people who share common beliefs and practices. Some cultures are marked by language—for example, the Spanish-speaking communities along the border between the United States and Mexico. Other cultures are marked by religion, as in the Amish communities in the Midwestern United States and the communities of Hasidic Jews in New York City. Culturally deaf people are recognized by the common characteristics of deafness and of the use of a visual language. Although the trait of deafness is central to the culture, not all culturally deaf people are completely or profoundly deaf. Just as there are variations of skin color among African Americans, there are variations in hearing loss among culturally deaf people. People who are hard of hearing tend to be both admired and criticized within deaf culture because they seem more like hearing people.

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Culturally deaf people are sometimes born into the culture, as in the case of deaf children born to deaf parents. These children learn their parents’ language and other traditions of deaf people from their families and their deaf communities. But these cases are relatively rare. Nearly 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing families. They learn sign language and deaf culture outside the family, typically at school.

A

Sign Language

Because of the strong role of sign language in deaf culture, many beliefs and values of culturally deaf people revolve around protection and celebration of their language. Furthermore, because their use of sign language is natural and effective, deafness seems to deaf people to be less of a handicap than other disabilities. As a consequence, culturally deaf people tend to emphasize their linguistic and cultural heritage above their disability, although hearing people may view them as disabled in the same way as they view people with other disabilities. The acceptance of deafness by culturally deaf people distinguishes them from adults who lose their hearing later in life and feel the loss of hearing more acutely and painfully.

Although culturally deaf people use sign language, not all signers are deaf. There are many hearing signers who grow up in or interact with culturally deaf communities. Because deaf people usually have hearing parents, many have relatives who learn sign language and become involved in deaf communities. And like children born to Spanish-speaking families in the United States, hearing children of deaf parents learn spoken English from relatives, friends, and other English-speaking adults in their neighborhood. They grow up bilingual in ASL and English, and move between the two cultures.

B

Education

Because most culturally deaf people are not born into the culture, schools play an especially important role in their lives. At school, deaf children first learn sign language and first learn about other deaf children and adults. The majority of culturally deaf adults aged 30 and older were educated in separate schools for deaf children, called residential schools. Many states built one residential school for deaf children throughout the state and hired specially trained teachers to work with them. Because deaf children often had to travel long distances to attend these schools, they boarded at these schools for weeks at a time.

The schools became a home away from home for many young deaf children, a place where they could interact with other children like themselves and learn a history that their hearing families did not know. Students at these schools developed literary associations and small theater groups that created traditions of sign poetry and storytelling. Some of these traditions survive in national and regional theaters, such as the National Theatre of the Deaf (which tours throughout the United States and the world) and the Deaf West Theatre, which is based in Los Angeles, California.

Deaf children no longer attend residential schools in the same numbers as they did in the 1950s and 1960s. They are more likely to attend local public schools and come home to their families each night. In the 1970s the federal government passed laws that require public schools to accommodate children with disabilities, including deaf children. This integration or “mainstreaming” of deaf children into regular classrooms has provided them with new opportunities. However, integration has had other consequences as well. As a result of more deaf children attending public school, many of the oldest schools for the deaf in the United States have closed. In contrast with the regional residential school programs that once had as many as 700 students, most local public school programs have only five or ten deaf students. Some critics of mainstreaming argue that integration has isolated deaf students from each other, depriving them of social and emotional comforts that peer groups can provide.

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