ASL and Deaf Culture

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Teacherofthedeaf

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I have a question that I feel would be best answered by members of the Deaf Community, so I am going to ask it here.

As I have mentioned before, I am a teacher of the deaf who specializes in listening and spoken language. I currently work at a private listening and spoken language program. One of my students with hearing loss comes from a Deaf family. His mother is profoundly deaf after a progressive hearing loss as a child. She has many deaf family members and the language of communication in the home is ASL. My student is hard of hearing but his first language was ASL. He listens and speaks at school.

We are working on a pragmatic goal of understanding what information is private and what is ok to share at school. I mentioned this in our monthly meeting with the student's parents. I said that he tends to overshare and that we wanted to work on that. They laughed and said that he does talk about anything and everything. I asked if they were comfortable with the goal because I know that the Deaf community has different mores about personal versus public information. The family said, "Oh, we don't consider ourselves part of Deaf culture."

I guess I had assumed that since the family had several generations of hearing loss and used ASL for communication that they were part of the Deaf community. I was surprised and I respect their decision. My question is what makes one part of Deaf culture or the Deaf community if it is not use of ASL?
 
Give them a bit more time as so many here are working adults without a way to reply during that time.
 
Jane B. said:
Give them a bit more time as so many here are working adults without a way to reply during that time.
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I just bumped my post from yesterday because there was one of those "we are making an innovative product that will never come to fruition" posts above mine. No hurry.
 
One thing to consider is that Colonialism (as per Dr. Paddy Ladd's examinations of the devastating colonization of the Deaf world from 1880-present) tends to create fragmented identities, the effects of which you're potentially seeing. I can recommend academic literature that addresses this topic if you're interested.
 
Muse said:
One thing to consider is that Colonialism (as per Dr. Paddy Ladd's examinations of the devastating colonization of the Deaf world from 1880-present) tends to create fragmented identities, the effects of which you're potentially seeing. I can recommend academic literature that addresses this topic if you're interested.
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This is a family with several generations of deafness. She has chosen listening and spoken language for her child's education but ASL is the family's home language. She calls herself D/deaf and her son hard of hearing. I was just very surprised that they didn't consider themselves part of the Deaf community as I had always assumed that the defining feature was the use of ASL.
 
She may be misunderstanding your definition of Deaf community. Perhaps she is interpreting what you're saying as, "Do you go to deaf social events...are you spending time in deaf space?" Maybe she is interpreting your concept of culturally deaf as social in the Deaf community.
 
Lysander said:
She may be misunderstanding your definition of Deaf community. Perhaps she is interpreting what you're saying as, "Do you go to deaf social events...are you spending time in deaf space?" Maybe she is interpreting your concept of culturally deaf as social in the Deaf community.
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I specifically mentioned the cultural difference on public versus private information when it was mentioned. I found it interesting, but it showed that my assumption that ASL = Deaf Culture is wrong.
 
I have been under the impression that those that are part of Deaf Culture expect anyone else that is part of that culture to use ASL (in the USA) not that everyone that uses ASL is a part of Deaf Culture.
 
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