When we let hearing people join our world and culture part 2

I was born HOH and for a while my parents considered enrolling me at AR School for the Deaf but decided not too given the circumstances. I adapted and learned to function in the hearing world. Had to. For nearly a year I was condidered legally deaf and my parents made me wear aids, even though I didn't want to. For one it made my ears feel plugged up and two looking at that ear wax on the aid disgusted me. At first it was OK and I was hearing but then I seemed to pick up way too much background noise so it still did no good to have the aid and to try to have a conversation with someone next to me with the TV on. I went back to the audiologist, I told her exactly how I felt, she told my parents to not force me to wear the aids. My mom said wearing the aid is like wearing glasses, I said no, glasses are needed to function, aids were not. I could still drive and function in the world. I just made sure I was looking at the person talking to me, sat near the teachers in class and took good notes. I hated the aids.

Now that my hearing seems to be getting worse, and the fact that I dont like aids, I figure why not learn ASL and start communicating with people that are going through the same thing I am. For one it makes me feel less ashamed of the fact that I am hoh. I dont need to flag it to the world, but I am no longer embarrassed by it.

Every once in a while I wonder to myself what it would have been like to go to a deaf school and met up with people who understood where I came from. I think I probably would have been a more confident kid rather then feeling embarrassed for not being able to hear as well as Joe Blow.

I just hope that I can make some new friends and can be welcomed into the community.
 
its been my expierence you need 4 things as a hearing personal to be "accepted" in the Deaf community. not part of....

1) you need to be fluent, people will only tolerate you so long until they get bored with you, unless you have a good friend, wife/husband whatever, that they are more tolerant with you for.

2)you need a connection to the Deaf community, a best friend, or small group of friends who invite you out to Deaf events.

3) you have to go with the grain. its been my expierence if you disagree with Deaf about contravertial issues then they pull out the hearing card and you will get nowhere in your discussion. and possibly labeled an audist.

4) you need to stick around. many hearing people, pop in and out of the Deaf community radar. asl students using them for their class, terps who realize they dont like signing 24-7, hearing friends/relatives who aren't fluent therefore lose interest fast....etc.
 
while a lot of you bring up good points in terms of acceptance to the deaf community.. I think it's all a matter of personal acceptance... as long as you accept everyone's limits and boundaries...I personally think most deaf need to remember that not everyone is an audist.. there are deaf who grew up oral only and that's all they know, you have to give them time to learn and understand deaf culture.

For me... I don't care if you're deaf, HOH, or hearing with deaf children or spouse, I'll gladly accept you as a friend or someone to talk to. Because I believe everyone has their own expierences to bring into the mold. We can all learn from each other.
 
I agree with both of you on your posts.

I'm not one to get into a debate about stuff I know little about and secondly, I just more or less go with the flow of things. I want to try and find where I fit in with the deaf community and go from there. I cannot help it that I grew up orally, but I don't hold it against my parents. They did what they thought was the best for me. But now I want to join the deaf and learn to be a part of the culture, and yet still be able to function in the hearing world as no one in my family is HOH or Deaf, if that makes any sense.
 
Dixie said:
I agree with both of you on your posts.

I'm not one to get into a debate about stuff I know little about and secondly, I just more or less go with the flow of things. I want to try and find where I fit in with the deaf community and go from there. I cannot help it that I grew up orally, but I don't hold it against my parents. They did what they thought was the best for me. But now I want to join the deaf and learn to be a part of the culture, and yet still be able to function in the hearing world as no one in my family is HOH or Deaf, if that makes any sense.
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U make sense...that what I did about 8 years ago. Now, I am fully involved in the deaf community and use ASL 95% of the time. I have little interest in interacting with non signers socially. My husband and I ran into his friend and his gf at VA beach this recent weekend. We went to dinner and to a club. All night, I just could NOT understand the other couple very well and my husband did his hardest to interpret but I really didnt want him to have the burden of it so I told him it was ok. I just ended up looking around the room and analyzing people...I cant imagine going back to that full time. Once in a while, i dont mind for family gatherings or for my husband's friends but all the time..no thank u..tooooo hard and tooo boring for me! LOL!

As I stated before, I dont mind hanging out with hearing people if they know ASL..makes conversations easier for me. If they dont know any, then I will be honest..not gonna be interested in hanging out with them. I just have no more motivation to lipread like I did growing up.
 
understood 100% - I guess I should have added that I am learning ASL via lifeprint. I'm not sure how fluent I'll be, but I am putting forth what I feel like is my best effort. (such as videotaping myself signing and seeing if my signing is making any sense on the playback.) I'd ask someone here to help me out on but since no one here knows me that well I'd hate to make them feel like they were being used. I just wish I had someone here locally that knew ASL that I could sign with on a regular basis in everyday conversation in real time.
 
Dixie said:
understood 100% - I guess I should have added that I am learning ASL via lifeprint. I'm not sure how fluent I'll be, but I am putting forth what I feel like is my best effort. (such as videotaping myself signing and seeing if my signing is making any sense on the playback.) I'd ask someone here to help me out on but since no one here knows me that well I'd hate to make them feel like they were being used. I just wish I had someone here locally that knew ASL that I could sign with on a regular basis in everyday conversation in real time.
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What about taking ASL classes or going to deaf socials or events? At first, the deaf community shunned me but I didnt give up. Then, I went to Gallaudet and boy, even there some deaf people looked down on me cuz I grew up orally but I told them that they better change their attitudes cuz there are more and more deaf people like me who want to learn ASL later and it would be greatly appreciated if they can be more understanding. Then, I walked off..later on, some of those who shunned me now chat with me from time to time. There will be times when u encounter hostility from the deaf community but trust me ..there are MANY like us out there and u can always make friends with them. Most of my deaf friends that I am close with grew up in mainstreamed programs..ssome with ASL, TC, SEE, and orally. My husband and I tend to hang out with other deaf/hearing couples...just what we have in common is what we drew all of us to each other.
 
I googled ASL Classes in AR once, the closest one was in Fayetteville and that was a three hour drive.

I think I will look into the AR school for the deaf and ask them. They may know of an ASL class that is here locally that I don't know about. Hopefully one of the colleges here will have a community outreach program that is an ASL class. As for deaf socials and events, again I don't know of any locally. It seems that everything is held in either Little Rock or Fayetteville. Both are a good 2+ hours drive for me. But I guess if I really want to learn then I'll shell out the time and the gas money to attend.
 
Added:
I just did a google - I'm a day late to register for an ASL class at ATU-Rsvl. *smacks self on head*
 
Dixie said:
Added:
I just did a google - I'm a day late to register for an ASL class at ATU-Rsvl. *smacks self on head*
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OOOHHH that sucks! When is the next session? U can register for the next one?
 
August. I tried looking at the other college to see if they had a summer course. Nope. I gotta wait til August. The good part is the course looks affordable. $45.00+ textbook fee payable to instructor, but I hope it is not one of those cases where the book is $200. :shock:
 
Interesting topic!

I would really like to get to know more Deaf people since I have an interest in the language (currently taking Swedish SL, had a year of ASL in college) and culture. What would be the point of learning a language, or in my case two, if I didn't have an interest in actually using it to talk to people? It makes no sense at all.

At the same time, I'm aware that Deaf people may be skeptical of hearing people's intentions and I try to examine my own to make sure that my heart is in the right place. I know that my interest is genuine, and that I'm not looking to "use" the community for anything other than to learn something and get to know new people.

So far, I think I have been too worried about intruding. My interactions with Deaf people have so far been limited to my teachers (the two I had while taking ASL, and the one I've had in Sweden for the past three semesters) and a few random people whom I've met individually. My first real Deaf function will actually be next Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to it!

Another obstacle for me has always been the standard I set for my language skills. I'm something of a perfectionist when it comes to languages, and that attitude, even though it worked well when I was learning English, probably doesn't do anything for me right now. If I meet someone who is learning Swedish, I am always really supportive, speak slowly, and would never ever look down on that person for making mistakes. So why on earth do I automatically think that every Deaf person on the planet would label me a complete idiot for not signing fluently (yet)?

I totally get the point someone made about hearing people needing to be fluent though, or at least pick up new things quickly to eventually get to that point. I even know what it's like to be on the "other side" of that from the time I worked for a couple of years in a lab here in Sweden. One of my co-workers was an American graduate student. For the first year everyone around the lunch table would always speak English when she was around and then gradually start speaking really basic Swedish (she was taking a class outside of work) and be really supportive of her efforts to learn. But by the time two years had gone by and it was evident that she wasn't even trying, we all pretty much went back to speaking our regular super speed Swedish. She felt really left out, sure, but we were all pretty much thinking that we'd adapted for her long enough, especially since a lot of Swedes feel really uncomfortable speaking English. She left Sweden after four years, without ever learning more Swedish than was needed to order a sandwich at a restaurant. Sweden is one of few countries where an English-speaker actually can live for twenty years or more without having to learn Swedish, but they will never fully understand the culture, and it just screams of a lack of interest that puts a lot of people off.
 
I hear ya. You can only communicate so much to someone that is not willing to learn the language. After having lived in Sweden for that long she should have left fluent enough that she could socially interact in Swedish. (I used to know some swedish from an exchange student that lived with us for a year. His dad owns Westlings) But I hardly remember it because I've not used it.

The same goes for ASL or any signed language. Its hard to have an enjoyable conversation with someone that you cant understand.

So I am putting for what I feel like is my best effort to learn as much ASL as I can on my own and I hope to be taking that ASL class starting in August to make myself better at signing and understanding sign.
 
I work in an ASL Lab, and sometimes I see some long-time students who have been struggling with ASL. Sometimes I do get mixed feelings about them, like what is the point for them to continue studying? I try to be as supportive as much, but sometimes you know instantly what the students' intentions are. However, there was a student who failed two semesters due to illnesses and other reasons, and we all felt that the student had no motivation to learn ASL. We were very surprised this semester when this student started becoming more serious and learning a lot lately. So you sometimes really never know!

I don't mind interacting with hearing people at all, as long as we respect each other. My sweetheart is a hearing person, and he signs pretty good. My family is hearing, and I am used to it. For me, I don't like to categorize people as deaf and hearing, so it isn't really much of an issue for me. One of my coworkers at my work is an oral deaf person who signs English, but I spend a lot of time with her drinking coffee and eating lunch because she is a wonderful lady.

There will be times when I will say that I don't understand why people do this and that. In the morning, there are two oral deaf people at my work, and they do not sign at all. They will speak to each other. I have caught them not understanding each other the first time, and they would have to repeat to clarify. I'm like "Why not sign, might have understood the first time?!" but of course, I keep that opinion to myself because it is all about individual's preferences and respect. Hearing people should exercise this respect as well, by not comparing us to each other, like "why can't you read lips well like him?" or "why won't you get a CI like him?" My usual answer for the person is "Why can't you dress up well like him?" or "Why can't you work hard like her?" Sometimes the hearing people will get my point, and sometimes they think my questions are irrelevant. Oh well...
 
Kuifje75 said:
I work in an ASL Lab, and sometimes I see some long-time students who have been struggling with ASL. Sometimes I do get mixed feelings about them, like what is the point for them to continue studying? I try to be as supportive as much, but sometimes you know instantly what the students' intentions are. However, there was a student who failed two semesters due to illnesses and other reasons, and we all felt that the student had no motivation to learn ASL. We were very surprised this semester when this student started becoming more serious and learning a lot lately. So you sometimes really never know!

I don't mind interacting with hearing people at all, as long as we respect each other. My sweetheart is a hearing person, and he signs pretty good. My family is hearing, and I am used to it. For me, I don't like to categorize people as deaf and hearing, so it isn't really much of an issue for me. One of my coworkers at my work is an oral deaf person who signs English, but I spend a lot of time with her drinking coffee and eating lunch because she is a wonderful lady.

There will be times when I will say that I don't understand why people do this and that. In the morning, there are two oral deaf people at my work, and they do not sign at all. They will speak to each other. I have caught them not understanding each other the first time, and they would have to repeat to clarify. I'm like "Why not sign, might have understood the first time?!" but of course, I keep that opinion to myself because it is all about individual's preferences and respect. Hearing people should exercise this respect as well, by not comparing us to each other, like "why can't you read lips well like him?" or "why won't you get a CI like him?" My usual answer for the person is "Why can't you dress up well like him?" or "Why can't you work hard like her?" Sometimes the hearing people will get my point, and sometimes they think my questions are irrelevant. Oh well...
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Very well said!
 
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