todos la vie on deaf discourse

My beef about comments

2008-05-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Long comments posted on blogs to respond to particular blog and vLog postings is a vice most people have as evident on popular top ten DeafRead postings.

A letter to Rachel (and Melissa) from Cochlear Implant Online Blog

2008-03-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

Responding to your reflections about why you are on DeafRead, Rachel, welcome to the blogging world. It was a real pleasure reading about your experiences signing on as a blogger. Your mom left a comment here yesterday and we corresponded a bit. You’re one of the leaders in gaining perspective and sharing in the deaf community. Not a lot of people have your voice and risk. We all learn by interacting and communicating. That’s how we grow and come out as a team for a win-win.

A few things…

ASL is not a latch key to language, but rather a language in itself. ASL doesn’t scaffold anyone to the point of being able to speak clearly or have a language or give a language. That’s a misconception ill-informed people make. It’s a recognized language. Remember Amy Cohen Efron’s well-received Greatest Irony’s posting?

I found this out late and suffered for it. My parents didn’t sign. My brother was sent to an oral school. I was confused and scared, being labeled as "needing help." Like you, I was successful - in school clubs, won MVP on my HS basketball team, published articles (World Around You, 1-2-3 Science magazine, and more), won public speaking gigs, contests, worked part-time jobs, etc. In reality, I was just misinformed about ASL. I was told I was smart and destined for greatness and ASL had no association to it. It's like the Harvard Business School's unwritten tyrannical philosophy - "Look but don't touch, cleanliness is next to prosperity, wear the uniform, keep your distance & stay in your place, desensitize yourself, don't trouble yourself with large moral issues." Today, I just shock a lot of hearing people when they finally hear me speak after years of knowing me (yeah, I’m older and wiser, but not telling anyone what to do –  think of Leisl in the Sound of Music - LOL).

Secondly, speaking is not a two-way street for me on a comfortable level. I know you hear a lot better with your CI than I can with my digital HAs, and that’s really cool you’re happy with those gains. Interestingly, you didn’t want to learn sign language to be able to communicate with your deaf friends at your middle school, but rather use an interpreter. Why was that?

Thirdly, there are still some hearing teachers in Los Angeles areas criticizing the deaf people in that they use ASL in a condescending tone, but they themselves do not know it. Why don’t they go learn it? Why is there an omnipresent fear about ASL? This is a mistake that many teachers make. In Latino communities, teachers get Spanish-speaking children in Kindergarten and first grade, yet they don’t speak Spanish themselves. They expect the children to cater to the school, yet a lot of them are shy and fail which impact their whole school career. Communication needs to be easy, fun, and without undue burden. Why don’t the teachers go learn Spanish or ASL?

Last but not least, I was curious that you didn’t know that your mom was an editor or wrote articles prior to picking up the magazine in your house. You wrote you just had learned of that. I have run across gaps in my own life in those kinds of fleeting instances, where I’d be the last person to know certain things. They may have been innocent bypasses, but it does make one wonder if there is more to life than getting by with objects as symbols of recognition of stuff going around the home or with people close to you. It’s not a big deal, but does give one pause about total access.

You have an incredible ability to work with us, teaching us your experiences as a CI-deaf user, growing to be the 8-ball shooting quick-witted gal that we all enjoy reading about. There are a lot of “unselfish” people out there. You just need to make the right journey to get to them (like I'm doing). I look forward to hearing from both you and your mom.

Implant sounds artificial and it IS

2008-03-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

While I read Evolution of a Cochlear Implant Attitude by Mark Drolsbaugh at his blog, Drolz Uncensored, Deaf Culture Online, I became moved to write the following piece and it is currently posted there. Go rate it after you read this. I suggest that you all read his powerful reflection on the CI issue interwoven with his own recent-deafened 8-year old son's reflections. His son knew ASL before he became deaf, like his Dad before him. He was prepared. His Dad wondered no more about the loss his son may have gone through, henceforth where hearing loss here deemed appropriate (his son was hearing and has lost his hearing). Hearing loss became a positive experience. They are the ideal family model and if they lived near me, I'd want to ask them all over for dinner.

by Mary Ruth Summers

I took a class last semester at California State University of Northridge (Teaching Audiology and Speech for Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing - something like that). Going in, I was curious as to how CIs worked and why people were raving about it. Going out, well, it's a huge complicated answer.

For that class, two mothers of CI users came to talk to us. One was a parent educator at House Ear Institute (HEI) who brought her deaf teenage daughter and she voiced (with some difficulty) and signed for herself. We went to HEI (prominent in the nation for CI surgery) in Los Angeles and talked with their surgeon. We had an all access pass to everything about CIs. The CSUN professor is a big CI supporter, not hesitating to say, "99% of all CI surgeries work." That's a bit misleading. There's a side note to that. They work, only if the parents bring their CI-implanted kids/babies to mapping and training sessions. And they monitor infections that seem to be more normal than ever.

Yes, CIs are going to be better in bringing sounds than digital hearing aids in that they also bring in high pitch noises (on the audiogram, it's flat lined all the way, whereas with hearing aids the line diagonally goes from top to bottom, indicating a lack of access to high pitch) as well as the ability to increase your dB threshold at least 20 dB. Provided that you attend the grueling sessions perhaps fifty miles away from home if you're lucky and prove to them you did your auditory training every night with a computer software or with a hearing person who isn't making dinner at 7:30. It's not a natural process because you haven't been doing it. So with a new CI, comes with a new life. With the sounds emanating from the computer, you'd be going from detection, to discrimination (a man's voice versus a woman's voice or apple tree to tree), then to vowels and consonants, then etc. Then at your mapping session, it matches up with what your brain finally understands of the sounds. Ah, cool. Now, what's next?

There are two ways to go about it. As a deaf person, I am often asked if I would get a CI or if I favor it. My answer is simple: why make my life more complicated? CIs are a lot of work. You gotta re-train your brain for the CI-oriented sounds in speech and whatever else (that's a train, not a plane, dude), use four+ batteries to be changed over daily, put up with high pitch sounds that you never knew existed (who the hell wants to listen to crickets or that you're peeing not #2?). All for the sake of artificial noise.

CI dudes are a different set of people. I'm not saying this in a bad way. They have different needs aside of just being themselves (I'm not talking about children here). And yes, they look different with the thing magnet-ed on their heads and a cord going from their head to something magical behind their ears that I don't have, and frankly I don't care. I have adult friends who CI-ed themselves because they want to hear their children or be able to talk to their hearing relatives - going back home, but never quite getting there. Deaf children leave home when they become adults because of the language barrier. They visit maybe once every five years. They are left out almost infinitely but still have their pride. They still go back to prove that yeah, CIs work and my family has to still learn sign language. CI dudes go the extra mile. Finding out the benefits could go two ways for a CI user #1 - it didn't help me tell Ms. Jones I wanted a hot dog, not a veggie burger or #2 it helped me finally understand Ms. Jones is glad I got a CI. Screw her.

I like simplicity. It looks and feels too complicated. There's an omnipresent expectation that a CI is supposed to do something more magical than just be able to detect new sounds, yet I don't see it where I'm standing. Shall I go under the knife to see if something more could be fulfilled? It has nothing to do with my deaf identity. To me, a CI is another materialistic purchase. "Hey, lookie here - I got a CI!"

It's just that I can't help but see a struggle beneath the surface just waiting to explode. It still doesn't meet expectations. Proving that something inside is unnatural, that a deaf person became deaf or was born deaf is an unnatural process to be instilled in deaf children bugs me more than simply that when a CI will prove to the world that normal is just within reach, however never quite achieving that balance anyone paying attention is searching for.

The Way I Start my vLogs

2008-02-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

Making a decision to shower, having a bad hair day, organizing thoughts for a vLog gets this way sometimes, featuring Shaun Summers, 16 year old KODA (Kid of Deaf Adults) who likes sushi.

And the focus of the vLog is: a show of hands by hearing students on the back of the bus on the freeway as I was driving to school. So pay attention to that, please, pretty please?

Last KODA first vLog - 5 years old

2008-02-19T12:11:00.001-08:00

Sarah Dawn is five and in Kindergarten. She takes gymnastics and T-Ball. She can be seen recognizing that when she didn't sign something, she would correct herself. She is striving to do so well in this vLog. Such a cutie patootie! Ashlyn, her big sister is talking to her in the background a few times, but I didn't ask what she said yet. I'll add here later.

Here is Sarah Dawn's FIRST VLOG! You go girl!

KODA 3rd vLog - Trader Joe's

2008-02-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

Ashlyn, a KODA (Kid of Deaf Adults) wanted to make another vLog. She had made two other ones last year that are on my youtube account (metalcoast). Here she speaks of her experience getting information about Mom being the bag winner. Trader Joe's has this reuse-your-bags program, so every time you bring your own bags to reuse, you get a raffle ticket. So, upon arriving, the manager said something, but of course, I'm not always an efficient lip reader.

Ta-ta!

Humor me

2008-02-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

My life has always been full of laughter. My kids are good at it. My parents were good at it. My brother and I trade off jokes when we see each other. We laugh like hyenas. I can still remember cracking up with laughter with my mom in the mall and us trying to dodge each other to cool off, but then I would go search for my mother hiding behind the coat racks just to crack her up some more. Then we would be out of control with us bending over trying to breathe and people would think we just left the pharmacy across the street with the wrong meds. My brother creates laughter in his household as well. He has comedians and pranksters in his home. They are always there. My son said he never laughed so much everyday when he stayed there for a week. My great aunt lived to be near 100. She had a huge sense of humor and I can still remember her smiling and inviting me over for butterscotch drops every weekend.

I am a humorist. I like humoring people and ask that you humor me as well. If I make jokes about serious issues, it is how I deal. It’s not how I should be perceived because I am only broadcasting here a very small part of me. To be judged as whole is like eating a whole orange. You don’t want the peel or the pith. You just want the juicy part, where the bursting oranges flow inside your mouth. I’m only offering the juicy parts, that is if I don’t eat them first.

When I look good enough, I’ll do a vLog. I know ASL rules.

So when you are trampling onto this blog, and you find yourself laughing, rejoice in knowing that you’ve stumbled here. True honest people, please come back.

My New Blog Persona

2008-02-17T23:42:00.000-08:00

I decided I didn’t want a thick skin anymore. The deaf blog conference hosted by Deaf Read on February 1-3rd, 2008 deeply affected me to the point of deleting my wordpress deafread blog. I had been brooding on why it wasn’t working for me for quite some time. The color was awful, the font sucked, the postings were spread out all over the place. I wanted to change my “media specialist” persona. After LaRonda Zupp's Understanding the Psychological, Social and Emotional Aspects of Blogging and Vlogging in the Deaf v/blogoshpere and Adam Stone’s Legal Issues of Blogging presentations at the conference, I wanted to step up.

I’ve made some postings and comments I’m not exactly proud of. I felt them chasing me. They weren’t me anymore. They don’t define me today. This will be discussed another time.

Before I removed my figuring out kind of life blog, I made a Valentine video clip that very morning about creating a six-word ASL memoir (see below). My memoir creation was this, mom fun wait true business dead rise. What it means, you’ll have to see my ASL version. Ernest Hemingway and Dave Eggers did it for English. An unintended joke was also going on in the background on my son who is 16 years old. In the video I said I hope he didn’t pick his nose. But then he does it. I had hopes that he wouldn’t do that, but knowing him, all comfortable in his chair, I can’t say for sure I knew it wasn’t going to happen. You see I have a good gut about things. After it was over, my son was wondering why I was bending over laughing and hyperventilating, and banging on my desk. I showed him the video clip and he, too laughed like heck. He went over to the TV and pressed his face into it laughing, stomping his feet, getting up to breathe and then sitting back down. Later, I laughed in my sleep, my unconsciousness tapping into my consciousness.

Shaun came up to me and said, don’t you dare post that! I edited the video clip to push that little joke on him out of the way, and bring the creation of the six-word memoir to the forefront. But I was also divided about how much of the joke to show to the blogsphere. I know that moment I shared with my son was only a smart part of what you see. I liked that I kept the whole joke of it privately.

My new blog persona can't be said better than what Sam Keen wrote of his friend, Howard Thurman's philosophy in Fire in the Belly. "There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble." So that said, I have figured out where I am going hence returning to my original blog. Who will stop by and read? Anyone with Internet access. We are more profoundly united by our common humanity than we are separated by culture, gender, diversity, location, age, etc. Celebrate ASL!

I've a new blog site

2007-01-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have a new blog site. I'm still trying to make it look good. I don't know if I'll completely abandon this one yet. It still has some good stuff but just so you know...

I've also begun school again. Spring semester is upon us.

Thank you for viewing my blogs!

The flight discrimination story

2007-01-12T15:48:00.000-08:00

Brendan's post about his personal experience as a flight passenger on America West resonates with most of us, and more so in situations where passengers' rights are not affiliated with their dollars sense, and more with how unlikely they cooperate. "The customer is not always right" rule in retail businesses is apparently a hit and miss in the airline industry. The flight attendant in question was idiotic at best, which caused a chain of events that ended with Brendan getting kicked off the plane. He just happened to be on the receiving end.

He told the story as as if it happened yesterday, and I can not help but wonder if he has taken a step back. Normally after some time passed, one would have found resolve by the time snow fell and after hacking it out in the Pacific Northwest. “If you want to arrest me, aren’t you glad I don’t have my seat belt on?” I wanted to say but before I had a chance to think about actually writing that down,..." would justify breathing that injustice-free air after using up his upgrade ticket.

The people around Brendan tried to interfene on his behalf and apologized to Brendan on the stupidity they all experienced. He wasn't the only one. They saw Brendan was denied his right to sit in peace like everyone else, an opportunity to breathe the same clean air of mutual respect. It's ignorance and injustice, and we, as readers, can relate. They didn't get kicked off, Brendan did.

How does one write from experience like this in a tell-tale fashion? To reverberate the same response out of us as he has experienced would be justified only if we knew what to do with it. I couldn't help but wonder how we could help him. I was looking for a hotline number after I read his blog.

From my one of own experiences, I remember sitting in the airport lobby, missing my plane because the flight was moved to another gate. It was funny back then because after I checked in, I asked the flight attendant after a period of time passed about my flight. She said she would get back to me, but she never did. I missed it and they booked me on another flight. I wrote a letter to the airline & the airport about the experience. The airport wrote back apologizing, saying they were working on installing those electronic messages for the gates for those who can not hear the PA system (that was ten years ago) and forwarded my complaint to the Department of Transportation's aviation division. Nevertheless, the airline sent me a voucher for free travel. They apologized for the inconvenience.

So that's that.

Googled "hearing impairment"

2007-01-08T00:24:00.000-08:00

and this is what came up....

I was actually thinking, what would a parent do when s/he googled for information on hearing impairment. Googled "deaf", Gallaudet is not even on the first page. NTID and Alexander Bell are there. How suspect. Anyway, googling hearing impairment, the top contender was Miracle Ear's "hearing problems".

Ugh, now the parent is reminded all over again that his/her child has a "problem".

The next link on Google is from a kidshealth organization website - the literature starts out fine - how the ear hears, what hearing impairment is, what causes it, how diagnosed, and treated (hearing aids, CI - 65,000 people around the world have received cochlear implants and about one third of them are children - gasp). Until I read the next paragraph,

"some patients with hearing loss and their families may decide not to restore hearing. This is particularly true of children whose parents are hearing impaired and want their children to be able to function in the deaf community. The language of the deaf community is American Sign Language (ASL). ASL is a system of gestures many deaf and hearing-impaired people use to communicate."

haha, we are "patients". pffthh! I can see Abraham Lincoln signing into Gallaudet University as a college for patients. And what is this, "restoring hearing"? Nothing can restore hearing. I can just take off my hearing aids and order a Blue Tooth. This was written in by Dr. Robert C. O'Reilly, MD and Therry Morlet, PhD... Now here is a generalization about American Sign Language - it has been reduced to be able to function in the deaf community, not as a backbone to 100% communication, to learning English, to socializing like the Iron Chefs do on Food Network but a system of gestures. What the ... This is so OLD already. AH!!!

The next paragraph:
"What's Life Like for People Who Are Hearing Impaired?
For people who lose their hearing after learning to speak and hear, it can be difficult to adjust because hearing has been an essential aspect of their communication and relationships. The good news is that new technologies are making it possible for more hearing-impaired teens to attend school and participate in activities with their hearing peers. These technologies include programmable hearing aids, which teens can adjust for different environments; FM systems, which include a microphone/ transmitter worn by the teacher and a receiver worn by the student; cochlear implants; real-time captioning of videos; and voice-recognition software, which can help with note taking."

So, any solitaires want to attest to this? above paragraph: Technology + hearing impairment = good news. Ok...

I can't believe this is still happening. I think there has been a need for some shaking up to do. How do you suppose we do this?

Sorenson VRS

2007-01-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

My house hasn't had a working VP for a year. I have CSD's VP in the garage. It stopped working periodically, and then I got a new computer and a wireless network router. I'm sure it would work again, but I don't have a user friendly manual or set-up CD to set it up. Before CSD, I had Sorenson’s VP100 to begin with. It malfunctioned and I contacted Sorenson for a replacement before CSD came to me with their product, saying their interpreting services were better. It took Sorenson too long to get back to me, and when they did, it was three months or so after I got CSD's product. Well, anyway, back in the summer I contacted Sorenson again for their installer to come back. The installer got back to me asking me the usual internet speed, modem brand, if I had yellow and white RCA jacks on the TV, who my ISP was, etc. Then we discussed when she could come to install. Upon closing in on a particular timeframe, I haven't heard back from her for months since 9/7/06. Her email was returned to me, so I contacted Sorenson through their website again, and to vrscomments@sorenson.com and vrssupport@sorenson.com, and even to a former installer who was also my former employee from another time and place who I emailed asking if he could somehow put a word in there for me (he promoted to tech support there – don’t they communicate??!) but to no avail. They did not respond to me for four long months until yesterday.

I had to go to my ex's to be "purple", what the heck?

Then, I got the call. I was so excited; it was like Santa finally came. I sat carefully while my son interpreted the call. Don't ask me why the installer used video relay to call me, but this installer was the one who contacted me back in the fall and who asked, "Why don't you have a VP? We are marked here that you had one?"

Me: “No, I don’t have one. I had one of yours a year ago but that malfunctioned and I contacted you guys about it last year, but you never got back to me. When you did, I told you I got a different VP product, and then one of your guys said he would come and pick up the malfunctioned VP. Now I need you guys to come back here.”

Sorenson: “Where is the original one that malfunctioned?”

Me: “You’re asking me after a year? This was already resolved before. The guy came and picked it up, (I think).”

She emailed me back apologizing because her email address suddenly changed and she lost my email address. She said they needed to gather more information from me about the first VP. She would ask her manager to approve the VP100 installation.

Me: Why would you install 100 when everyone is getting the 200?

Sorenson: At this point, the installation of VP200 is on hold until further notice.

Me: By whose decision that you wouldn’t install the 200? If everyone else is getting it, then it wouldn’t be fair to pass judgment on who gets it. And do you remember, you were the one who inconvenienced me by not staying in touch to move forward with the VP installation from last Fall.

Sorenson: Upper management tells me which model is to be installed for any customers. Not everyone is getting the 200 as of this point.

**I get an email from her boss…”please don’t blame her for the decision for whom and when upgrades take place. She is only following orders of Sorenson management in Salt Lake City”.

Me to her boss: How does management decide who gets what? That is still not explicitly clear to me. She contacted me in September to arrange for an installation and has not followed through. Why is this taking so long? I’m not sure what you mean by not blaming her? Hmm... I am sure she has answers to my questions that do not necessarily have to do with her following orders.

Sorenson Communications area specialist for Los Angeles and installer’s boss (verbatim, cuz I’m too lazy to edit): Management has decided to slow down upgrade due to production of units not enough to meet demand. As for last September, that was when the upgrade process was put on hold due supply issues, also at the same time our email server crashed and many customers contact information was lost. So, that could be why you were not contacted for follow-up. Since September, all upgrades request go through Salt Lake City, so I will research your name to see if it is on the upgrade list, if it is not, I will request that it be added. I apologize for the delays and will get back to soon. When I say don’t blame her, I mean she has no control on who, when and where a VP-200 will be installed. If you prefer to have another installer come to your home, I would be happy to re-assign your account to another trainer.

Me: I don’t have any issues against her. I’m just confused as to why things are not being done when they said they’d be done. I’ve not been told about the lost of customer contacts. Did Sorenson make this announcement on their website? It would have been much easier if Sorenson communicated with the public about their delays and malfunction, so I’m not sitting wondering why you guys dropped the ball on me. I appreciate the follow-up and responses.

Gosh….the trouble one has to go through …. I’ve withheld names because obviously their names are irrelevant. Hmm… do you agree that they can just halt installing the 200 models and make executive decisions on who gets them? I’ve never! Gosh. This is so…. laudable.

To be continued….(I think).

How to Become a Deaf Person

2007-01-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

First, turn off that processing center that is in between your ears. Do this as soon as possible, because some of us were born deaf. Turn the television on, and turn off the volume. Make sure you have a television dated after 1993, for the closed-captioning chip. Jumpstart your reading so that when you go into kindergarten you can outsmart a teacher about what deaf people can do.

Tell your mom everything. She is your backbone and advocate. If your mom doesn’t speak English, learn her language, just enough so you can get milk or tell her about the cop at the door. Teach her some American Sign Language if you can not ever get a verbal word down. She believes that deaf people are doomed and has abandoned you to your brothers and sisters. Be better than them. Stand out. Be tough, cry on her shoulders, and remind her that you are still her baby. She’ll look at you blankly and point you to go outside. Stay where you are. Let her try to communicate with you in words, anyway, anyhow, eventually. Look at her face. Faces are the window to a thousand words.

Go with your brothers and sisters to Sunday school, baseball practices, and their friends’ houses. Ignore the feeling that the kids may be talking about you. Ignore the stares and laughs. Pretend they are envious that you can not hear the loud train going by outside. Play with them and be better than them. Go to the library, get books and actually learn to read them. Look at each sentence and tune in to its meaning. Read them over and over again, because the written words are your source of words.

In your fourth grade class, strike up a close friendship with your desk mate or the person sitting next to you. She is your gatekeeper. Always be on her side, no matter what. If you lose her, you lose your teacher. After the teacher finishes talking, ask your desk mate to tell you what to do. If she shrugs, know that you are not alone. If your teacher sounds out a spelling test, tell your teacher to mouth the words clearly before the test so that when she says a word, she will look at you, and you can get your grade that you are due. If your teacher has a moustache, tell him the signs for the words. If no specific sign for a given word comes up, make one up. If the teacher keeps moving across the classroom, raise your hand to remind him. He makes a face. He is restricted. Pity him. Just for the sake of a good grade.

Chat with all the deaf kids on your school bus as long and as quickly as you can because once you get off that bus and set foot in your house, your world goes quiet again. Tell your deaf friends that you heard of a free Trans Am car being given away; perhaps they may be envious because they, too, like you are out of the loop in several more ways than one. If one says she is going to a Menudo concert; it is probably because, like you, she tries to assert herself to enjoy the things that you, hearing people do. After all, it seems it is the hearing people who get to go to the Menudo concerts. When an ice cream truck drives by your bus, tell the others you can hear it, even though you can’t. Then, when you get home, complain endlessly to your mom about not being able to do what hearing people can do. Your mom will tell you, “What do you mean? I just can not afford to buy a Menudo concert ticket for you” then make the connection there. Don’t think it is the ears that are deceiving you.

When you go back to your friends on the bus, explain that concept to them. They do not get it. They are still back there on the back of the bus, just like when you are being put back in the back of the classroom, when in reality you are actually sitting right up front, and can not hear a thing that is going on behind you. Your teacher keeps talking and pausing, knowing she is focusing on those who can actually provide a response, and you are hoping not to fall asleep. By now, your teacher knows you will come up to her five times before recess. Count them, so as not to thwart off her day. Play hard and madly to get all that frustration off.

You join in a family conversation with your mom and brothers and sisters at the dinner table. You try to keep up. Someone says, “New Mexico,” then you say “what about New Mexico?” Your mom says, “We didn’t say New Mexico,” and looks at your brother who then says, “Oh, we said two months ago. We were talking about Grandma going to the hospital,” then you try to understand the connection between two months ago and grandma going to the hospital. Then you catch, “I love you,” and tell your Mom that you love her, too. She looks puzzled, then your sister taps you on the shoulder next to you and tells you, “Grandma has gone to I love you”. You ask her to repeat the sentence because you know your grammar; she says again, “you know grandma? She went to the hospital at Olive View.” Oh.

As a poor deaf teenager, apply for a job at Lucky’s Food Store. You want to go to the prom, make your own prom dress, buy class pictures, buy a class ring, and be like all those other hearing teenagers that do what normal seniors do. You are great at guessing what customers need. They are used to you and smile at you. Sometimes strangers who just walk in the store start talking in Spanish to you, even though you have blonde hair. Say, huh? Not because you are deaf, but because you are blonde. They get pissed. Ignore them and go back to your sweeping. You get Employee of the Month nine times out of twelve. You puzzle at the other times you didn’t get awarded. You try to learn to lip-read in Spanish because maybe that will do it.

Apply to college as an audiologist. Your college advisor will tell you that you can not do that because you will need to listen to the hearing tests of deaf children. You don’t care. You go through the motions of everything. You want to change the system. It starts there, when an audiologist explains steps to a parent what can be done to a deaf baby. You want to be the one to tell the parent, not some stupid prankster who doesn’t know what it is like to be deaf and thinks he knows what works and what doesn’t. You will not endorse in any medical or phonetic companies, the ones who profit most in brandishing babies and children with cochlear implants and earn millions of dollars off the mercy of parents. You will be pure to yourself and to them. You will tell them the full truth. You will be a model.

As an audiologist major, you have some electives. You always liked to run your frustration off to the ground. Sign up for “Physical Raconteur 101” that meets in the Racquetball Court House on Mondays and Wednesdays at nine. When you get there, you are in your shorts and gym shoes, while everyone else are in their slacks and blouses. Figuring this to be the first class, they probably prefer to wait till Wednesday to shoot for the moon. Wednesday comes, and still they haven’t dressed appropriately. After contemplating, you raise your hand and ask, “Is this racquetball?” But they all shake their heads and start talking in figures and numbers. You say, “Excuse me” and leave, unsure if they pitied you. Ignore that feeling, and fight it. You endure the pain of embarrassment, even though you didn’t ask for it. You were born with it, so it must be for something good. Without knowing what you had signed up for, you go to the registrar office and ask them to change your course to “racquetball one-oh-one!” much to the woman behind her counter’s dismay. It isn’t her fault, but you displaced your anger at her anyway, because you won’t see her again until next semester. Maybe time will grow on you both.

In racquetball, you play with the men because they talk less and play more. They like you for some reason, too. You figured it is to your advantage they are ready to go like you want to get down to business, too. You decide that you will take up as many sport classes you can because you are validated in that way as a human being, not as a deaf person. Next semester, take up cycling, then tennis, then badminton, swimming, basketball, volleyball, and table tennis. Being good at what you do in what hearing people do as well gives you contentment. You will continue to follow this pattern or seek it for the rest of your life.

In college, you seek out deaf people to cover the socializing part, even though they come from different backgrounds – deaf students from deaf institutions and many generations of deafness in the family who connect with other deaf students from deaf institutions and many generations of deafness in the family (and that is not you); victim mentality players seeking justice for every little reason to make up for their pathetic lives (that is not you, either); lifeless bodies that are walking on thin air being led by a college advisor because their parents said college was a must for them even though they are failing miserably (this is definitely not you); late deafened adults that do not want to learn sign language because they view it is for people who can not use their voice, but still they can’t lip-read and so they are double whammed (nope, you're supposed to have been born deaf); oral deaf ones who use spoken words with their signing and are not able to make any intellectual sense in their communication to you (you already know ASL and English are separate languages); mainstreamed deaf individuals who went to public high schools just wanting to get by in life and are generally accepting of what life dealt them (if you can find them!) and finally, bored deaf people from deaf institutions who are open to you for something new even though they have gazillions of deaf friends from going to the residential schools, where they were all brought together earlier in their life, where you were out of that loop, as well.

You avoid the aggressive hearing person who is lacking boundaries in your otolaryngology class. She tells you of her desire to learn American Sign Language and seems to repeat to you what the professor instructs. You know from your 12-step Book that screams co-dependency. She, of course, makes assumptions that you don’t know what an ear and mouth is, telling you that the teacher prefers you to write your goals according to the gospel of so and so. Do not say, “Oh thanks” because she will haunt you tomorrow and the next day. Instead, tell her that you have an interpreter in your class that covered it and that you appreciate her being a Good Samaritan and that is what this country needs. Watch her face when it contorts and do not pity her. Let her wither and die. Or she may go kill herself. Not your problem.

You attend an ASL Poetry performance at a bookstore 30 miles out of town your deaf poet friend put on. You seek out cultural experiences with unique hand shapes, movement, rhythm, and creativity your deaf peers are doing. Then a deaf man you barely know tells you that you should not be getting a divorce, and wants to know why. You tell him you do not know, and hope he will go off, but he will just stay on that island with you. He asks you how you can afford it. Tell him you got to go to the restroom. He probably will look directly at you for the rest of the night and while he signs his poem. Go make like you don’t know what the heck he is talking about.

In the real world, you spend too much time contemplating the life you are meant to be living. Why do some people have it so easy? Some have it so hard? You come to the conclusion that life likes it that way, and you accept it. You join a gym and tell the instructor to use visual cues. She doesn’t know what they are, so you tell her the numbers and some gestures. A person next to you in cardio kickboxing class starts talking to you as if he didn’t have any teeth. You point to your ear and shake your head, saying you can’t hear, and he says, “Oh I’m sorry” then he plays with his fingers and keeps smiling at you. Don’t wonder what he is apologizing for. They always say that. You go through these motions in the grocery store when the bagger asks you paper or plastic when you are busy inputting your PIN number in the credit card swipe machine, your children’s kindergarten classrooms when the parents come up to you with concerned faces, and when you start a new job and your co-workers think you are rude.

Why be deaf? Where does it come from? Why does one person become deaf out of the one or two million who didn’t? What makes a person special that he was awarded this gene or a curable disease that took away his hearing as a toddler? Immunization shots prevent them now, yes, but still you were not inflicted with any disease. You were born with it by the grace of God.

Your mom will come visit you. You let her live with you so she can answer the phone and be the voice to your children. She cooks the dinners and washes the laundry. Your children forget to sign at the dinner table sometimes, but you do not get pissed. You make out some of the conversations, but sometimes after a busy day, all you want to do is listen to nothing. Life comes full circle, but sometimes being out of the loop will do you good.

Hi, everyone. My short was published in the Northridge Review, Fall 2005. I am open to any discourse you have on my short story. I didn't get a lot of feedback from deaf readers, so I'd appreciate honesty. I realize that this is a good way to get some of your insight. This is supposed to encompass the deaf experience in a sarcastic way. It's not necessarily my bio!

Oppression in the job place

2006-12-05T17:19:00.000-08:00

I went to UPS today to start orientation for my first ever seasonal employment which will end in two weeks. The idea of physical work and getting paid for it was exciting. I got my brown uniform which I will be turning in before Christmas. I would be a driver helper. I get to deliver packages, like Santa Claus. I get to get back into customer service.

When I met my interpreters, this interpreter and Mr. Devale set up through UPS, This interpreter was in deep conversation with the trainer. They were dispatched through an interpreting agency. This interpreter turned around to me in mid- conversation and said, "I'll be interpreting you" and went back to the trainer. Of course, the others with me were listening in on their conversation, but me...umm..who am I? Where's my interpreter? Oh right, they thus decided what information to interpret. My other interpreter looked like he felt he was in an awkward situation. I ignored him for now. Maybe he was a conspirator as well. Well, it turned out I was wrong.

We walked into the orientation room, this interpreter said, "you sit there" and went back to talking to the UPS trainer. Amused, I didn't sit there, I sat elsewhere.

Conversation, continued. Finally -
"are you a certified interpreter?" I said.
He looked puzzled and said, "yes".
"You need to interpret everything you hear in this room," I said.
"This conversation is between me and him," he said.
"There are five other people here who can hear your conversation, and you are not doing your job of interpreting. If you have a conversation, you still have to interpret," I said.
He went into deep thought and voiced nothing of what I said. I looked at the trainer and voiced what the interpreter's role was.
Quiet.
The trainer started talking again to the interpreter. The interpreter continued conversation/ minimal terping, but somewhat subdued, because it's hard to have a conversation and interpret at the same time. Whatever...

During orientation...on the topic of appearance detail- Trainer turns to this interpreter, "Hey do you remember that deaf employee that was here, (name).... about oh...right we can talk another time about that. anyway," Twenty-five driver helpers like me looking around the room, wondering about my kind.

I prompted the trainer that interpreters do not hold information about what they interpreted before. They would be breaking their code of professional conduct by participating in such conversations.
"Oh" said the trainer.

Training resumed...

Interpreters switched.

"Ah, that's distracting, having you both switch while I'm talking," trainer chuckled.
Training resumed...

On the topic of drivers feeling stressed during this busy holiday - we, driver helpers need to step away from their annoyances.

"I liked the interpreter's face, that's the way the drivers would look," points to the interpreter.

I dealt with the trainer later and he apologized profusely. He was joking and kept his personality in the training, but there's a line...

I asked for interpreters to give me their names, one refused to give me his last name. "Just wait till after the training, so you can concentrate here," This interpreter said.
"I decide that. Not you. Give me your name," I said.

He refused.

I raised my hand for the trainer to ask the interpreter to give me his name. The trainer looked at the interpreter and said, "what's your name, sir?"

The interpreter said that he wouldn't give it to me because I was supposed to "pay attention" in the training. I said again I would decide that.

I asked UPS and the interpreting agency to have him replaced. The interpreting agency apologized on behalf of their company and would ask him to leave immediately and try to seek a replacement. This agency called him on his cell, he left the room.

He returned and looked at me smugly. Smiled at Mr. Devale.

"Are you leaving? I asked the interpreting agency to replace you," I said to him directly.

"No, I'm not leaving," he shrugged and smiled.

I interrupted training and asked to speak to the trainer in private. After our brief meeting outside the room, he said he would take care of it. He called this interpreter out of the room. Ten minutes passed...twenty-five men waiting with me.

UPS Human Resource person called me out of the room. She kindly said they couldn't send him away because of company policy; they needed to have two interpreters in case something happened to the other interpreter. But this interpreter can just sit there and not interpret. I agreed.

Training resumed...

Through all this time, Mr. Devale, the other interpreter remained professional and compassionate towards my feelings of despair. I asked him why would interpreters do this? Is he so comfortable that he wants to decide what goes here? Is he in this business because he likes co-dependency issues? When an interpreter is faced with a trainer doing this, whose job is it to re-direct the trainer?

What bites me is that This interpreter didn't respect me from the start. How reeling...He triggered a problem, escalated it, and after I tried to intervened, he didn't try to keep things simple as to get the situation back into control. He reminded me of one of those pit bulls who decides to be the alpha male and decides the fate of the dogs in the room.

If any of you have any additional ideas or comments, let me know. I will write the email in a few days when my "crisis mode" goes back down to baseline so I don't go into post crisis depression.

Okay...my son's hungry..I gotta go feed him and then to class.

Hasta la vista, baby.

Open Window

2005-10-14T01:20:00.000-07:00

I met Stephen Sachs tonight, the writer of this play. The play was in one word: immediate.

I got into their preview because David Evans, my friend since the early 90's, through thick and thin, had a free ticket for me. I'm not a professional theater critic yet, but if I looked at the food page from last wednesday and find out how a critic encourages one to eat at a restaurant, I will adopt the same language, that this play has all its brilliant and delicious enticings you'd want to know and feel. Not only does Stephen possess the study and intelligence of deaf culture in the play, he is a person of refinement. You will not find a better play to immerse yourself about the current frustrations confronting deaf culture, what language does and doesn't do, and deaf culture spinning at you. Stephen has a flexible mind with the language of nature, putting in a little twist about how a deaf woman knowing language can actually backfire. Stephen said he put that in there because language has all its levels. I left the theater not thinking of being anything other than myself. I absorbed the play. Nothing hastened the process of my confounded thoughts. To deepen one's thoughts, you might want to immerse him/her into vats of bullshit, but our essential nature will not change, we are all who we are, and there is no reason to be ashamed. That is why the play is immediate to me. We can be immediate in everyday life: we know who we are. To do otherwise becomes unpractical and eminently impossible.

I worked with Linda Bove in Medea, and as usual I was blown away by her tonight just as I was blown away every night on stage, watching her from my Chorus role. I could watch her continuously in this role, she is THAT good.

Did you read the review on Rebuilt?

2005-08-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

The LA Times Book Review came out with a review on "Rebuilt" by Michael Chorost in July. Did anyone notice that Tyrone Giordano was also in the LA Times, by way of an inquiry of a fan to Walter Scott in the Parade magazine if he was really deaf (and yes, he is). There were some discrepencies in the article that I am used to reading in the various vernacular systems of the deaf community. I guess it takes a virtuoso writer to write about us, let alone do a review about us (I'm talking about Michael Chorost by way of his interpretations is just that: subjective). Michael seemed to have imposed this though I haven't read the book. His "bionic" hearing made him more human. More human than? He is a science fiction writer... The image of cyborg comes to mind by way of Data in Star Trek: The New Generation. What do you think about the passage of the "overhear" part of social norms? He said, "social norms are not taught, they are overheard, but the one thing even the most skilled deaf people cannot do is overhear (what social norms are)." Umm, what about body language, nonverbal cues, action speaks louder than words, a picture is worth a thousand words? It certainly reflects a mediocre insight about the facade of the "most skilled deaf people." Chorost never was part of the ASL world, but that's his choice. Sure, there are subgroups within a community, yet ASL doesn't define a deaf person's full enclosures into the deaf community and for him to say that ASL is relative to where a deaf person stands as either if or is a myth. There are those who "was never quite part of that world" to learn ASL and on the upperhand can not be full members of the hearing community... I think I liked it when Heather Whitestone said that every deaf person makes a choice in communication in what works well for him or her (somewhat to that effect). Lipreading isn't exact science, but it's a good backup tool to have. It is approximately 75% guess work. I have heard that technology may spell the end of ASL, but like with each generation, everything comes full circle. Like Chorost said, cochlear implants will never make a deaf person hear perfectly, and there are thousands of deaf people who are not candidates for cochlear implants. The cochlear implants are being implanted earlier than ever in babies because of the passage of the new bill for newborn hearing tests. Are the medical companies richer? Are they making us patients? Yup!

I had a deaf person with a CI at my house a while back and she kept telling me there were noises in the house. I got my son down to pinpoint them out, and he said, "oh those are just crickets." He was never bothered by them. But dang it to heck, it bothered her and she got me in on it. I asked if we should move to another room, but then she finds other noises.

CIs may offer access to noises, but I wonder what is wrong with hearing aids? I know for some people hearing aids do not work, and for some CIs do not work. CIs have given false hopes to parents who decide to implant their babies and for some, they depend on this "mechanical hearing" to teach them to speak. This prolongs language development. Come on... I've seen with my own eyes in every aspect of the deaf community - a parent infant program, adult programs, and schools. Language development is crucial by the age of 3, regardless of method.

Who is accountable for the deaf children who become adults and can not be self-sufficient? I have a deaf mother friend with a deaf toddler (no CI!) in this parent infant program. All of the other babies have CIs. While her baby is writing letters, putting shapes and colors together in the right order, the CI babies have not caught on. Their acquisition of follow through is low functioning. The parents at this program are too worried about getting them to talk and hear, that their children are cognitively delayed.

I saw a ENT doctor (Michael Chorost's statement that CIs aren't planted in those with nerve damage) recently who said that nerve damage is common among the deaf population. He said that the autoimmune system in the inner ear doesn't go to the hair cells, which is nerve damage, though indirectly.