Signing For Dummies (58 page)

They share the commonalities of language and the obstacles of daily life.

The Deaf culture is based on a collective mindset, not an individual one. Many Deaf people feel a stronger tie to other Deaf people than to people who can hear.

Deaf people feel a strong bond to one another; they have a strong sense of cooperation.

Deaf people come from all walks of life, from executives to construction workers, and as it is in English, those who are more educated than others are able to communicate more clearly by following the rules of their respective language.

As with all cultures, time modifies and alters some aspects of the culture. This happens because culture is both learned and shared among a given group of people.

Culture teaches members of a community how they, as a people, respond to other ethnic groups and the world around them.

Knowing who falls into the Deaf cultural community

You may be thinking that the question of who fits into the Deaf community is a silly one — Deaf people, obviously! But the Deaf community includes these people, too:

Hearing people. Those who can hear play important roles in the community of the Deaf as educators, ASL teachers, and interpreters for the Deaf. Many hearing people are also married to Deaf people or have Deaf children, making them part of the Deaf community.

Children of Deaf Adults
(CODAs). We say “children” because of the acronym, but obviously the term simply means people who have Deaf parents.

Living as bilingual/bicultural people

In order to be successful members of society, Deaf people have to be able to live and communicate in both the Deaf and the hearing worlds. They have to be comfortable with navigating between the two — in other words, they have to be bilingual and bicultural. Proving that Deaf people can live as a bilingual, bicultural people, more Deaf people are attending college, more interpreter training programs are being implemented, and more Deaf people than ever are working in white-collar jobs. Read the following examples to see this dual culture in action.

Many Deaf people have felt the burden of not having the spiritual satisfaction that people desire because most churches don’t have anyone who knows Sign language to interpret and minister to a Deaf member of the congregation. Today, however, many Deaf people are going into the ministry and leading their own Deaf congregations. Many hearing ministries are also learning ASL.

The Los Angeles Church of Christ’s evangelist, Ron Hammer, learned Sign language from Deaf members of the church. He trained these members in leadership, and the interpreters began an interpreter-training program inside the church. Today, the Deaf membership of that church has increased dramatically to become one of the largest Deaf congregational regions in Los Angeles.

Because Deaf people and hearing people share common interests and topics of conversation, they can use these commonalities to communicate and become closer. When a Deaf person is with his Deaf friends, he may talk about Deaf schools, but he can just as easily converse with a colleague at work about schools in general.

Topics such as the weather, sports, food, and entertainment are all popular (and are all discussed in various chapters of this book) with Deaf people as well as the hearing. Even topics that at first seem unique to the Deaf community are really similar to topics that would be discussed by hearing people. For instance, Deaf people often discuss the nuances of ASL and “play on signs.” Hearing people do the same when they play on words, making jokes and puns. Deaf people often converse about schools for the Deaf, discussing which ones they attended and their similar experiences with dorm life and residential supervision. Hearing people also talk about where they went to school, what they majored in, what dorm life was like, and so on.