Cultural Accessibility For The Deaf Essay

Have you ever wondered the differences between deaf and hearing cultures? Last week I had a chance to watch "See What I Mean" and this video gave me a humorous and enlightening look at the differences between them. In this movie "See What I Mean", issues such as attitudes toward time, taking time to say goodbye, complain about the use of phones and pagers, sharing information, giving and receiving criticism, and comments on personal appearance are explored and humorously discussed from the point of view of both cultures.

All throughout the entire "Deaf President Now" movement, the message was clear that deaf people have the self-determination and capability as any other hearing person. To watch hundreds of deaf students and supports protest from Gallaudet University to our nation's capital, using American Sign Language as their only medium of communication. Only shows the effect of the "power and intelligence" (Van Cleve p. 173) behind sign language. "With similar unity in the future, they may move into a

By embracing the Deaf culture, he found his career and his family, and he is a much happier person living for himself and not trying to fit in with what he previously viewed as “normal”.

“Through Deaf Eyes” was a documentary that really opened my eyes and allowed me to understand just a small fraction of what it may be like for a Deaf person to live in a hearing world. The first thing that really stuck with me was the fact that the film was all silent. The part that made it easy for me to understand was the fact that there was closed captioning. All throughout the film, all participants, both Deaf and hearing, were signing at what seemed like lightning speed. If it were not for the closed captioning, there was no way I would be able to catch up and really engage in the film. Then it hit me: this must be how Deaf people feel if the situation was reversed. I always used to get irritated

Deaf people living in a hearing world have certainly made their mark in the hearing community. Deaf people can do anything that hearing people can do. The band shown in the film called “Beethoven’s Nightmare “caused quite a stir in our class. I think that we were simply amazed that deaf musicians could play so well. By showing the audience this experience, it provides hearing viewers with the knowledge that this type of event does occur within the deaf community and that the deaf can appreciate

Bob Hiltermann is a famous deaf storyteller, actor, comic, and musician. He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and became deaf at the age of four due to spinal meningitis. His family assumed that he was slow and it wasn’t until he was ten years old that they finally realized he was deaf. When Bob turned eighteen, he attended Gallaudet University. While attending Gallaudet he learned American Sign Language, which would eventually lead him to become a confident and successful signer. Bob grew up in a family of classical musicians and this shaped his love for music. Despite being deaf he has become an accomplished musician himself and is the drummer for a famous all deaf band named Beethoven’s Nightmare. He has also experienced a very successful career as an actor and has starred in many award winning documentary films, TV, stage productions, soaps, and feature films. Bob has also helped create and star in an educational sign language series called “Shut up and Sign” (Hiltermann, 2016).

The book also describes how life has changed for deaf adults through the years. Previously, many deaf adults were not able to get jobs in many places, because there were not many places that were accepting to them. These days, however, almost every business or company is looking for those that are fluent in American Sign Language, due to the simple fact that they would be able to accommodate that many more people and earn more money for their business. Also, there were not many outlets for deaf adults to use in relation to entertainment or basic needs, because again, mostly everything was catered to hearing adults only. However, they have recently developed many different ways for the deaf to communicate with the hearing and with one another, including TTY, full-keyboard, and internet phones and closed-captions on television stations and movies.

First, this book allowed me to see the negative way in which deaf people were perceived. This book is not old by any means, and I was taken aback by the way deaf children were perceived by not only others in the community, but often times by their own parents as well. The term

After reading Deaf Again I learned a lot of new things about Deaf culture and was drawn in by the story of Mark Drolsbaugh. "The hardest fight a man has to fight is to live in a world where every single day someone is trying to make you someone you do not want to be" e.e cummings. I was brought into the book immediately from this quote and realized how difficult it must have been for Mark to find his identity. He was trying to hang on to his hearing in fear of going deaf as if there was something wrong or not proper with being deaf. It took him a long time, twenty-three years to realize that the Deaf culture is receiving and it was there for him to embrace the entire time. It would be difficult to be able to hear and then slowly

In this book, Deaf in America, by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, the two authors wrote stories, jokes, performances, and experiences of Deaf people. They also wrote Deaf culture and Deaf people’s lives from various angles. This book is great navigator of Deaf world for hearing people and even Deaf people as me. There are several factors attracting reader. To begin with, I could learn about backgrounds of deaf people and hearing people. Authors wrote about a Deaf boy who was born into a deaf family. Until he discovered that a girl playmate in neighborhood was “hearing”, he didn’t notice about “Others”. Authors

In Mark Drolsbaugh’s educational and witty autobiography “Deaf Again”, he describes his journey as a child born to deaf parents, losing his own hearing in his childhood, and navigating both hearing and deaf worlds while trying to discover his identity.

This documentary does an excellent job of advocating for the acknowledgment of people who are deaf within society. This is shown through not only the brilliantly written and performed poems of the students but also in the basic, everyday struggles each of them face, such as the desire to fit in or be valued by those around them. Deafness is not a specific to any gender, race, culture, or religion. The struggles many people who are deaf go through are relatable to all and

He grew up in a very small town in Florida, and he started to love the fact of influencing his deaf culture. And the thought to himself, “One day, I want to influence the whole hearing culture about deaf cultures. I want to blow their mind how sign language is made and also known as a beautiful language.” This is when he started to act, he begun to act and surrounded with a small group of professional deaf actor.

The Deaf community is an exclusive place for Deaf people to have a place of sanctity with each other, relating and consulting to create a oneness within a group of people. A large part of this community is the culture, including art, theatre, and movie production for examples. There is a category surrounding art called De’ VIA that serves specifically for the Deaf community and consists of famous artist such as Guy Wonder who use deafness as inspiration for their work. Guy Wonder’s work specifically has touched those in the community with his abstract sculpture work and his inspiring teaching all across the nation. Guy Wonder is a 3rd generation Deaf man who was raised in a Deaf family and attended a school for the Deaf in Vancouver, Washington as a child.

The performing arts have been greatly impacted by the addition of deaf performers and the deaf community. From humble beginnings in vaudeville and silent film, to contemporary pioneers of the integration of ASL into performance with Phyllis Frelich, the National Theatre for the Deaf, and Deaf West Theatre, the deaf community has made a large contribution to what theatre offers and what audiences can expect. With the growth of deaf performers and slow integration into the mainstream theatre community, I believe that we will soon see a stronger normalization of these sort of performances. In order to understand deaf theatre and performance and predict a future for purposes of this paper, we must examine the history and growth of deaf performance