The Deaf Community of Puget Sound

Watching the film Through Deaf Eyes was eye opening to Deaf history and culture. The film was a great introduction and snapshot of what it is like to be Deaf and to live in not only the Deaf world but to also be a part of the hearing world. Watching the film and learning the history and the achievements that the Deaf have overcome was inspiring. It was also depressing to see the kind of oppression that Deaf people have faced and within their own community. One of the biggest things that I took away from the movie was that Deaf people can do anything they wish to do, besides hear. Seeing the way they stood up and demanded a Deaf president of Gallaudet University and that helping to influence the introduction of the Americans with Disabilities Act was inspiring. Whenever I would think of what it would be like to be Deaf, I thought of the immediate loses that a Deaf person would have and that just isn’t the way to look at it.

Take a second, close your eyes, and imagine silence. Nothing is going on around you; you can't even hear a pin drop. Not a sound to be heard for miles. You open your eyes expecting the world to come to life, and everything to breath wavelengths into your ears, but instead, you are met with an ocean of nothingness. People hustle about you, yelling at you to move out of their way, but still… nothing. This is the reality of a deaf person's world. Every day they wake up to this, and nothing more. When out in public, they must learn to communicate, to fend for themselves while the hearing go on with their lives as normal. We don't even realize how blessed we are as a hearing person, until it's gone. One way to dissolve this issue is by offering

In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at

The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to PBS home video “Through Deaf Eyes,” there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing (Hott, Garey & et al., 2007) . Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are over ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents. Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group, every region, and every economic class.” The

People used to think that being Deaf was a sin and a major disability. I don’t really understand this view, as being Deaf is not a choice because a majority of the time, most people are born Deaf. Just because a person can’t hear, doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them. Deaf culture is so mesmerizing as their is such a deep connection within the community and they even have their own language. What people need to do is put themselves in the shoes of a Deaf person and imagine how difficult it must be being the “odd one out” all the time.

While reading " Deaf in America: Voices From A Culture " I notice the purpose of this book was to wrote about Deaf people in a new and different way. The book main focus is that Deaf people have a condition that they can't hear. The culture of Deaf people is what both authors want to begin yo betray. What I found interesting while reading is that the majority of indidivauls within the community of Deaf people do not join it at birth. While reading these chapters I've seen both auhtors try to present the culture from the inside to discover how Deaf people describe themselves and how they think about their lives.

deaf: working for the rights of all deaf people in this country, including education of deaf children.

This book was mainly focused on looking at Deaf culture of today and comparing it to the culture of the past, and what kinds of struggles deaf people had to endure to get where they are today. The two authors of this book are deaf; one was deaf her whole life and the other became deaf as a child. In my opinion, that was a major contributing factor to why it was so interesting. The reader gets a chance to travel through the history of the Deaf through words from those who have experienced it. It also had a positive impact because the authors let the readers know in the introduction that they are deaf and a brief history of themselves, which I

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

American Annals of the Deaf is an educational journal that is committed to providing educational experiences of high quality as well as related services for the deaf. This journal has been around for over 150 years, and over time they have been dedicated to making sure that children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing are receiving quality assistance for their disability (NEED CITATION). In July 1996, they published a scholarly article in response to a survey Catherine Gillespie and Sandra Twardosz conducted about the literacy environment and different practices that children are receiving in a residential school for the deaf.

The Deaf community is a community where they can feel like they actually belong and feel accepted.

My experience at the deaf event was amazing and unforgettable I enjoyed the adventure we went on going around Safety Harbor’s little down town from the little shops to the beautiful view of the ocean, signing out common objects and their actions. This event showed me just how hard it can be to not understand someone when communicating though it was easy for me to catch on I still struggled during the charade portion and found it difficult to understand what we were to demonstrate it gave me a glimpse at what deaf people go through daily though I will never fully have an understanding with being able to hear. Nonetheless the activities were truly enjoyable they made you more creative when describing things to explain it to someone who is deaf

A disability can be defined as a “limitation of function because of an impairment” (Lane, 2008, p. 277). To some, “deaf people [seem] limited in some functions because of an impairment of hearing” (Lane, 2008, p. 277). However, this determination of disability has arisen from “norms and the technologies of normalization” (Lane, 2008, p. 279) by the hearing and otherwise “able-bodied” world. To the hearing world, Deaf people lack the “ability” to hear; a sense which so many of us hearing people depend on. In actuality, the only reason Deaf people seem to suffer is because we, the hearing majority, have placed our own beliefs and values on them. By labeling Deaf people as disabled, we are guilty of audism and ableism, as we “[insist] that inherent biological factors determine individual traits and capacity” (Lane, 2008, p. 282), and assume their life is lacking because they either cannot hear or cannot hear as well as we think they should. If we were to change our mentality about accessibility, about human rights, and about individuality, it would seem clear that the only reason Deaf people are limited in any way is because the majority makes so much revolve around the importance of hearing, and dismiss the reality that

Support for the WFD comes from sections of the United Nations, including the World Health Organization and the International Disability Alliance. An interesting note is that all 11 board members of the WFD are Deaf themselves. The WFD is well-regarded as it is represented by well-known groups that include the Economic and Social Council, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, World Bank and Council of Europe.