At Home Among Strangers: Exploring the Deaf Community in the United States

8. A Theory of Deaf Community Development

8 A THEORY OF DEAF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Whether the Deaf community is regarded as a linguistic, ethnic, social , or other community, it clearly exists. That leaves the task of explaining why. Because the Deaf community plays so large a role in the lives of almost half a million Deaf citizens of this country, delving into the factors that have led to and shaped its development appears well justified. Furthermore, an understanding of why Deaf people have moved in the directions they have may assist other disabled and ethnic minority groups to plot their own courses more effectively. Those engaged in education and rehabilitation can better serve Deaf people if they appreciate the pervasive influence the Deaf community exerts on the lives of most early deafened people. Deaf leaders, too, might gain from a theory about what is for them a daily reality. In dealing with an abstraction, they might discern useful strategies that might otherwise remain obscure or unseen. REVIEW OF THEORIES OF DEAF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT In recent years, a number of theorists from several disciplines have become interested in the phenomenon that is the Deaf community. Some scholars have proposed that segregated education underlies the development of the Deaf community. Like Alexander Graham Bell, they conclude that the residential schools provide the basis for the formation of Deaf society. For those holding this view, main 198 AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS streaming tolls the Deaf community's death knell, or at least signals its imminent decline. Others have suggested that the Deaf community has emerged as a reaction to mistreatment by the majority community . The argument runs somewhat along these lines: Deaf A Theory of Deaf Community Development 199 people prefer to be a part of the larger community, but the larger community, through indifference or downright hostility, rejects them; reacting to this frustration, Deaf people turn to each other. Stili other theorists have pointed to the ease of communication between prelingually Deaf individuals as the principal reason for the Deaf community as we know it. They describe the Deaf community as a linguistic community, emphasizing the common mode of communication and the common language. Observing the swift, fluent interchanges between Deaf people, one understands intuitively as well as cognitively the attractiveness of one Deaf person for another.2 Two deaf experts in rehabilitation, Boyce R. Williams and Allen E. Sussman, also see the Deaf community in linguistic terms. They explain that "the subculture of deaf persons has its roots in their urgent need to nullify the communication barrier,,,3 and that unlike some other disability groups, deaf people have always taken care of their own social needs. It is not a grammatical error that leads them to call their organizations clubs of the deaf. It is their way of emphasizing that they are not the recipients of other people's charity, that the disability of deafness does not foster incompetence.4 Ben M. Schowe, himself deaf from his teens, resents any implications that the Deaf community is not real. He regards it as a force that scientists have "glossed over without illumination, without any serious attempt to define or delimit, and with scant perception of its dynamic role and function in the lives of the Deaf." In his view, "the Deaf society is of prime importance. It is in the milieu of this social structure that the Deaf gain a self-respecting image of themselves and a productive relationship with others."s Ethnographers Anedith and Jeffrey Nash focus on three distinguishing features of the Deaf community-sign language, shared experiences, and consciousness.6 The latter refers to the perceptual shaping that occurs from awareness that, as a Deaf person, one is outside the larger community; in other words, a sense of isolation from the larger community. Probably the most thorough description of the Deaf community has been written by a sociologist, Paul C. Higgins.7 He considers membership to be based on shared experiences, identification, and involvement. Sign language binds Deaf people together, as does the 200 AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS common stigmatization they have suffered. They participate together in many activities. Thus, while language is an important element, it does not wholly explain the Deaf community. Furthermore , Higgins would insist upon pluralizing the term, believing that it is important to emphasize the separate nature of the many geographically separated Deaf communities. On this latter point, he is joined by Carol Padden,8 who similarly emphasizes the...