The People Who Spell: The Last Students from the Mexican National School for the Deaf

The Escuela Nacional para Sordomudos (ENS), translated as the Mexican National School for the Deaf, opened its doors in the 1860s as part of the new democracy’s intention to educate its deaf people. The ENS taught using Lengua de Señas Mexicana (LSM), Mexico’s native sign language, but the school was closed permanently in 1972 in favor of an oral approach to deaf education. Thus, its former students still alive today provide the last link to this historical institution. In this compelling social history, Claire L. Ramsey presents these unique Deaf Mexicans from their extraordinary experiences as ENS students and signers to their current personal lives. One ENS signer, María de los Ángeles Bedolla, inspired the title of the book, The People Who Spell. In her account, she describes herself and her classmates as cultured and educated compared to the young, orally trained students of today. The ENS signers pride themselves on el deletreo, LSM fingerspelling, which they consider key to their sophistication. Ramsey relates each of the signers’ childhoods, marriages, work experiences, and retirements. However, she brings threads of their stories together to reveal a common and abiding disappointment in modern-day Mexico’s failure to educate its deaf citizens according to the promise made more than 100 years ago. The narratives of the ENS signers detail their remarkable lives and heritage but also legitimately question the future of Mexico’s young deaf people.