In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Introduction 1 The mid-July heat made it nearly impossible to breathe in the National Nicaraguan Association of the Deaf’s (ANSNIC) small office without air conditioning. Because both audio and video were being recorded, it had been necessary to close the outside windows to shut out the traffic noise from the street, but the blare of television and laughter from the adjoining room meant the inside door leading to the rest of the building also had to be shut. In this oven-like atmosphere, Natalia Galo, a deaf woman a few years over thirty, had been responding for about an hour to questions about her experiences growing up and her present life. But now we were all exhausted, and I moved to bring the interview to a close. “Just one last question before I turn off the camera,” I told Yolanda Mendieta, the Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) interpreter with whom I was working. Looking at Natalia, I asked in Spanish:“What is it like to be deaf?”Yolanda’s hands went immediately to work, translating my words, and after gravely following Yolanda’s motions, Natalia turned to me and signed her reply. “I am content. I feel contented to be deaf.” Curious, I continued:“If you could change anything, what would you change?” “I’m deaf, that’s all,” Natalia answered.“I would be fine always being this way, being deaf. I feel like myself. I don’t know what to say, but I would be deaf, even if I could be born again, I would be born deaf the second time. It is what I am meant to be. It is the same as for you, being hearing.” I persisted.“But what if you would be reborn the only deaf person in Nicaragua— everyone else would be hearing—would you still choose to be born deaf?” “Me the only deaf one? No way. I remember being little, and how lonesome I felt, and it wasn’t until I went to school that I felt happy. I met other deaf children.What a wonderful surprise! It’s true that they didn’t use the sign language we have now; at that time, it was just gestures. But I was so happy to find myself with other deaf people. If I were the only deaf person, I just know I would have no hearing friends. I wouldn’t be able to understand them!” 2 Introduction Feeling that there was something more here, I asked, “And what if you could be reborn and there would be many, many deaf people—thousands and thousands— but there was no sign language? What if there were deaf people all over the place, but all of them only spoke with their mouths, orally, and none ever used their hands? Would you still choose to be born deaf?” “No, no, not that way. If there was sign language, yes, I would still choose to be deaf. It is impossible to understand only through speaking.With writing, you can get a little, but it is only so-so. But with sign language you can learn so much.” IN 1968, when Natalia was born in Nicaragua, there was no deaf community nor any commonly accepted form of sign language used by groups of deaf persons in that country. Until she went to school, Natalia believed she was the only deaf person in the world, and the only one shut out from understanding the mouth movements that served her parents, relatives, and neighbors so well. The realization that first school day, that others like her existed, was so profound for her, that even twenty-five years later, as she told of starting school, the joy of her discovery was palpable. Still, until she was a teenager, Natalia’s prognosis for participation in society depended on her ability to master oral communication—a skill with which she, like many other persons born with profound congenital hearing loss, has never had any success. In her teenage years, however, Natalia began to participate actively in what would become Nicaragua’s present deaf association, a group that used a language modality that was completely accessible to her—sign language. Participation in the deaf community opened a new world for her—one of unhindered communication and full participation as a social actor. Today, Natalia at times helps to support her family by sewing in the assembly plants in the free trade zone.1 She lives with her husband, who is also deaf, and her...

Share