The Emergence of the Deaf Community in Nicaraugua: "With Sign Language You Can Learn So Much"

5. Being Deaf in Nicaragua in 1997

5 Being Deaf in Nicaragua in 1997 100 IN THE UNITED STATES, which probably has the most reliable statistics, the literature on Universal Newborn Hearing Screening programs indicates that 3 children in 1,000 are born with significant hearing loss (Schow and Nerbonne 1996). In other countries, fewer reliable figures are available. In Nicaragua, for example, there are no reliable figures available at all. No census, including the last one carried out in 1995, has ever included questions about the presence of deafness or blindness, etc.1 While the country’s Ministry of Health does record epidemiological statistics, hearing loss is usually not a primary medical complaint, nor is it life-threatening; thus it is not included in the epidemiological databases. There is no national health or educational database in Nicaragua capable of collecting reliable statistics on the topic of hearing loss and deafness. The exact number of deaf persons in Nicaragua is unknown, but through extrapolation from the rates of deafness prevalent in other countries , we would expect to find somewhere between 2,500 and 4,800 deaf adults in the whole country.2 If deaf persons were distributed in the same pattern as is the general population, we would expect to find between 900 and 1,800 of them living in or close to Managua.3 It must be noted that not all contemporary Nicaraguan deaf adults have had contact with the present deaf community: There are many still isolated within their birth homes, a few who choose not to have anything to do with other deaf people, and many who live in rural areas in which the concentration of deaf persons is so low that there is no access to any deaf group. The core of Nicaragua’s deaf community today is, undoubtedly, the group formed by the members of the National Nicaraguan Association of the Deaf (ANSNIC), which, in 1997, had a membership list with 359 names on it (but 3 are repetitions, so there are 356 different names on the list). The president of the association, Javier López Gómez, however, believed that 356 significantly underrepresented the membership, which he Being Deaf in Nicaragua in 1997 101 placed at closer to 600.4 He explained that obtaining an official association identification card involves multiple steps, including completion of a registration form (the majority of deaf persons have very low literacy skills) and the presentation of a certified birth record (the acquiring of which involves a fee to the local office of vital statistics) with two passport -size photographs (another charge). The association’s president believes that many persons who function as active members simply do not bother to complete the paperwork, and thus, are not included in the official list. From my personal observation, this is true, at least, of the younger members (i.e., those between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five who came to literacy classes in 1997), few of whom had membership cards. ANSNIC was formally organized in 1986 in Managua. For four years, Managua had the only organized group. In the late 1980s, the deaf association began to attract interested deaf persons from the Carazo region (e.g., the towns of San Marcos, Dolores, Diriamba, and Jinotepe), as well as from the Masaya region, both of which lie about an hour by bus from the capital. At first, they participated simply as members of the Managua group; but in 1990, a regional chapter was formed in San Marcos, and in ANSNIC entry in the parade for Day of the Disabled,August 1997 in Managua.Photo by Laura Polich. 102 Chapter 5 1993, members from Masaya formed the second regional chapter outside of the capital. In 1994, the hearing teacher for the deaf class in Matagalpa (three hours by bus from Managua) began to attend sign language classes in Managua on Saturdays, and she encouraged deaf adolescents to accompany her. These deaf young people began to participate in association activities in Managua and concurrently formed a small group at home with a broader membership . In 1995, Matagalpa officially became the third regional chapter. By 1997, there were also deaf groups meeting in Tipitapa (about 10 km. outside the northeast city limits of Managua), León (a large city two hours northwest from Managua), Belén (close to Rivas, near the Costa Rican border), Bluefields (on the southeast Atlantic Coast), and Estelí (a large city three hours northwest of...