I attended Madonna University. It’s close to Windsor, Ontario and Detroit. It had a deaf education program, where it welcomed deaf students from anywhere. The school had professors that were deaf, or not, but it even if not they knew how to do American Sign Language. I got to know many, many students that were deaf.
The “deaf culture” is a distinct culture. Those that cannot hear stay with their own kind. Some of them embrace cochlear implants, others do not. A lot of it had to do with whether or not they were genetically deaf, or if both of their parents were deaf. If they were raised in a family where hearing was not valued, because they were fine and had adapted to what the hearing call a “disability”, then they tended to frown upon cochlear implants. Others didn’t care one way or the other. Cochlear implants changed the lives of many students.
What I found fascinating was the lip-reading that everyone did. They were perfect at it, and they would let the hearing students know that they understood perfectly what the hearing were saying.
It was an interesting opportunity to learn about a different culture. I’ve never looked at deaf people the same, since. And I think I value my hearing a little more.
When I was a little kid I saw my first lip reader at my mom’s prayer meeting, and it absolutely fascinated me. (Has nothing to do with the fact that the girl was beautiful and I had an instant boyhood crush. Nothing, I tell you!) I learned some sign language years ago, but fell out of practice and can’t remember any of it.
Lip-reading is an amazing skill. I’ve encountered a couple lip readers and I tried to talk slower, but I yammer away at a rapid speed and both times the people told me “Slow down!” (As did some non-Americans I lived with, who, when they were drunk, would seek me out and start conversations about Clinton, because I’d get so wild they couldn’t understand me, and they’d fall down laughing.)
The deaf culture has factions, as you’ve noted. It’s all fascinating to me.
Some of those deafies are such fanatics I wouldn’t be surprised if a careful medical examination of all “deaf-children-of-deaf-parents” would reveal a monstrous conspiracy on the part of deaf parents to make damn sure their children were “born” deaf.
They are an awful tribe. Recall the New York Times Magazine article a few years back about the two deaf lesbians who wanted to find a sperm donor who was genetically deaf so their child could be one of them.
I also recall the way actress Marlee Matlin and former Miss Deaf U.S.A. Heather Whitestone were persecuted and cast out for marrying hearing men.
The Florida School For the Deaf is here in St. Augustine.
There is definitly a subculture, many deaf people don’t seem interested in joining society as a whole. There is some hostitlity towards implants, quite a few deaf people don’t want them for their kids. I think they are afraid of losing a child who can hear.