Deafness and the Riddle of Identity

Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://chronicle.com/

N

1

Language Minorities; Deafness; Social Influences; Social Status; Minority Groups; Cultural Differences; American Sign Language; Ethnicity; Cultural Influences; Identification (Psychology); Social Bias

0009-5982

In the past, much discrimination against deaf people was based on the assumption that they were in fact people without language--that is, dumb. "Dumb" carried the sense of being not only mute but also stupid, as in a "dumb" animal. The status of deaf people has changed in important ways, as deaf activists and scholars have reshaped the idea of deafness, using the civil-rights movement as a model for the struggle to form a deaf identity. Deaf people came to be seen not just as hearing-impaired, but as a linguistic minority, isolated from the dominant culture because that culture didn't recognize or use ASL. In this article, the author argues that defining the deaf or any other social group in terms of ethnicity, minority status, and nationhood (including "deaf world" and "deaf culture") is outdated, outmoded, imprecise, and strategically risky. One would be better off expanding one's current notions of identity by being less Procrustean and more flexible.

ERIC

2007

EJ755973