To Hear the Deaf

by Jessica Guo

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I usually start writing with an outline detailing every argument and supporting evidence that I’m going to use, while also trying to be flexible as I write, following the natural flow of thoughts. By the time I submitted my 2nd draft of this essay, I had already gained a clear understanding of the story I wanted to tell. There was only one thing that I was unsure about: how to end it. I brought it to a Tandon EWP faculty member, but she started to criticize my work without even fully examining it. Frustrated, I brought it back to Prof. Edwards before the final revision and he not only provided helpful feedback on how to construct an ending but also gave me the confidence to follow the established path of my argument. I think that’s an important lesson for everyone. Don’t be intimidated by others’ comments because, at the end of the day, you are the most authentic reader of your work. Be brave, be bold.

Last semester was also a transition period for me as I started to take more advanced Social & Cultural Analysis courses that deal with the more subtle intersections between race, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability in our everyday lives. It was a refreshing experience being introduced to Disability Studies as an able-bodied person. Everyone lives in this world as a cultural being and I consider it my responsibility to challenge certain cultural hierarchies that we follow, consciously or subconsciously. I’m glad that I used this progression as an opportunity to challenge the way that many people, myself included, used to (and still do) think about (dis)ability. 

—Jessica Guo


It was a Monday morning. The flag climbed up the pole as we sang the national anthem. When the music stopped, a girl appeared on the stage to deliver a speech. I can’t remember the topic now; all I remember is the way she spoke—like an accent, but not quite. The students started murmuring, asking why this person was giving a speech. Five minutes later, the vice principal appeared on the stage. He thanked the girl and explained to the student body that she was deaf, and wore a cochlear implant and a hearing aid. Now it all made sense; on the way back to the classroom, we nodded and continued about our school day as if the morning’s assembly never happened.

It was not until years later, when I began to learn about the field of Disability Studies and watched the documentary Sound and Fury, that I came to appreciate the strong social fabric of Deaf culture and the profound implications behind the implant the girl in my middle school wore. The film, directed by Josh Aronson, centers around Peter Artinian and his brother Chris. Peter, his wife Nita, and all of their children are deaf, while Chris and his wife Mari are both hearing. When one of their twins is born deaf, hearing parents Chris and Mari decide to get their infant son a cochlear implant, while deaf parents Peter and Nita reject this idea for their daughter Heather, who is also deaf. During the film, Peter and Nita  move away from their extended family to live in a community in Maryland that is more supportive of Deaf culture.

 When they decide not to get a cochlear implant for Heather, Peter and Nita are accused of “abusive behavior” by their family. Peter responds bitterly, “My mother thinks it’s tragic that Heather can’t speak like a hearing person and I know that some people think that deaf people not implanting their children is abusive. But you know what? It’s the same thing with hearing people. They automatically implant their children and they don’t know anything at all about deafness and I say that’s abusive” (Sound and Fury, 00:51:15-00:51:37). The question naturally arises, what is it about deafness and Deaf culture that hearing people fail to understand?

In her article “Sound and Fury; or Much Ado about Nothing? Cochlear Implants in Historical Perspective,” R. A. R. Edwards writes: “one can be deaf without necessarily being Deaf” (894). The difference between being “deaf” and “culturally Deaf” corresponds directly to the Artinian family’s different understandings of deafness, and centers on  the question of Deaf culture. In her detailed historical account, Edwards articulates not only what it means to participate in Deaf culture but also the historical context that led to the Deaf community’s rejection of technological methods to “cure” deafness, including hearing aids and cochlear implants. The key to understanding “deafness” on its own terms, Edwards suggests, is recognizing that Deaf culture has “a different center” (Padden and Humpries, qtd. in Edwards 894). For hearing people, deafness is seen as a medical condition, as something that needs to be cured. But for deaf people, especially culturally Deaf people, not being able to hear does not undermine their ability to function, and is therefore not a “disability” in the common understanding of the word. Just as hearing people are native users of various oral languages, deaf people are native users of sign language. The notion of a “cure” suggests that an ailment exists in the first place—a notion the Deaf community rejects.

Eunjung Kim offers a more rigorous definition in her book Curative Violence. She writes, “I approach cure in two ways: first, as a crossing of times and categories through metamorphosis, and second, as a transaction of gains and negotiation that involves various effects, including the uncertainty of gains and the possibility of harms—caused by what I call ‘curative violence’—as well as what are considered benefits” (10). Within the Artinian family, the “cure” is a cochlear implant that enhances hearing ability. Peter was concerned that if his deaf daughter Heather received an implant, she would never find her way in the Deaf community, and would therefore lose her connection to her deaf family. To Peter, the cochlear implant represents a cultural crossing through a bodily transition. Not only is the procedure itself “invasive,” Peter argues, when weighed against the loss of emotional and cultural connection, the potential gains of hearing do not seem to be balanced or even guaranteed (00:08:20-00:08:21). The Artinian grandparents’ continuous pressure on Peter and Nita reflects Kim’s concept of curative violence influenced by the greater social landscape.

Without using the term exactly, Edwards applies this “curative violence” concept to the Deaf culture context. She starts the argument by introducing how the concept of Oralism, which “was never merely a pedagogy,” that emphasizes lip-reading and speech therapy and forbids all forms of signed language, “drew deeply from another late nineteenth-century strain of thought, namely, eugenics” (901). Oralism, Edwards argues, aims to eliminate the Deaf community because of “its foreignness and difference” (902). Of course, the Deaf community rejects this framing and fights back fiercely with different strategies. Edwards reminds us that when the hearing aid was invented in the twentieth century, “the timing of its introduction and the taint imparted by its early adoption in oral classrooms almost guaranteed that many in the Deaf community . . . would see it as both eugenic and oralist in its implications” (902). Deaf Americans have responded similarly to cochlear implants today.