Through Deaf Eyes: A Reaction in Three Acts

Act I: Interest

• “Deafness is usually one generation thick”
• There are several million hard of hearing individuals in the U.S.
• 300,000 of these are profoundly deaf

Neither population, geography, nor genetics can hold this obviously tight-knit community together. Then what does? Common language and shared experience.

The language aspect first started to be codified by Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc in the late 1700s and early 1800s in the form of signs from French Sign Language combined with native signs from America.

Act II: Shock

Through history the overarching experience of the deaf has been ostracism, ridicule, misunderstanding and downright oppression.

I had a hard time comprehending, even believing, the latter of these descriptors before watching Through Deaf Eyes. Regardless of their motives, the actions of the early oralists set the stage for more than a half century of institutional antagonism towards deaf Americans.

I found it shocking that Alexander Graham Bell, with the best interests of the deaf at heart, would set into motion, and participate in, events that would cause perhaps the greatest injury to the deaf community in the twentieth century.

A. G. Bell’s goals were combined with two movements: Nativism (a belief that immigrants should assimilate completely into American culture) and Eugenics (using social engineering and selective breeding designed to wipe out undesirable traits in humans). He argued that ASL was an un-American language and that schools for the deaf should be using oralist methods, and he argued to keep deaf individuals from meeting and marrying, hence perpetuating the trait genetically.

This tragically resulted in systematic efforts to keep deaf individuals apart.

Act III: Fascination

One of the most fascinating events described in the documentary was the research that English Professor William Stokoe did at Gallaudet University starting in 1955. Against the opinions of both the deaf community and hearing academics, Stokoe pursued the study of ASL as a true language in its own right. The Deaf community still saw their native sign as an inferior form of expression to English, even as they held it close as a unique, unifying force.

William Stokoe persisted in his exploration, and in time as he documented the linguistic and grammatical aspects of this beautiful visual and gestural language, both the Deaf community and the larger hearing world began to, as he put is, see that there was “nothing broken or inadequate about sign language.”

Epilogue

This is not even a summary of Through Deaf Eyes, and a proper summary would be several pages. These are some aspects of my reaction to this amazing documentary, one which I will watch many times over. The opening lines are from a song I heard on the radio on the way home from class, and they captured the spirit and vitality of the Deaf community as described in the documentary.