Translator: Jenna Wahl Reviewer: Theresa Ranft
(Offstage voice) ASL interpreter: The term "deaf" evokes a response.
I'm on stage, I'm giving my talk in American Sign Language.
That may not be what you expected.
You may be wondering if I can hear, if I will speak.
You may be trying to figure out where the interpreter is.
Your thoughts and questions are derived from your ideology.
We have been socialized to think that everyone we encounter will speak.
That's a very phonocentric point of view.
And I'm here to tell you that this ideology is limited.
I know firsthand just how limited people can be in their understanding.
It's often disorienting for people to meet me for the first time
because I use my first language when I communicate.
I'm in the bank and I meet "deer in headlights."
It doesn't really help me.
Or it could be at the customer service desk
trying to figure out what my concern is,
and I'm met with, "Hey! I don't know what to do with this lady.
Can someone come help me?"
As if I'm the one with the problem.
Or, on occasion, my family goes to a restaurant and I'm ordering my food
and I get the "doesn't know the difference between deaf and blind",
who hands me a braille menu.
(Laughter)
That happens!
So, as I mentioned, the ideology is limited,
and in our society we have created a narrative
that has stigmatized deaf people.
Assumptions are made that a deaf person may be isolated,
uneducated, or without language.
And that narrative is so ingrained,
it's in our social media, it's in the articles you read,
the things that you see, and it's even reached the CDC.
If you go to the CDC website and search "deaf",
it's there listed as a condition along with every other disease.
Think about that, the Center for Disease Control.
A disease!
Can I ask you, do I look diseased to you?
This value system has strongly impacted how people view me.
The phonocentric value that someone must speak and hear
has been equated with intelligence.
And when a person does not speak or hear they are viewed as inferior.
They receive a lower status in our society.
Our value systems are just at odds with one another.
The value of speaking and hearing is one thing,
but on the other hand, you look at the deaf community,
and our value is on American Sign Language.
The research has been done.
Our language is bona fide
and there's a cultural community that is supported by it.
People in this community develop their identity from the use of ASL.
Now, identity and identification are two separate things.
Identification is something that comes from an outsider.
In our society deaf has been conflated with disability,
so we endure these terms of handicap, hearing impaired, and disabled.
I remember I was on a business trip and I was on my layover.
I was trying to catch my connecting flight
and I had a suitcase with a defective wheel,
so I'm really booking it, struggling with this damn suitcase,
and I finally get to the gate and one of the airline agents comes up to me
and tells me that I can't bring my bag onto the plane
because it's so small, so I have to stow the baggage.
So we ticket the baggage and my bag is stowed.
I take flight, and after we land I'm getting off the airplane
and I see an airline agent with a sign with my name on it,
and she's standing behind a wheelchair.
So I stand back, I'm waiting for my luggage anyway,
I'm just observing what's happening,
and there are lines of people passing her by.
So I'm done watching her because my bag has arrived,
but then I remember my defective wheel.
So I go to the woman and she starts to get the wheelchair ready for me,
but instead, I take my suitcase and say,
"Oh, I'm so glad you have a wheelchair for my disabled bag."
(Laughter)
(Applause)
So let's talk about that.
Who determined that I'm disabled?
Oftentimes in our society we look to the experts,
those people who are academics and scholars.
I would say that the group of people
who have been making decisions up until this point are specialists,
and specialists do not possess cultural and language competency.
Instead, can't we look for those scholars and academics
who have the life experience as a deaf person?
They know how a deaf person experiences this life.
So let me ask you who you think the experts are.
I think it's pretty clear.
I want to make that distinction between experts and specialists
because these people have impacted the educational system of deaf children.
I have several experiences from my time when I navigated this broken system.
In elementary school I was placed in a program,
and I remember coming into the classroom and I saw another girl who was deaf.
So naturally I started signing with her, and I was approached by the teacher
who very quickly pulled me out to the hallway
and asked me to put my hands out.
She took a ruler and slapped my hands to discourage me from using my language,
and it was the first of many times that my identity was suppressed.
Later in middle school,
just like any other teenager I wanted to be with my friends
and you have lots of conversations with your friends,
whether that be in the classroom or not,
but oftentimes I was pulled away from my peers to be in speech training.
This was an exercise in futility.
I wanted to be with my friends, I wanted that collective experience,
and that was just another point where my identity was suppressed.
Later in high school I remember I was approaching graduation,
and I was looking to the future thinking about what I was going to do.
I had this grand vision that I'd become a flight attendant.
I really did want to become a flight attendant,
the reason being my dad was a world traveler,
and I really wanted to have those same kinds of experiences,
and I thought, "Hey, if I can travel the world and get paid for it,
that's the job for me."
So I go into a meeting with my high school guidance counselor,
and we're having this conversation about what I'm going to do in the future.
I tell her I'm going to be a flight attendant,
and she says, "Oh, Marika, don't be silly, that's impossible.
Honey, you're deaf!
You'll never be able to hear what they're saying on the airline.
I think I have a better job for you, you should become an accountant,
you like numbers right?"
Well, that was true, I did like numbers, but it wasn't my true passion.
So it was again a time where I felt my identity slipping away.
I could have let that system
and those oppressive experiences determine my future,
but luckily I had my parents there along the way
supporting me and helping me figure my way through it all.
I didn't have the cultural-linguistic experts
that would have helped me navigate that system,
but I had my parents.
There are 2,300 deaf and hard of hearing students
who are placed in the public school system in our state.
And not all of those students are in a classroom
that's designed to optimize their education,
because this educational system has been designed by these specialists.
Let's just imagine what would those classrooms look like
if the cultural-linguistic experts were the ones designing them.
The classroom would be optimized for the deaf child.
But guess what? Every other child in that classroom would be benefiting.
They would be benefiting from using a visual language.
All children would benefit from having that perspective available
in the design of the classroom.
All children would gain something.
And when I say gain I don't mean economic gain,
there's a big difference here.
The gains that have been made from exploiting deaf people
by medical advancements and the profits that people have made,
that's not the kind of gain I'm talking about.
I'm talking about deaf gain.
Dr. Dirksen Bauman and Joseph Murray
wrote a book about deaf gain.
They have defined this thinking
as a way of looking at the world in a different way,
and understanding and valuing a deaf perspective and their expertise.
The skills that a deaf person has
can be used to contribute to society.
Here at UWM we have an American Sign Language studies program.
When that program was beginning and just in its budding phase, I joined the staff,
and today this program has grown exponentially.
There are over 500 students that enroll every semester.
And the reason that has happened
is because I have contributed my expertise as a deaf person,
in being able to design a classroom
and design a program that can help students,
and everyone is able to benefit.
The university has gained something by us being on this campus.
Deaf people are on this earth for a reason.
We are part of human biodiversity,
and if you're familiar with evolution
you know that occasionally there are species that will cease to exist.
Deaf people have been on this earth for thousands and thousands of years,
we're still here.
We have endured many attempts to eradicate us.
And no matter what people have tried, we are still here.
And I believe it's for a specific reason.
We are here and we are human just like you.
We have human experiences just like everyone else.
Set aside the physiological function of hearing and speaking,
and you will see that.
And what I mean about being human, it's what we all experience:
life, joy,
tears, inspiration,
heartbreak, death, and birth.
That is what makes us who we are.
I remember when I was pregnant with my daughter who is my third born,
it was the middle of the night and I woke up to my water breaking.
I quickly woke my husband, and said, "Honey, it's time, we got to get ready."
So that's what we did,
we got in the car and got ourselves on the way to the hospital.
When we got in the car and started off,
I realized I had reached the point of no return.
My husband is still driving and he's checking in on me,
and I said, "Honey, I'm sorry."
Because he was still driving and in my next contraction my baby was born.
(Laughter)
So he's driving, I'm delivering the baby, I've got her in my arms,
she's crying so I tell him, "She's fine, I'm fine,
just get us to the hospital!"
So that's what we do.
He's driving fast and furious and caught the attention of a police officer.
Now we're in a high-speed chase, we're getting close to the hospital
and when we get there, there are three or four other squad cars waiting for us.
I'm still in the car waiting to see what's going to happen.
My husband jumps out of the car and comes around to the side,
and once the officers saw that I had the baby in my arms they backed off.
They did what they had to do,
they got the stretcher and I was brought into the hospital,
and they were trying to take my husband in another direction
until they realized he needed to be with me.
We got into the hospital and up to the birth center.
I still remember clearly the moment when those doors opened.
The nurses were running thinking I was going to be laboring
and instead saw me holding the baby,
so they bring me to the room and had to shift gears very quickly.
So they were checking on the baby, checking on me, taking care of both of us.
And we were all there together in that moment.
Then the nurse looked and realized that my husband and I were deaf,
and the connection we had been experiencing was severed completely.
We both became very stressed,
her stress was around trying to find an interpreter,
and my stress was around the fact that we had just lost that connection.
So right now in this moment
I want you to think about your thoughts, your feelings.
We're all connected through this story.
You're seeing me as I see deaf people.
I hope that your ideology has been expanded to include
the definition of deaf people to be a cultural-linguistic group of people.
I want you to remember this as you leave today,
and react differently.
Thank you.
(Applause)