Inside Deaf Culture

Other reviews here have touched on some of the specific points made in the book, so I would like to share instead my personal reaction to this book. What struck me the most is the tension running through each chapter between community and coercion. The very early history of schools for the deaf in the United States is inseparable from the growing introduction in the early nineteenth century of the expert management of civil society. Like prisons or asylums for the insane, schools for the deaf exercised direct control over student's bodies, starting from the fact that the institution became the legal guardian of the student. This coercive placement, both physical and social, however, represented for many student's their first encounter with other deaf people, with whom they would often form life-long friendships. This was, and continues even today to be, such a strong identity forming process, that many students considered these schools the places they "were from", and not the towns or cities they were born in. This is something that I have thought about often since reading this book, for it brings me to questions about the ways in which we negotiate our identity with the people and institutions around us, which can provide us with growth and with pain at the same time. This touched me the most in the moving accounts of both suffering and profound connection that the authors are intimately familiar with.

Inside Deaf Culture chronicles and engages the emergence and acceptance of the concept of Deaf culture. Padden and Humphries situate themselves as children of a historical period during which the idea of Deaf culture had not yet emerged, while asserting that Deaf culture did already exist as a culture. As the debate over Deaf culture and language arose during their college years, their account of the history and development of a group identity among deaf people therefore intersects with their own biographies. They argue that the self-definition as a culture allowed Deaf people a sense of wholeness as both Deaf people and hearing people learned to see the Deaf community as culturally rich and empowered. They examine influential moments in the history of that community, showing throughout how the themes of the challenge of voice and of the struggle against power imbalances resonate from the nineteenth century, with its prevalence of oralism, asylums, and eugenics, to the twenty first century, and the emergence of cochlear implants and the Human Genome Project. The theme of the struggle for voice is fundamental to Padden and Humphries's account. Deaf culture emerges to be recognized as a whole culture like other cultures, but nonetheless it does have its own distinct political goals. Padden and Humphries show the enduring impact of the nineteenth-century schools for the deaf, with their censure of sign language and their insistence on oralist teaching methods. They assert that, because of these early forms of segregation and separation, the struggle for the use and management of voice, and to make sign language intelligible, is the basis for nearly every political act within the Deaf community. They chronicle the shift in public perception of the Deaf, from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, when deafness and muteness were linked, to the means by which new links were forged, connecting deaf culture with spoken voice; from the conception of speech and language as inseparable to the recent recognition by a hearing world of American Sign Language as a language. The theme of the struggle against power imbalances is also central. Again, Padden and Humphries stress the historical legacy of the early-nineteenth-century asylums, the practices of which-naming, management, classification, control, separation-constitute the imbalance of power inherent to these institutions. They discuss the conflictual nature of that legacy, as even while the institution made deaf children vulnerable to abuses of power it also forged them into a sign language community. This conflict remains unresolved, as the authors question how deaf children can be educated within a community, which is what Deaf people want, without repeating the patterns of the nineteenth-century asylum where the Deaf are rendered powerless. The concluding chapter discusses the contemporary situation and the continued relevance of these two themes in the current age of cochlear impla

Inside Deaf Culture examines the history of the deaf community and the emergence of Deaf culture. This history encompasses the institutionalization of deaf children in special schools, the Deaf clubs that provided a space for advocacy and socializing, the Deaf performances that acknowledged and encouraged the creativity through sign, and the debates within and out of the Deaf community about Deaf culture and the legitimacy of American Sign Language. Throughout the book, Padden and Humphries trace and examine the separation and control of Deaf people. They use interviews, personal memories, and historical documents to give a variety of perspectives on what the institutionalization of the Deaf into special schools has meant for the Deaf community. They explore how even the earliest separations of children - by gender, race, and teaching method - impacted the community as the children grew up. These issues are brought into the present as Padden & Humphries discuss cochlear implants. Padden and Humphries also discuss the internal and external struggle to recognize Deaf culture. Having experienced the struggles themselves, the authors fully recognize that the legitimization of Deaf culture and American Sign Language did not come easily. They do an excellent job of how Deaf culture allowed the Deaf community a "thread of connection to the past" (161) while also recognizing that Deaf culture and ASL was not always greeted positively or without suspicions, even within the Deaf community. The book is easy to read and provides a fascinating look into the struggles of Deaf culture, past and present.

Inside Deaf Culture presents a beautifully well-written, grounded, and historical exploration of Deaf culture. The book is in part about ASL as a medium for cultural expression. It is also about the history of Deaf culture, its struggle for recognition and struggle with questions of what it means to be a culture. Culture cannot be defined by a dictionary nor reduced to theatrical performance. Rather, it is practices in everyday life. How then, the authors ask, does one define culture or declare who is a member of that culture? Where are the boundaries? Padden and Humphries find that cultures give us spaces of separation and inclusion. They describe the segregation the Deaf community has experienced from without and within by institution, race, teaching methods, how a person became deaf, extent of hearing-loss, and adoption of technology to help hear. As deaf people are constrained through the management of their bodies, these boundaries can also be liberating as ideas and goals are shared, new practices developed, new spaces of belonging created. The authors also demonstrates through the history of the Deaf community how shifts in physical geographies lead to shifts in social relations from which emerge shifts in language and culture. As physical boundaries disappear (such as a decrease in the number of deaf educational institutions and community gathering spaces), language is used to stake out new edges. Boundaries become mediated through voice and sign, not fences. The book emphasizes that culture exists within a history made up of individuals, social forces and conflicts. Padden and Humphries show very well how the border between the body and the world is always mediated (for example, through ASL), changing, and reiterated in every moment through the circumstances of the present. This book can be helpful to anyone working with the idea of culture. Not only does it provide a solid example of a good analysis, but it opened my eyes to the nuances of what culture means and the importance of individuals in the larger cultural scheme.

Inside Deaf Culture; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 224 pages Inside Deaf Culture is written by two well-known professors of ASL and Deaf Studies. Both authors are Deaf and in the later chapters, discuss their different backgrounds. I would recommend this book to anyone studying Deaf Culture, ASL, linguistics, anthropology, social change in America, Deaf people, parents of Deaf children, educators and any one else interested in the history and struggles of minority groups. The book can also be used as a Deaf history reference book for Deaf and hard of hearing students. In the book, the authors describe Deaf life in America from the beginning of the country to the present age. In so doing, they poignantly write about the blight of Deaf in America over the years. The book includes some less than glowing reports about the motives of people who were instrumental establishing some of the earliest schools for the Deaf in the county. The authors tell us of abuses of power and scandals that occurred in some of these early schools. The authors describe how historically, people in positions of authority who made decisions for and about what Deaf people could and could not do at school, work and in communities were usually hearing. Even so, early in the history of Deaf in America, schools for the Deaf played an enormous role in bringing Deaf people together. The authors also tell us how early United States history, the hearing community practices of segregating Africa Americans was also reflected in early Deaf education and in the Deaf community. The accounts are told with frankness. We learn how Deaf people were often discriminated against as a group. We also learn how this discrimination was even more oppressive for Deaf African-Americans. In summary, the book contains an abundance of information the history of the Deaf community in the United States. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the Deaf community.