Where Do I Fit In?

Presented by Lucy Miller

Lucy Miller is a marriage and family counselor who was born deaf and educated orally. Here's her story.

For more coverage of this great convention, please point your browser to http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/hlorg/alda/cn/2006/2006.htm

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When I was growing up, there were two groups of people with hearing loss: deaf and hard of hearing. And which group a person was in depended on his audiogram.

But there was also a second way to divide people: oralists and manualist.

Some oralists could speak well and others couldn't; some could lipread well and others couldn't. The thing that united them was that they preferred spoken language over sign language. Oralists and mainstream society considered manualists to be inferior, in part because they were more conspicuous. So parents wanted their children to be oralists!

The children who were able to speak well were recruited by the John Tracy Clinic and the Alexander Graham Bell Association to give demonstrations for parents who were trying to decide between the oralist approach and the manualist approach for their children. I was one of the children who did this, often reading a story or reciting a poem in front of a group of parents. In retrospect I think it was a little pathetic - a deaf kid pretending to be hearing.

I inherited and lived with my parents' shame at having a defective child.

When I became old enough I started school, and within a month I had flunked out of first grade! I was labeled retarded. Then my mother put me in a Christian boarding school, which was the only place that would take me. This place was like something you would read about in a Charles Dickens novel!

I was the only deaf kid in the school, and the only Jewish kid. I was also short, chubby, uncoordinated, and I talked funny. I was always the last one picked when kids were choosing up sides. I was always the butt of everyone's jokes.

Of course I hated it. I told my mom, and she told me to stop complaining! So I was stuck. And I started looking for a way out. The school was surrounded by a tall fence with barbed wire on top, so climbing out was impossible. And the gate had someone watching it whenever it was open.

But one day I noticed the gate open and no one there, so I took off! I walked to the corner and stopped; I wasn't allowed to cross the street by myself. So I waited for someone to come along, and I crossed with them! I went on like this for a long time, but I had no idea where I was going.

After awhile it started to get cold. And I was hungry and had to go to the bathroom! Then I noticed two policemen walking towards me. I turned and ran, but they caught me in about ten seconds! They tried to talk to me, but I wouldn't say a word. My parents had taught me not to talk to strangers, and they never added, "except policemen".

They took me to a drive-in restaurant, and pretty soon they handed me a hamburger and milkshake. I had never had either before, and I wolfed them down! So they ordered me another hamburger, and I ate that too!

Then we drove to the police station and I thought I was going to jail. But they took me to one of the rooms, where a woman was pacing back and forth! It was my Aunt Jeanette, and she was so happy to see me!

I didn't have to go back to the boarding school. I was enrolled in an oral day school. Signing was forbidden, but whenever the teacher's back was turned the kids would start signing. That's where I first learned a little sign.

I started wearing a hearing aid in Junior High, because a teacher told my mom that I had to have one. She didn't get me one before, because it was too conspicuous! I don't know if she ever thought about the fact that it might help me hear. I inherited her shame, of course. So I did everything I could to hide the hearing aid - long, frizzy hair, high-neck blouses, loose clothing, etc.

During my senior year the president of Gallaudet was on a recruiting trip and I talked to him. He invited me to come visit Gallaudet, and I did! It was fascinating for me to see a whole college where everyone signed, and I filled out an application. But my parents were opposed to my going to Gallaudet, because they didn't want me to sign. So I went to UCLA with no support services. I was afraid to tell anyone I couldn't hear, because I thought they would kick me out! Of course I didn't do well.

So for the next ten years I failed at everything - academics, marriage, and career.

In the sixties things started to change. Along came the Civil Rights movement, followed by feminism, Deaf power, etc. and deaf people began to take pride in their deaf identity. The California State University at Northridge (CSUN) opened a leadership training program for deaf students. We had interpreters, so deafness wasn't a handicap. That's when I began to develop my identity as a deaf person.

Then technology improved, Deaf President Now happened, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and we realized that we had a right to equal access. We began to see a movement away from deafness as a pathology and towards deafness as just another characteristic.

Now there are no longer two groups, but many. And there are many organizations representing the various groups. The oldest is the National Association of the Deaf, which represents mainly people who are culturally Deaf. Nearly as old is the Alexander Graham Bell Association, which represents the oralists. Then there's TDI, which focuses on technology and advocacy. There's the Hearing Loss Association of America (formerly SHHH), which focuses on hard of hearing people who benefit from assistive technology. And there's the Association of Late Deafened Adults (ALDA), which is more for people who don't benefit so much from assistive technology.

People look at all these groups and wonder why there are so many and where they fit in. Tomorrow night we'll have a panel with the leaders of many of these organizations, and we'll be able to ask them some of these questions.