Table Of ContentA Lens on Deaf Identities
Perspectives on Deafness
Series Editors
Marc Marschark
Patricia Elizabeth Spencer
The World of Deaf Infants: A Longitudinal Study
Kathryn P. Meadow-Orlans, Patricia Elizabeth Spencer,
and Lynn Sanford Koester
Sign Language Interpreting and Interpreter Education: Directions
for Research and Practice
Edited by Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson, and
Elizabeth A. Winston
Advances in the Sign Language Development of
Deaf Children
Edited by Brenda Schick, Marc Marschark, and Patricia
Elizabeth Spencer
Advances in the Spoken Language Development of Deaf and
Hard-of-Hearing Children
Edited by Patricia Elizabeth Spencer and Marc Marschark
The Gestural Origin of Language
David F. Armstrong and Sherman E. Wilcox
Deaf Cognition: Foundations and Outcomes
Edited by Marc Marschark and Peter C. Hauser
A Lens on Deaf Identities
Irene W. Leigh
A Lens on Deaf Identities
Irene W. Leigh
1
2009
1
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Copyright © 2009, by Irene W. Leigh
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leigh, Irene.
A lens on deaf identities / Irene W. Leigh.
p. ; cm.—(Perspectives on deafness)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-532066-4
1. Deafness. 2. Identity (Psychology) I. Title. II. Series.
[DNLM: 1. Deafness—psychology. 2. Self Concept. 3. Social Identifi cation.
WV 270 L528L 2009]
HV2395.L35 2009
362.4’2—dc22 2008034961
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
FOREWORD
To naïve observers, deaf people are a little like the Borg in the Star Trek
fi lms. Deaf people think alike, behave alike, and have the same life
experience. You meet one deaf person, you’ve met them all. This anti-
quated, one-size-fi ts-all approach persists, even in this day and age.
In A Lens on Deaf Identities, Irene W. Leigh gives us exciting insight into
one of the most diverse groups of people alive today. Deaf people share
a common trait: hearing loss severe enough that their lives, and indeed
their world views, are primarily visually and spatially oriented.
Dr. Leigh opens by writing about identity and labeling—two of the
basic instincts that humans use in trying to classify other humans.
By addressing these issues early on, Dr. Leigh prepares her readers to
retreat from the phenomenology of the deaf experience and to focus
on the diverse nature of deaf and hard-of-hearing people and the deaf
community.
The multidisciplinary approach of A Lens on Deaf Identities does not
cover everything you might want or expect. However, it will certainly
prompt you to explore further. Dr. Leigh raises more questions than
answers. This will certainly engender vigorous academic discourse.
Dr. Leigh goes where few scholars are willing to venture. She has
combined scholarly research with an autobiography. In so doing, she
has produced a work that gives her readers rare insight into the diver-
sity of deaf people. Through Dr. Leigh’s cogent and powerful schol-
arship, she breaks down preconceived societal notions about deaf
people.
Dr. Leigh promotes no agenda, nor does she offer solutions. Rather,
she presents her audience with a broad tapestry. On its face, this is a
psychology text, but Dr. Leigh covers a broad range of disciplines so
seamlessly that the reader hardly notices her segues. I commend this
book to anyone who wants to learn more about deaf people and the
deaf community through the eyes of a distinguished deaf scholar.
I think it is important to explain my own relationship with Dr. Leigh.
I met her for the fi rst time in 1969, when I was a student at the Lexington
School for the Deaf, and she was the school’s new director of guidance
v
vi Foreword
services. My fi rst contact with her was very affi rming. She emanated
positive energy and great optimism for her work. I knew that she was
deaf like me, but that she was somewhat different.
I may not have understood fully then, but I do now. I had deaf par-
ents and a younger deaf brother. My entire family used American Sign
Language (ASL) as its primary means of communication. In contrast,
Ms. Leigh was raised using oral/aural methods of communication. At
that time, Lexington espoused oral/aural methods; thus, Ms. Leigh
and I communicated orally. Despite this difference, she was easily
approachable. She made other students and me feel that we were very
much welcome in her presence.
Today, it is a refl ection of our diverse, pluralistic society that we see
so many different cultural facets experienced by different deaf people.
Some of us grew up with family members who are deaf; others grew up
being the only deaf member of the family. All of us have experienced
events and situations that can be experienced only by those of us who
are deaf. There is always a commonality; yet there are differences that
set us apart as well. Dr. Leigh will help you understand these similar-
ities and differences.
Since joining the Gallaudet University faculty in 1992, Dr. Leigh
has been an exemplary scholar. She taught in our APA-approved pro-
gram in clinical psychology. She is now chair of the department of psy-
chology. She conducts empirical and applied research, and publishes
widely. She serves her department, her school, and the university in a
staggering number of roles, and gives each role more than 100 percent.
I am not exaggerating when I say that every time I turn around, Dr.
Leigh seems to be working on a new book. She is oft-cited in the liter-
ature. She has become a mentor to many new scholars, guiding them
through the intricacies of writing dissertations, submitting research for
publication, and writing and publishing that elusive fi rst book.
Dr. Leigh is one of the most highly respected professors at Gallaudet
University today. She was named our Distinguished Faculty Member
in 2003. She has inspired countless people through her high stan-
dards and her unceasing pursuit of excellence. Some of her colleagues
in the department of psychology have adopted a new verb—to be
“Ireneized”—as an endearing term of affection. Quite simply, no one
can spend time with her and not feel her energy and her infl uence.
Forty years after our fi rst meeting, I continue to ask Dr. Leigh for
advice and words of wisdom. It is an honor to be colleagues with her.
Stephen F. Weiner, Ed.D.
Provost
Gallaudet University
Preface
What are the questions that prompt this journey, and why is it important to undertake it?
Robert Kegan (1982, p. 2)
A number of years ago, I was told by an oral deaf woman that I was
not deaf. She claimed she was the one who was deaf, not me. She never
went to a school for the deaf, she disavowed the deaf community, and
she had never used a hearing aid. Yet she claimed that because I can
use a hearing aid, even though I also must rely on speechreading, I am
not deaf. I protested! I am deaf to the heart and core of my being, but in
her eyes, I did not fi t her conceptualization of “deaf.”
A deaf acquaintance recently questioned whether I am truly deaf
despite the fact that I socialized with deaf peers while growing up,
have never been separate from the Deaf* community wherever I have
lived, and have the ability to understand and communicate with differ-
ent constituents of this community. Again, I protested. But clearly, our
conceptualizations of my deaf identity did not match.
When I was a child attending what would be described today as
a large oral-based mainstream program for deaf and hard-of-hearing
children within a city public school that served the hearing children
of its neighborhood, I recall no fi ghts over hearing-deaf issues or how
to communicate. We were all deaf and unifi ed by that common bond.
There were signing deaf children of deaf parents at my school. We
knew peers attending the state school for the deaf, but never did I sense
that there was such a thing as “us” versus “them.”
Because I can talk, deaf children from a culturally Deaf family who
saw me speaking while ordering food at restaurants thought I was
hearing, even though I typically used American Sign Language (ASL)
or Contact Sign (ASL mixed with English sign order) with them. Their
* “Deaf” refers to deaf people as a cultural group while “deaf” denotes the
audiological condition of severe to profound hearing loss.
vii
viii Preface
parents had to disabuse them of this perception. Is it typical to disqual-
ify deaf persons who can talk from being Deaf? Does this mean that
even if I am seen signing, when I am seen speaking, I am therefore
“hearing?”
When I speak to supermarket cashiers, they hear the voice of a deaf
person. Surprisingly often they will respond to me as a Deaf person
and acknowledge that I need visual communication by attempting to
sign a simple concept such as “Thank you.” This is very affi rming for
me and for Deaf individuals who prefer to use ASL, but not for those
deaf individuals who prefer spoken language. These individuals will
often develop standard answers to demonstrate they are not sign lan-
guage users and perhaps to show their resentment at being automati-
cally categorized as something they are not.
Again and again, I see deaf persons giving themselves or being given
different identity labels. These labels include Deaf, deaf, oral deaf, Oral
Hearing Loss, hearing impaired, acquired hearing loss, hard of hear-
ing, deaf with a “hearing mind,” Black Deaf, Deaf and Hispanic, People
of the Eye, and so on. At times, to identify themselves more descrip-
tively, deaf persons will use phrases such as “I have a hearing loss,”
“I’m deaf and I have a cochlear implant,” or “I’m a lipreader.” Whatever
label you name, I have seen it used.
The use of these labels and descriptions contradicts the very notion
of a single “deaf experience,” considering that individual experiences
and the emotional feelings, whether positive or negative, attached to
these experiences give rise to individual and particular perceptions of
one’s deaf or hard-of-hearing identity. The complexity of “deaf” identity
is further compounded by the fact that different versions of the deaf or
hard-of-hearing self emerge in different situations, and external percep-
tions of that self will vary according to the observed and the observer.
As an individual who cannot imagine giving up my deaf self, con-
fronting the diverse perceptions of “deaf” through my own experiences
and observations inspired the following questions: How are identities
formed? How do identities infl uence one’s path through life? How does
the concept of “difference” infl uence identity formation? What is deaf
identity? Is it a multiplicity of identities, each of which is inextricably
tied to time and space, language and communication? What about
hard-of-hearing identity? How has the popularization of Deaf culture
infl uenced identity formation? Can deaf people be deaf in different
ways? What are the implications of specifi c constructions of “deaf” or
of specifi c labels on the lives of deaf persons? How have these evolved
over time? When a naïve hearing person comes across the path of a deaf
or hard-of-hearing individual, what are the standard responses to that
person and why? What can we learn from history? Does it matter? If so,
how does it matter? What does the future hold for deaf identities?
Preface ix
To start this journey and answer my own questions, I explore iden-
tity and identity-related theories grounded in the fi eld of psychology,
as I am a psychologist by training. I also briefl y venture into other
realms, such as sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, medicine,
science, technology, education, history, government and politics, socio-
linguistics, Deaf Studies, and Disability Studies in my quest for illumi-
nation. However, because the professional is always informed by the
personal, I occasionally interject myself and my experiences into the
thread of this book. In this way, you, the reader, can get a sense of how
my experiences have shaped my identity “worldview” while you react
with your own perspectives and decide whether I have captured the
essence of what various deaf identities are all about.
To explore the topic, I start with an explanation of the identity con-
struct in Chapter 1 and present some perspectives on the evolution of
identities and how people categorize themselves. This provides the
background for issues related to how deaf and hard-of-hearing persons
label themselves and the meanings of these labels. I then examine Deaf
culture as a linchpin for the exploration of deaf identities, yet in uneasy
relationship with disability identity, before addressing why deaf iden-
tities matter at all. While d/Deaf identities do differ from hard-of-hear-
ing identities, in the interest of expediency I have opted to use “deaf
identities” to cover both groups except when I specifi cally refer to the
individual groups.
Chapter 2 focuses on perspectives from theory and research related
specifi cally to deaf identities. Chapter 3 addresses the dangers of
assuming that a specifi c deaf identity category fully explains the per-
son. In Chapter 4, I explore the roles of family and school in creating
or modifying deaf identities. Chapter 5 presents a brief historical over-
view of deaf identities and how these have infl uenced present-day per-
spectives; in Chapter 6, I expand on how hearing society perceptions
have created situations that have either enhanced or suppressed the
potential of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons to achieve in life. I exam-
ine not only oppression and related constructs but also the resiliency of
people responding to less than ideal conditions.
While deaf and hard-of-hearing people have always been diverse
in terms of background variables, including family cultural affi liation
and socioeconomic status among others, the extent of this diversity has
become increasingly pronounced in recent decades (as it has for people
who hear). Chapter 7 addresses this phenomenon related to ethnicity,
sexual orientation, and additional disabilities. In Chapter 8 I explore
the overt and subtle infl uences of technology and the use of genetic
fi ndings on how deaf identities are evolving. And fi nally, in Chapter 9
I have endeavored to achieve some resolution in answering the ques-
tions I posed at the beginning of this project. I will not claim to have
