The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (8 page)

To summarize these observations on kinship and ethnicity: "The sense of unique descent need not, and in nearly all cases will not, accord with factual history."122 The kinship myth is an expression of solidarity, of family-like attachments based on shared properties such as physical characteristics and cultural practices. In ethnic groups where there is shared ancestry, what is important is not ancestral descent itself but the shared physical features that arise from it and bind people to one another and to their ancestors, along with shared language and culture. Many ethnic groups have neither real kinship nor a kinship myth; there is no necessary link between kinship and ethnicity. A kinship myth may not arise where ethnic solidarity is reinforced by other means; for example, by language, culture, or religion.123

ANCESTRY IN THE DEAF-WORLD

As we have seen, family-like attachments between ethnic group members are often grounded not on the genealogical facts of shared heredity but on language, culture, and physical traits. Properties of the DeafWorld that nourish this diffuse enduring solidarity are the transmission of language and culture down the generations and common physical characteristics (ASL signers are visual people). However, the Deaf-World also provides evidence of shared heredity. In Parts II-IV we present the ancestries of numerous Deaf individuals in the early years of the Deaf-World and we reveal the extensive sharing of ancestors that took place.

How widespread is shared heredity in the Deaf-World? We need to ask about heredity and then about sharing. What is the percent of ASL signers who are Deaf due to heredity compared to all other causes? No study of ASL signers has been conducted to give us these numbersDeaf due to heredity and Deaf for other reasons-but a rough estimate can be had, if we make some assumptions, from the Gallaudet University Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. Nearly half of all the children in the 2007-2008 survey were said to have, in terms of audiology, "severe" or "profound" "hearing loss." These children are the most likely to become ASL signers. In this ASL-prone subset, about one-fourth of the children are Deaf due to disease, injury, or maternal illness. These children do not have Deaf ancestry but many will acquire ASL as their primary language, like their hereditarily-Deaf peers. Another fourth of the subset children were known to be hereditarily Deaf because they had Deaf parents or Deaf siblings (brothers and sisters). The remaining half were "other," Deaf for reasons unknown. Most of those children, however, were doubtless Deaf due to heredity for three reasons. First, if they had been Deaf due to illness or injury that would likely be known. Second, the survey did not ask about Deaf relatives or ancestors (other than parents and siblings); had it done so, more of the children in the "other" category would be recorded as hereditarily Deaf. Third, the "other" category can contain hereditarily Deaf children who have no Deaf relatives or ancestors whatsoever (as we explain later). Thus we have an estimate of three-fourths of the children in the ASL-prone subset were probably Deaf due to heredity.124

A comparable result comes from a follow-up polling of parents whose children were included in the 1988 annual survey, where they were said to have become "profoundly hearing impaired" before age two without an environmental cause.'25 Replies identified whether each parent was hearing, Deaf, or status unknown; this yielded six mating types from which it was statistically estimated that 63 percent of these Deaf children were Deaf for hereditary reasons and the remainder for reasons unknown. Sixty-three percent is probably an underestimate of the importance of heredity since it does not take into account the hereditarily Deaf children with hearing parents but Deaf ancestors or relatives-in some cases even unknown to the family. As one investigator put it, "Limited knowledge of family history is frequently observed." 26 These estimates of two-thirds to three-fourths of the Deaf-World as being hereditarily Deaf are based on contemporary surveys. The figures could well prove quite different for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when childhood illness (but also death from illness) was more common.

When ancestry is taken in its most literal sense in the West-that is, the connection by blood of successive generations-it applies to all hereditarily Deaf people. No matter if the Deaf trait is expressed in every generation of their ancestry or if that expression skips some generations, the genetic heritage is always there in every generation. So most Deaf people in the United States today are hereditarily Deaf, but do they tend to share ancestors? As we will show, the practice of Deaf founding families to unite with others through intermarriage tended to proliferate the Deaf trait, expressed or unexpressed, down through the generations and thus their Deaf descendants had shared ancestry.127 There is a further reason why two hereditarily Deaf people are likely to have an ancestor in common. Suppose we knew the lineages of everyone back to Adam. We would see that, from time to time, a gene associated with being Deaf will originate here and there by random gene variation. The descendents of these originators will spread out geographically, down through the ages. The shared ancestry of those descendants will be all the more likely because any given gene will tend to spread locally since people tend to choose marriage partners who live nearby.

So even if a particular gene is rare among the Deaf population in general, those who do have it will tend to form "islands" of kin related by common descent. After countless generations, the descent group of Deaf people with any given gene variant must be large indeed. As Parts II and III show, the Deaf descent group originating in the English county of Kent spread out in the United States to include Martha's Vineyard, then Maine, and on to other regions of the country. However, the DeafWorld in the United States is undoubtedly comprised of more than one such descent group with a common ancestor. Thus, "Deaf American" is like "Hispanic American"-an umbrella term that, based on shared language and culture, gathers numerous distinct descent groups, each with its own common ancestor.

And what of Deaf ASL signers who are not hereditarily Deaf? Like Pashtun and Yao ethnicity, the Deaf-World includes unrelated members; those members qualify because they have the properties of Deaf people (visual orientation, sign language), acquired in childhood. Thus, there is biological unity, as well as linguistic and cultural unity, among the members of the Deaf-World. And as with the ethnic groups discussed above, these unrelated members of the Deaf-World are seen as full-fledged members.

SOCIALIZATION

During socialization, children internalize ethnic repertories, such as language and cultural beliefs and practices, that are highly resistant to change.128 Children are often socialized by kin to whom they are not related biologically; we may call it proxy socialization. For example, foster children and orphans, more numerous in many cultures than our own, are not socialized by their biological parents. Moreover, when parents and children move to another land, peers will socialize the children in the language and culture of their new homeland long before the parents have mastered them. We cited earlier several ethnic groups that engage in both proxy and parental socialization.

Deaf socialization is often proxy socialization, conducted by peers and Deaf adults, to whom the Deaf child is not related. It is during the period of socialization to the Deaf-World that Deaf children learn their Deaf identity, acquire sign language and all the cultural contents, rules and values, history and myths that we have examined, and with them a deep attachment to that World.'29 If parents are unable to model DeafWorld language and culture for their Deaf child, proxy socialization begins when the child is able to mingle in the Deaf-World-for example on enrolling at a school or program for the Deaf. Interacting with members of the Deaf-World, the Deaf child finds a positive identity and Deaf role models, whose way of being and activities present possible lives for that child. Deaf children are today predominantly placed in local schools where they are most often isolated from peers and role models and thus denied opportunities for socialization during their formative years.

For the Deaf child of hearing parents, socialization in the parents' ethnicity is hampered by the language barrier. In an English-speaking home, the Deaf child not only fails to understand direct communication frequently but also misses the important part of socialization that is incidental-overheard parental interaction, dinner table conversation, and the like. The Deaf child cannot discover possible lives from his or her hearing parents, and the parents cannot perceive the world from their child's point of view and way of seeing. Nevertheless, Deaf children feel natural attachments to their biological parents and, as limited socialization to mainstream ethnicity progresses, they frequently feel divided allegiances, as do children with multiethnic backgrounds. Deaf families, in which parents and child are fluent in ASL, encounter none of these obstacles. The Deaf children are socialized by kin who are biologically related and language acquisition and socialization take their usual maturational course.130

Earlier we said that ethnic groups have not only internal cohesive properties but also externally oriented rules in shared settings, rules that reinforce cultural differences, maintain boundaries, and sustain ethnic identity, to which we turn next.

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Ethnic groups conflict and collaborate in various settings so the rules that govern their encounters, that reinforce cultural differences and maintain boundaries, are important to discover.' Such boundaries define membership and nonmembership and contribute to group solidarity and political agendas. We need to observe how ethnic groups construct their identities, drawing on their language and culture and present circumstances, and how they deploy ethnicity in behalf of their goals.2 From this perspective, ethnicity is not primordial but determined by circumstances. However, this circumstantialist view does not square with ethnic members' deep emotional attachment to the group and its language. Moreover, identity construction is constrained by the "facts on the ground," such as self-ascription, shared language, strategies for boundary maintenance, and physical traits. Thus there is more than rhetoric to ethnicity; every representation of ethnic identity must take account of language, culture, and social structures. There is no obstacle to recognizing that ethnic groups possess a deeply felt sense of ethnic identity and a rich history and culture while also recognizing that they actively construct their ethnicity, which is subject to change.3

The contexts in which we find active boundary maintenance in the Deaf-World can be sorted into outside and inside forces.

OUTSIDE FORCES

Outside forces include formal classification, official policies, labor markets, residential space, and daily experience.4 The formal classification of the Deaf tends to reinforce boundaries. Deaf people are welcome to participate in the majority ethnicity provided they do so as disabled individuals. Accordingly, the U.S. government does not count the number of Americans whose primary language is ASL, nor accord them the recognition, perquisites, and legal protections afforded speakers of other minority languages. Furthermore, interactions with the Deaf based on disability reinforce boundaries because Deaf people commonly find disability an alien construction of their identity .5

Official policy to accommodate minority needs is influenced by minority size, so accommodations have come little and late for the Deaf-World and that reinforces existing boundaries. For example, interpreters are not present at most public events so Deaf people cannot participate. Public information-from news to emergencies-is generally not provided in ASL (although some programs are captioned in English). The Deaf-World has little say over its future, in part because it lacks a role in assuring early sign language acquisition by the next generation of Deaf children. Without that role, no language may be modeled for the Deaf child.

Late exposure to language and monolingual monocultural education in the dominant ethnicity prevent many Deaf children from achieving fluency in any language. The mainstreaming movement in special education and the consequent isolation of many Deaf students in hearing classes hinders academic achievement for many and that, too, contributes to boundary maintenance.6

In the United States, poor education, the language barrier, cultural values, and job discrimination contributed over the years to placing many Deaf people in the manual trades (notably shoe repair, upholstery, printing, or factory assembly).? This separated them from the professionals who serve them and from middle- and upper-class Americans and reinforced boundaries. Today there is a growing Deaf middle class in the United States-this includes lawyers, educators of the Deaf, ASL teachers, and rehabilitation counselors-but it is questionable if that has reduced the boundary separating the Deaf-World from the dominant ethnicity since these Deaf professionals serve primarily the Deaf.8 Deaf people tend to settle where there are other Deaf people-in cities and near schools and universities with Deaf students; this makes it easier for them to spend time with one another and to militate for change.

INSIDE FORCES

Inside forces concern what groups bring to the making of identity.9 Language, common physical features such as height and skin color, and cultural mores often play a role in delimiting one ethnic group from the next. Many members of ethnic minorities rely for the most part on their minority language. In the United States, such imbalanced bilingualism is found among ethnic groups such as Old Order Amish, Russian-speaking Old Believers, and segments of the HispanicAmerican and Asian-American communities-and the Deaf-World.'° Other members of ethnic groups show more balanced bilingualism, employing their minority language and the dominant English language as appropriate. In the United States, the children of ethnic minority parents or grandparents frequently are assimilated by the mainstream, leaving ethnicity in American society "culturally thin."" This is not true of the Deaf-World. Most ASL signers' limited fluency in the spoken language and native or near-native fluency in the minority sign language play a major role in boundary maintenance, (although some are more balanced bilinguals).12 Moreover, most members of the DeafWorld do not wish to be assimilated but rather to participate while keeping their sign language and culture, and that, too, contributes to sustaining boundaries.