An Atypical Coda

For those who have seen the excellent movie “Coda”, you’ll know that the word is an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults. Codas typically learn American Sign Language (ASL) right from birth. Many sign fluently before speaking words. I am an atypical Coda, however.

Why do I say that?

I grew up in a time before laws were passed to ensure fair treatment and equal access to Deaf citizens. It was a time when Deaf people were viewed as broken and inferior. The prevailing view was that ASL was an unacceptable form of bastardized English. Deaf people were supposed to assimilate themselves in the hearing world. That meant they should use their voices and lipreading to communicate.

My parents were born in 1929 and 1930 respectively. Their families had two completely different reactions to their deafness.

My father’s parents were Irish immigrants. My father was just one of six children, and the family found a home grown sign language to communicate with him and include him in family activities. He went to the New York School for the Deaf in White Plains, NY. That school used both ASL and lipreading for instruction. They were one of the few exceptions that still allowed the use of ASL.

Prior to the interference of Alexander Graham Bell, schools for the Deaf used ASL for instruction. However, Bell believed Deaf people would learn better if they were more “like” hearing people; in other words, using lip reading and speech instead of sign language. Worse, in 1888 hearing educators (none Deaf) gathered at the Milan Conference and decided sign language should be banned and Deaf children forced to learn lipreading and speech. In the United States, a lot of schools for the Deaf abandoned sign language and imposed oralism on their students, but not all. Some schools (like my dad’s) still used sign language.

My maternal grandparents were frightened and appalled that both my mother and her older sister were profoundly deaf. What were they to do? They consulted with doctors and “experts” in the field who advised them that my mother and my aunt should go to a school focusing on lipreading, forbidding the use of signs. These “experts” promised my grandparents that their daughters would learn to speak and would then fit in with the hearing world.

My mom and aunt went to Lexington School for the Deaf. Schools for the Deaf were mostly residential and students went home only for week long holiday breaks and the summer. Mom recounted hours of misery trying to lipread difficult words and to speak. Her voice wasn’t very intelligible and so she had to keep practicing. Academic subjects took a big hit as lipreading and speech were the primary focus of learning.

Dad learned to sign easily from other students and teachers. It was a natural and comfortable way for him to interact with his friends and teachers. He used home signs with his family. Mom and my aunt learned signs from other students in the girls’ bathroom. For them, signing was necessary to communicate but also was shameful and to be used only in secret.

My parents had such different backgrounds and experiences, you might wonder how they ever got together. They did, however, and married in 1951. In those years, Deaf people were limited in job opportunities. Men usually became printers or machinists; women were steered toward data entry or sewing. My dad was a printer. Mom was a key punch operator until she learned she was carrying me.

Hearing parents are frightened and worried when they learn their baby is deaf. Deaf parents celebrate. The reason for both reactions is that hearing people wonder how they will communicate with their child. How will the child learn and succeed in life? Deaf parents know that they will have a strong connection with a baby so like them. They don’t worry about how their child will fit into world. Deaf world is large but supportive and loving.

My parents learned that I could hear. They faced a similar worry that hearing parents of deaf babies had: how would they communicate with me? Dad was confident and comfortable in and around both hearing and Deaf worlds. He wanted to sign with me. I would be able to comfortably navigate both worlds, fluent in two languages.

Mom said NO. She’d been brainwashed into believing that ASL was a bastard language used by ignorant people. Yes, she needed to use signs in order to communicate with other Deaf people but it was shameful. ASL was definitely not for the hearing. She and my dad should use lipreading and speech to communicate with me.

My dad was very disappointed but he loved mom so very much. Reluctantly, he agreed.

So, I am an atypical coda. I didn’t grow up with ASL. I saw my parents use it with their friends but didn’t understand what they were saying. As I grew up, my father fed me some signs to make it easier to communicate. I learned fingerspelling and basic signs like mother, father, milk, food. These were necessary because lipreading was a frustrating and many times futile exercise in trying to communicate.

My younger brother is also hearing and also had to communicate by lipreading. He didn’t learn as many signs as I did because the older child is almost always the family interpreter and needed to have more access to communicate effectively.

Because communication was so difficult, we didn’t have many deeply personal or meaningful conversations with our parents. As I grew older, I became increasingly frustrated.

When I was a junior, I had the opportunity to join a Weight Watchers group at a church for the Deaf. I went to the meetings with another coda and her mom. The leader was hearing and the group of women there were Deaf. My friend and I were the only hearing members. I wondered how this was going to work.

Another hearing woman was with the leader, conversing together. When the meeting began, the leader spoke and the other woman began signing. I was awestruck. I was used to family members acting as interpreters. This was the first time I saw an unrelated interpreter. The other women of our group watched in rapt attention.

It struck me how beautiful ASL is, and I wanted very badly to learn it.

After several months of meetings, one day the interpreter wasn’t present. The leader wanted to go ahead with the meeting and asked if my coda friend or I could interpret. My face got very red with embarrassment as I had to admit I didn’t know enough signs to be able to interpret. My friend made the attempt but although she was more fluent, her skills weren’t adequate to keep up with the leader. My friend and I were both humiliated and miserable.

After that disaster, I sought out the pastor of the church. He was a coda too and appalled that I grew up without sign language. He himself hadn’t spoken until he started kindergarten. Until then, his whole world was made up of Deaf people. He told me that the church offered sign language classes and encouraged me to look into it.

That conversation inspired me and started me on the road to becoming more like a typical coda.