Illuminating the Paradoxes of Deaf Experience: Bowe, Gannon, and Disability
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| Title: | Illuminating the Paradoxes of Deaf Experience: Bowe, Gannon, and Disability |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Krentz, Christopher |
| Source: | Sign Language Studies. Spr 2023 23(3):355-385. |
| Availability: | Gallaudet University Press. 800 Florida Avenue NE, Denison House, Washington, DC 20002-3695. Tel: 202-651-5488; Fax: 202-651-5489; Web site: http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/SLS.html |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 31 |
| Publication Date: | 2023 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Descriptive |
| Descriptors: | Deafness, United States History, Civil Rights, Sign Language, Experience, Oral Communication Method, Parent Role, Student Placement, Special Schools, Mainstreaming, Disabilities |
| DOI: | 10.1353/sls.2023.a899423 |
| ISSN: | 0302-1475 1533-6263 |
| Abstract: | The last sixty years have been a time of tumultuous change in the American deaf community. Two deaf figures who made a great difference during this period were Frank Bowe and Jack Gannon, who passed away in 2007 and 2022, respectively. Bowe was a prominent disability rights leader, helping to secure more rights for deaf and all disabled Americans, while Gannon helped to advance appreciation of deaf signing communities with his advocacy and several influential studies of deaf people who sign. Although they both lived in the second half of the twentieth century and knew each other, they had quite different lives, mostly because Bowe did not attend a school for deaf students or learn sign language until he was an adult, while Gannon grew up in the deaf community. Their memoirs offer a valuable way for us to investigate the details of recent deaf experience. The books illuminate not only Bowe and Gannon's work to make the world a more just place for deaf people, but also the pressure they both experienced to adopt oralism, the importance of parents and educational placement, the liberating nature of sign language, and the move from deaf schools to educational mainstreaming. The memoirs also give differing perspectives on signing deaf people's complicated relationship with concepts of disability, suggesting a way forward. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2023 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1387116 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwG5WR23R-EYw1gQqijEX6oIAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDGQxErqP1PV5tqOgtwIBEICBm1KPbTkqQN7I17w7MWnWSNQAAvBK6WICX40Bomrl59wA779BjGQS0DOvCmWUrxtfYBKhLMWMCPcgYvATLuDmtPV0szctb18rTxqBenOv2P8p_Zzt64XltwyMOv_hLgIRrACaYrIUnaVNjCTS-A8005WXt5t8WtbMhWDLoPrv9ycCMa5P2cdBUkKhuXjpssGfBUcPr7dDkhZeRtw5 Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0164352547;ngu01apr.23;2023Jun19.06:35;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0164352547-1">Illuminating the Paradoxes of Deaf Experience: Bowe, Gannon, and Disability </title> <p>The last sixty years have been a time of tumultuous change in the American deaf community. Two deaf figures who made a great difference during this period were Frank Bowe and Jack Gannon, who passed away in 2007 and 2022, respectively. Bowe was a prominent disability rights leader, helping to secure more rights for deaf and all disabled Americans, while Gannon helped to advance appreciation of deaf signing communities with his advocacy and several influential studies of deaf people who sign. Although they both lived in the second half of the twentieth century and knew each other, they had quite different lives, mostly because Bowe did not attend a school for deaf students or learn sign language until he was an adult, while Gannon grew up in the deaf community. Their memoirs offer a valuable way for us to investigate the details of recent deaf experience. The books illuminate not only Bowe and Gannon's work to make the world a more just place for deaf people, but also the pressure they both experienced to adopt oralism, the importance of parents and educational placement, the liberating nature of sign language, and the move from deaf schools to educational mainstreaming. The memoirs also give differing perspectives on signing deaf people's complicated relationship with concepts of disability, suggesting a way forward.</p> <p>Keywords: disability rights; signing community; memoirs; deaf community; deaf experience</p> <p>The last sixty years have been both an exciting and discouraging time for deaf Americans who use sign language. From the revolutionary linguistic recognition of American Sign Language (ASL) in the 1960s to the continuing numbers of deaf children who do not have the opportunity to learn sign; from the triumphant ascension to deaf leadership at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, in 1988 to the steady decline in enrollment at the nation's schools for deaf students; from increasing numbers of college students in the United States wanting to study ASL to the marginalization of deaf students and workers in hearing environments; from hearing actors playing deaf characters in films like The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) to deaf actors playing deaf roles and winning Academy Awards for Best Actress (Marlee Matlin in 1986), Actor (Troy Kotsur in 2022), and even Best Picture (Coda in 2022); from increased access through closed captioning, texting, and the videophone to efforts to "fix" deafness through cochlear implants or more recently CRISPR technology, the rapid changes during the period have been almost dizzying.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>] Underlying many of these issues has been an emotional and complex debate about the relationship of signing deaf people to notions of disability. Should culturally deaf people be called disabled?</p> <p>Two deaf leaders who passed away in recent decades published memoirs that help us to understand this convulsive time, making these issues more clear. Anecdotally, one is better known to hearing disability studies scholars, while the other is more familiar to the signing American deaf community, but both had great influence.</p> <p>The first is Frank G. Bowe, who helped to lead the American disability rights movement in the 1970s. As the young executive director of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, Bowe in 1977 conceived and coordinated a sit-in by people with a variety of disabilities in government offices in eleven major cities. Inspired by the passive resistance of the 1960s civil rights movements, such as the defiant sit-in by four Black students at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960,[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>] they wanted to pressure the federal government to enforce Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. That section required institutions receiving federal support to provide access to disabled people and prohibited discrimination against them. The law had passed in 1973 but, because complying with it was often expensive, the government delayed issuing</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Frank G. Bowe on the September 1996 cover of Deaf Life. Used with permission from MSM Productions, Ltd.—https://deaflife.com and https://msm.ltd.</p> <p>regulations, and it went unenforced. With the participation of disability activists like Judy Heumann and support of such varied organizations as the National Association of the Deaf and the Black Panthers, the sit-in protest received wide attention and, despite government hesitation, ultimately succeeded.[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref3">3</reflink>] The regulations were finally issued in 1977. As the person who came up with the idea for the protest and managed it, Bowe became celebrated as "the Father of 504." The law was the nation's first civil rights law for disabled people and paved the way for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Bowe went on to represent the United States in planning the United Nations' 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons, to serve as chair of the 1986 congressional Commission on Education of the Deaf, to write numerous books,[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref4">4</reflink>] and to be a distinguished professor for the study of disability at Hofstra University, dedicating his career to the inclusion of disabled people in society.</p> <p>While Bowe put deaf people on the spectrum of people with all kinds of disabilities, at about the same time, another deaf leader, Jack R. Gannon, focused on expanding understanding and appreciation of a much more specific group: deaf people who use sign language, who he showed to have remarkable history and culture. As a senior administrator at Gallaudet College (later university) in Washington, DC, he produced seminal works that documented the identity and past of deaf people who sign. In 1981, he published Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America, which is a key work of American deaf history, helping to start that academic field, and is now considered a classic. He followed that with books on the 1988 Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet and on the World Federation of the Deaf. In between, he also curated an exhibit on American deaf history at the Smithsonian Museum on the Washington, DC downtown National Mall called History Through Deaf Eyes, which toured twelve cities and became the basis for a book he coauthored in 2007 and a national public television broadcast (in which he appeared).[<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref5">5</reflink>] By raising awareness of deaf people's many achievements, Gannon increased knowledge and respect for deaf people and fostered pride among deaf people themselves. He has aptly been praised as a "true giant"[<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref6">6</reflink>] and a trailblazer for the signing deaf community.</p> <p>Bowe and Gannon's careers match up in intriguing ways that reveal much about deaf experience in America during the second half of the twentieth century. Both became deaf at a young age near midcentury (Bowe at age three in 1950 and Gannon at age eight in 1944), but they had very different upbringings that shaped their lives and careers, with Bowe not learning sign language until he was an adult and Gannon growing up in the deaf community. Esteemed and influential, they both received many awards, including honorary doctorates from Gallaudet (Bowe in 1981 and Gannon in 1996).[<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref7">7</reflink>] According to Gannon's wife Rosalyn, they also knew each other and were friendly acquaintances.[<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref8">8</reflink>]</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Jack R. Gannon on the January 2013 cover of Deaf Life. Used with permission from MSM Productions, Ltd.—https://deaflife.com and https://msm.ltd.</p> <p>Although unfortunately both Bowe and Gannon have passed away (in 2007 and 2022, respectively), their poignant, humorous memoirs offer revealing answers about the contradictions of contemporary deaf experience. In this essay, I consider what Bowe's Changing the Rules (1986) and Gannon's Get Your Elbow off the Horn (2020) show not just about deaf life over the last century but also the paradoxical cultural moment of today, when sign languages and being deaf seem simultaneously esteemed and disparaged. In these valuable memoirs, we see the compulsory pressure to adopt oralism, the ideology that emphasizes speech and speechreading over sign; the overwhelming importance of parents and educational placement; the liberating nature of sign language; and the move from deaf schools to educational mainstreaming. Along the way, Bowe's and Gannon's memoirs also give differing perspectives on signing deaf people's complicated relationship with notions of disability, pointing to a way forward.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-2">My Relationship to the Topic</hd> <p>I experienced many of the paradoxes surrounding contemporary deaf life when I arrived at Gallaudet after college in the early 1990s looking for a job. I had been gradually losing my hearing (gaining my deafness?)[<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref9">9</reflink>] since age nine and, inspired by the 1988 Deaf President Now protest, wanted to learn sign and get to know the deaf community. During four wonderful years working at Gallaudet, I experienced the joy and transformative effects of deaf culture. I had grown up in the hearing world thinking that deafness was a burden; now I suddenly interacted with friends and mentors who were proud of being deaf. I learned about the richness of deaf history, poetry and storytelling in ASL, sign language linguistics, and much more.</p> <p>I should note my personal relationship with Bowe and Gannon up front. I did not know Bowe and never met him. One can learn a lot about him from his writing, though. For a recording of him testifying before Congress in 1988, see CSPAN;10 he signs and speaks at the same time, reflecting the philosophy of Total Communication, which was prevalent when he learned ASL in the early 1970s. Moreover, his experience of not learning sign until his twenties parallels mine. I did know Gannon personally. He helped to make me feel welcome at Gallaudet. With his characteristic warmth and generosity with his time, he always encouraged me and my interest in the signing deaf community and showed me the rewards of studying deaf history.</p> <p>Still, the contradictions persisted. In 1989, Gallaudet's first deaf president, I. King Jordan, appeared on 60 Minutes giving a speech where he jubilantly predicted that the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) would pass, implying that would be beneficial for deaf people.[<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref10">11</reflink>] Similarly, a former student leader of the DPN protest, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, spoke positively about the ADA to me in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, important deaf leaders like Tom Humphries and MJ Bienvenu forcefully asserted signing deaf people are not disabled. Humphries said that disability "does not compute" for signing deaf people,[<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref11">12</reflink>] while MJ Bienvenu maintained, "we are proud of our language, culture and heritage. Disabled we are not!"[<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref12">13</reflink>] How do these things fit together?</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-3">A Brief Overview of Disability in American Deaf History</hd> <p>Before turning to Bowe's and Gannon's memoirs, we should quickly review disability in history. First, the meaning of the English word disability itself has, in the words of several disability studies scholars, been "shifting, fluid, and sometimes contradictory."[<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref13">14</reflink>] According to Lennard J. Davis, the modern meaning of disability only emerged in the nineteenth century along with concepts of normalcy.[<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref14">15</reflink>] No surprise, then, that throughout the past two centuries, key deaf American writers have sometimes shown markedly different attitudes from each other toward calling themselves disabled, as historians Douglas Baynton and Tavian Robinson have shown.[<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref15">16</reflink>]</p> <p>During the nineteenth century, deaf writers typically seemed to see being deaf as a disability even if they concurrently evinced deaf pride. For example, in an 1818 address, Laurent Clerc, the revered deaf co-founder of America's first permanent school for deaf students, both stated that deaf people are part of God's natural diversity and should be thankful to God for being deaf and put the conditions of "deafness, blindness, lameness, palsy, [and] crookedness" together.[<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref16">17</reflink>] Clerc might have linked these conditions because he knew that the hearing people in his audience did, but subsequent deaf writers did too, suggesting that seeing deaf people as disabled was not controversial at the time.</p> <p>Later, in 1856, John J. Flournoy, a passionate, rather eccentric deaf American, fervently called for a separate deaf commonwealth where deaf people could manage their own affairs. He used the word disability for deaf people without seeing that as a disqualification. As he stressed deaf people's capability to achieve on their own, he wrote, "The old cry about the incapacity of men's minds from physical disabilities, I think it were time, now in this intelligent age, to explode!"[<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref17">18</reflink>] Flournoy was writing both to deaf and hearing readers of the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, and his words anticipate the disability rights movement over a century later. His words suggest that while he did not have a problem with calling deaf people disabled, he did emphatically contest the assumption that disabled people were incapable.</p> <p>The main respondent to Flournoy in the Annals, Edmund Booth, also associated deaf people with disability but used it in a surprisingly negative way to refute Flournoy's case. Booth was a deaf newspaper editor in Iowa. In the midst of a measured response, he wrote, "[Deafness] is a part of the punishment inflicted for violation of nature's laws, which violation—whether it comes from carelessness, design or ignorance—results in deafness, blindness, lameness, etc."[<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref18">19</reflink>] Here Booth replicates some of the worst assumptions about disability; in the twentieth century, disability rights activists would work hard to disprove the belief that a disability is a moral failing and punishment, but Booth applies that to himself and to all deaf and disabled people. Later in the century, Booth worked with other deaf men to found the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) in 1880. Showing how much he was respected, the new members elected him to be the first president of the NAD (he declined in favor of a younger person). His words in 1856 indicate that, in antebellum America, putting deaf and disability together was likely the norm.</p> <p>Things began to change at the end of the nineteenth century with the growth of a robust American signing deaf community and the emergence in the nation of eugenics and oralism, which made deaf people begin to renounce the disability label. The hearing inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who prominently led a campaign against sign language, was deeply involved in both oralism and eugenics. As Brian Greenwald has discussed, those post-Darwin ideologies sought to improve the human population by reducing perceived undesirable traits, even if Bell humanely declined to pursue the most extreme measures like outlawing deaf intermarriage.20 In this era when thousands of cognitively disabled people Americans were sterilized[<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref19">21</reflink>] so they could not reproduce and the public increasingly perceived sign language as inferior to spoken language, some deaf leaders understandably sought to distance deaf people from the category of disability. For instance, during a struggle in 1908 over hiring deaf people for the Civil Service, some deaf leaders saw the disability classification as a threat to employment. As George Veditz, who would become president of the NAD, warned, "Once let the government brand deafness as a disability that renders us ineligible for its service, and it will not be long before the prejudice will spread among the employers at large."[<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref20">22</reflink>] Veditz sought to distinguish deaf people from those categorized as disabled because he thought being called disabled made deaf people more vulnerable and to seem unqualified. Other deaf people concurred. Susan Burch quotes an editorial from the Empire State News that argues for a deaf labor bureau. It says, "The average deaf worker belongs in the classification of foreign-language groups rather than that of the physically handicapped."[<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref21">23</reflink>] Instead of embracing the disability category for deaf people, these writers sought to distinguish them from it. As Burch argues, in the early twentieth century, deaf Americans saw it as advantageous to emphasize their vigor and normality. They just used a different language: a language of signs.</p> <p>Yet contradictions remained. In 1920, the NAD leaders—all of whom were late-deafened—made a concession to increasingly powerful eugenicists by passing a resolution opposing marriage between congenitally deaf people,[<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref22">24</reflink>] as if the offspring of congenitally deaf people, who might be more likely to have deaf genes, would be undesirable. This effort at appeasement caused a schism in the deaf community and pointed to the continuing complexities of the disability issue.</p> <p>Notably other groups, including blind people, in the past have distanced themselves from the disability label,[<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref23">25</reflink>] which historically has been fraught with negativity. Following Robinson, we could connect the desire to renounce disability with internalized ableism and a wish to align with majority values, but matters are complex.[<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref24">26</reflink>] This cursory historical overview gives a sense of the contradictory ideas about deaf signers and disability circulating around Frank Bowe and Jack Gannon as they grew up, so we can now turn to their own accounts in their memoirs.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-4">Bowe, Gannon, and the Obstacles of Oralism</hd> <p>When Bowe and Gannon were born near mid-twentieth century, hearing Americans commonly perceived vocal speech and speechreading as superior to sign language. This emphasis on oralism occurred in a national climate where American leaders often insisted that all disabled people hide their differences as much as possible. For example, in The Ugly Laws, Susan Schweik explores how many cities at the beginning of the twentieth century had laws targeting disabled beggars who were perceived as unsightly and objectionable.[<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref25">27</reflink>] When Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a polio survivor who used a wheelchair, became president of the United States, he asked photographers not to photograph him in a wheelchair, and much of the public did not know he had a disability. In the same way, Ved Mehta, a blind man from India who had a successful career as a writer in America, declined to use a cane or guide dog as he went around. In these cases, disability resembles something shameful to be hidden, a "spoiled identity" in Erving Goffman's terms.[<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref26">28</reflink>] If unsurprising, the insistence on vocal speech that Bowe and Gannon encountered is still a bit jarring.</p> <p>Born in 1947 in Pennsylvania, Bowe became deaf through complications connected to a case of the measles, and his mother and father declined to let him learn sign language. Following strict proscriptions from doctors and others, his otherwise loving hearing parents insisted that he learn to speak, lipread, and attend public schools with hearing students. His father later tells him, "Everybody, and I mean everybody, warned us against [sign language]. ... They were so urgent in condemning signs that there must be a good reason, a damned good reason."[<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref27">29</reflink>] Like many hearing parents, Bowe's mother and father tragically did not seek out deaf adults and ask them for their advice. Instead, the father subscribed to an ideal of determination, of facing obstacles head on. In his memoir, Bowe recounts wearing a body hearing aid to the public school and how he endured "beatings, taunts, and never-ending loneliness" among hearing peers, showing how traumatic and isolating attending a hearing elementary school can be for a deaf child.30 As he grew older, his younger hearing sister had numerous social activities on weekends, but he typically had none. When he excitedly discovered pictures of the manual alphabet in a boy scout's handbook, his parents coldly rebuffed him. To her</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>The cover of Frank G. Bowe's 1986 memoir Changing the Rules.</p> <p>credit, his mother spent years patiently teaching him to read English, a skill that he put to good use, reading for thousands of hours and eventually, with growing confidence, graduating with honors from Western Maryland College in 1969.</p> <p>Despite his academic success in the mainstream among nonsigners, Bowe retained his interest in sign language. As he grew older he explored the deaf community more, eventually learning to sign even if he remained somewhat on the margins of deaf culture. During high school, he attended a church service in sign language but did not understand anything. While in college, he visited the Maryland School for the Deaf, where a student warmly tells him that even though he does not sign, he is deaf-same. Then he chose to go to graduate school at Gallaudet, "an amazing place" where he earned an MA and began learning ASL.[<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref28">31</reflink>] While at Gallaudet learning sign, he writes, "I spent hour after hour sitting in group rooms, watching one conversation after another."[<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref29">32</reflink>] This behavior is a little disconcerting; Bowe does not appear to realize he's intentionally eavesdropping on other people talking. Perhaps he can be excused for a little social awkwardness when we remember how isolated he was growing up in an oral environment and how he did not have much socialization as a youth.[<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref30">33</reflink>] He says he had wondered for years about the "huge mystery" of what people talked about and was a bit disappointed to learn that the subjects were rather dull.[<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref31">34</reflink>] At any rate, Bowe is one of many deaf people who have found their way to the deaf community in some capacity and been empowered by it.</p> <p>Gannon, too, faced oralist obstacles, although his experience was different in that he was able to attend residential schools for deaf students where he found a supportive community. Born in Missouri in 1936, he abruptly became deaf at age eight due to spinal meningitis after he had learned English and to speak. His parents initially enrolled him in a variety of oral programs, but he struggled in them. Like Bowe, he faced rigid oralist pressure. "Over and over, I was told that a deaf person must not sign and must learn to talk and lipread 'because it is a hearing world out there!'"[<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref32">35</reflink>] Others labeled him abnormal and he sometimes felt that way. He also found that he was (often unintentionally) left out of spoken conversations. The situation changed when his father met a man who was a custodian at a residential school that used sign language, which caused Gannon's parents, who had witnessed his difficulties in oral programs, to consider enrolling him in such a school. At the Missouri School for the Deaf (MSD), he lived at the school and returned home only for holiday and summer breaks. Even at MSD, he had to take classes in speech, because</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>The cover of Jack R. Gannon's 2020 memoir GetYour Elbow Off the Horn. Copyright 2020 by Gallaudet University. Used with permission.</p> <p>"hearing educators believed that the use of sign language interfered with the acquisition and development of a spoken language."[<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref33">36</reflink>] But he and other students found speech of limited use, especially compared to the ease and efficiency of sign language. This signing environment</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>Click for larger view View full resolution</p> <p>Missouri School for the Deaf. Photograph originally published in Richard D. Reed, Historic MSD: The Story of the Missouri School for the Deaf (Fulton, MO: Richard D. Reed, 2000). Used with permission.</p> <p>provided a nourishing place he fit in. "I found a place where I could belong, be involved, and have the opportunity to thrive," he writes, which starkly differs from Bowe's accounts of extreme loneliness as a child.[<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref34">37</reflink>] He learned the "beautiful, comfortable world of silent expressive communication," that there were others like him, and the empowering nature of the deaf community, particularly of deaf teachers who served as role models and mentors.[<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref35">38</reflink>] "For the first time since I had become deaf, I felt perfectly normal," he concludes.[<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref36">39</reflink>] While Gannon continued to be close to his parents, like Bowe's parents, they never learned to sign. Still, sign and the deaf community gave him a sense of belonging and normalcy.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-5">Humor in Deaf Experience</hd> <p>In sharing their stories, Bowe and Gannon relate humorous anecdotes that make their experiences more vivid and real. In Bowe's case, much of the humor often has to do with dating hearing women. As a social pariah at his hearing school, he struggles to find romance. When he does go on his first date, at age thirteen, he asks his father for advice on what people say on dates. His father, trying not to laugh, suggests that he comment on the girl's appearance. So during an intermission of the play they're watching, he tells his date that she looks like a favorite horse of his. "You know, Debby," he says, "you look exactly like Pal, the palomino I rode this morning."40 Unsurprisingly, the girl reports a sudden illness and leaves. Later, in his twenties, he is courting his future wife, a hearing woman, and decides to call her directly on the voice telephone late one evening, when the Contact relay service (which enabled deaf TTY users to communicate with hearing voice callers) in New York City is not available. Thinking her on the line, he confesses all she means to him for half an hour, but later she tells him with a big smile that she had been asleep during the call and "my father enjoyed it very much."[<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref37">41</reflink>] Such nuggets, while amusing, underscore the difficulty a deaf young person contends with in trying to navigate a hearing society.</p> <p>Although he has a deaf wife and works in the deaf community, Gannon relates comical stories about interacting with hearing people too. For example, as a new resident in Nebraska he cleans brush and debris from a clogged sewer during a thunderstorm, throwing it over his shoulder. Later he looks back to find a hearing neighbor "plastered with twigs, clippings, and pieces of trash."[<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref38">42</reflink>] Gannon apologizes and explains he is deaf. The neighbor, who had come out to help him, had figured that out.</p> <p>Gannon also gives humorous glimpses at dating that provide an interesting contrast with Bowe. He relates how he first asked out his future (deaf) wife, Rosalyn, when they were both undergraduates at Gallaudet. She was high on a ladder painting backdrops for a play. Despite waving and tapping the ladder, Gannon could not get her attention. So finally he gave the ladder a gentle shake. "She jumped, and signed, stop that! finish!" as she glared down at him (Gannon 2020, 76). For readers who know that the Gannons went on to be happily married for over sixty years, the account, complete with English glosses of the ASL signs, is precious. "I'm glad she forgave me for shaking the ladder," Gannon concludes, and one can imagine him smiling ruefully.[<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref39">43</reflink>]</p> <p>At other times, Gannon's humor arises just out of the condition of being deaf. After they get married, Rosalyn senses trucks rumbling by at night, but they cannot discern how this could be in their peaceful neighborhood. Finally they deduce that Gannon is the rumbling truck, for he is snoring in his sleep. Such moments add to the emotional force of the memoirs, making them more detailed, human, and fun to read, while underscoring deaf experience.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-6">Barriers Leading to Career Passions</hd> <p>Despite their good-natured tone and geniality, both authors make it clear that they feel unjustly treated and determined to do what they can to correct obstacles and make the world a better place. As a teenager, Bowe struggles to imagine a future for himself, thinking of any number of jobs he cannot do or is not permitted to do. He tells his father, "It's just not right that most of life is closed off to me just because I was sick when I was small."[<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref40">44</reflink>] He begins to think that the rules—that is, how society operates, what rights he has—need to be changed. Eventually Bowe realizes the discrimination he endured as a child is something that people with many kinds of disabilities experience. In college, he meets a woman with grand-mal epilepsy who says she is not permitted to do most jobs. After receiving his master's from Gallaudet, Bowe teaches special education in Pennsylvania, gaining exposure to people with low vision, cognitive disabilities, and multiple disabilities. Eventually he pursues a doctorate in educational psychology at New York University, which he reports had a research center specializing in deafness. There, he meets a blind woman who directs the New York City Mayor's Office for the Handicapped, who tells him how many disabled people could not get around the city independently and faced prejudice in employment and even in finding living quarters. "Discrimination in housing was so severe that thousands of disabled people were staying in institutions or hospitals simply because they could find nowhere else to live," he reports.[<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref41">45</reflink>] Unlike many other minority groups, disabled people at the time had no civil rights or protection against prejudice.</p> <p>As he learns more about the obstacles facing disabled people, he excitedly comes to think he has found a purpose. "As last, I could picture for myself a possible future. ... I understood ... how similar other disabilities were to deafness—and how to help people overcome these impairments."[<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref42">46</reflink>] The language about overcoming impairments is out of keeping with disability studies today, but Bowe makes it clear he is intent on changing not bodies but social rules, how society is organized, or what academics call the social construction of disability. Suddenly he sees a way he can contribute, drawing on his unique experiences. As he says when he meets his future wife, "I've learned how to do what it is that I want to do. My life has purpose, meaning, value now."[<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref43">47</reflink>] One infers that that purpose was to make life better for deaf and disabled people.</p> <p>Gannon's frustrations at hearing people's ignorance also led him to a specific purpose: in his case, to make the public aware of the richness and value of the signing deaf community. While generally optimistic, kind, and eager to converse (by writing, if necessary) with anyone, whether they were deaf or hearing or could sign or not, near the start of his memoir he forthrightly names some of the destructive attitudes he has encountered:</p> <p>As an adult, being deaf has meant an ongoing struggle with paternalistic, condescending, and ignorant attitudes. I have had to deal with people who looked down on me or viewed me as inferior simply because they could hear, and I could not. ... This journey is strewn with rocks and boulders of ignorance and paternalistic and 'fix-it' attitudes. There is bitterness, heartbreak, and family hostility.[<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref44">48</reflink>]</p> <p>Even though he was firmly in a deaf world among signers for most of his life, he had many encounters with nonsigners who had negative perspectives. Such patronizing outlooks contrast with the vibrant, supportive deaf world that he grew up in. He says, "I have had a good life because I have had the good fortune to meet so many dedicated, committed, wonderful, talented people. ... Despite all the negativity, I [found] a world of beauty, an appreciative world rich in history, heritage, and language, and uniquely our own."[<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref45">49</reflink>] The immense gap between the two worlds, one ignorant and supercilious, the other warm and engaging, helped to launch him on a career to bridge the two, to act as an advocate of the signing deaf community to the public. Even as a boy, he sensed a great deal of ignorance that hearing people have about deaf people, and in his memoir says that he became "determined that in some way I would find a way to help change that."50 Like Bowe, Gannon felt passionately drawn to a mission in life, a way he uniquely could contribute.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-7">Different Identities</hd> <p>If Bowe and Gannon, in the broadest sense, had parallel lives, they differed substantially in their deaf identities, which also helps to explain their differing careers. As we have seen, as a boy, Bowe had a positive interest in learning sign language; he decided to go to Gallaudet for an MA and did learn sign; and after leaving Gallaudet taught deaf children with multiple disabilities in Pennsylvania for a year. Nevertheless, he does not represent sign or his own deafness in his writing very much. While he does occasionally have to ask speakers to repeat what they say, and comments on someone being easy to lipread, as readers we get little of his experience of being deaf. One of the oddest parts of his memoir is how he quotes spoken conversation as if he is a hearing person. That technique makes it easy for readers to forget he's deaf and underscores how he's primarily writing to a hearing audience. (In his defense, he probably had few models of how to write deaf identity). Moreover, while he mentions many people in Changing the Rules, we do not learn of any friendships with deaf people. To be sure, he does name Frederick Schreiber, chief executive officer of the NAD, and Terrence J. O'Rourke, deaf leaders who worked with him on disability rights (he even published Changing the Rules with T.J. Publishers, a deaf press), but such figures do not have major roles in the book. He spends most of his life with hearing people and tells us of classmates and so on. After he learns to sign, he says, "With an interpreter ... I was not handicapped at all."[<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref46">51</reflink>] Aside from interesting implications for signing deaf people and concepts of disability, which I will explore more below, this statement indicates how he's focused on interacting with the hearing world. Sign here is valuable because it makes hearing society accessible. He does not talk of deaf-deaf interaction, deaf culture, or the joys of being in a community of deaf people; these things remain unsaid and unacknowledged, although he surely experienced them at Gallaudet.[<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref47">52</reflink>] His focus is on the nonsigning world.</p> <p>In contrast, Gannon makes the deaf community central to his identity and mission. His memoir is full of references to deaf friends and people. He recounts stories about deaf classmates in college, about deaf football players he coached at the Nebraska School for the Deaf, and about trying to move heavy cast-iron radiators downstairs with his deaf friend Yerker. As mentioned, he occasionally includes capitalized English glosses of ASL signs so readers who know ASL can experience sign that way. At other points, he translates signed comments into English and puts them in conventional quotation marks, but always finds ways to remind readers that they're reading signed conversations. Along the way, he shares aspects of deaf cultural traditions, such as name signs; technology for deaf people, like baby-cry light alarms; and the humor that arises when deaf parents raise hearing children, such as his hearing toddler daughter stuck on the toilet plaintively calling for them to come wipe her. Gannon's book is a memoir of an individual's life, but it also makes the camaraderie, humor, and humanity of the broader deaf community come alive.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-8">Different Stances on Education</hd> <p>Perhaps not surprisingly, their different upbringings and jobs led Bowe and Gannon to different positions on schooling, which has been so important to deaf people. Even before they became active in the public sector, American educational policy for deaf and all disabled students was increasingly favoring mainstreaming, or placement of students at a local public school. In the mid-1960s, Congress commissioned what later would be called the Babbidge Report, which found overall weakness in the nation's education of deaf children and faulted residential schools for deaf students in particular.[<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref48">53</reflink>] In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act), which required all schools receiving federal funding to accommodate disabled students' needs and provide them with equal access to education. The law was somewhat related to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which had originally passed in 1973. As a result, parents of deaf children increasingly decided to send them to local public schools instead of to residential schools for deaf students. Local education had some immediate advantages, including that it allowed students to stay at home with families. The disability rights movement helped this shift, as prominent activists like Judy Heumann argued for inclusion of disabled children with their nondisabled counterparts at schools. In Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, Heumann, a polio survivor who uses a wheelchair, details how she was denied education in regular public classes as she grew up.[<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref49">54</reflink>] The disability rights movement was and is very much about giving equal opportunity to disabled people no matter what the physical difference. As a result, in the years after P.L. 94-142, the percentage of deaf students at residential schools steadily declined. According to one study, the percentage of deaf students who attended residential schools declined from 23 percent in 1989–90 to 13.6 percent in 2003–4,[<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref50">55</reflink>] and it probably has fallen more since then. Some schools have closed, including the Nebraska School for the Deaf (closed 1998), the South Dakota School for the Deaf (2011), and the Austine School in Vermont (2014).</p> <p>Some members of the deaf community decried this change, pointing to ways that deaf people are different from people with other disabilities. For example, Leo Jacobs in A Deaf Adult Speaks Out notes that because of communications differences, mainstreaming can present "appalling difficulties" for deaf children, creating "serious social and psychological stresses" on them, as we have seen with Bowe's acute loneliness growing up attending a public school. "This has been very difficult for even the other handicapped groups to understand," Jacobs ruefully concludes.[<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref51">56</reflink>] He, in effect, emphasizes deaf people's difference from other disabled people even as he includes deaf people under the "handicapped" umbrella.</p> <p>Neither Bowe nor Gannon explicitly takes on deaf educational policy in their memoirs, but their sentiments are not hard to discern. In Changing the Rules, Bowe does write admiringly of his time at Gallaudet and, before he learned how to sign, visit to the Maryland School for the Deaf. Yet he stops short of saying anything on deaf educational policy. We get clues in a book he published eight years earlier in 1978, Handicapping America, where he reviews the advantages and drawbacks of "institutions," day schools, and mainstreaming in local public schools. Estimating that eight million disabled children attended school, he embraces the potential of mainstreaming for all disabled students:</p> <p>Mainstreaming ... is breathtaking in its implications for educational programs. It is also unlikely to become a reality ... unless and until America recognizes disabled people as equals deserving of equal opportunities. But the concept is a sound one and a model for integration of disabled people that can and should be applied to other areas of American life, including housing, transportation, social services, and employment.[<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref52">57</reflink>]</p> <p>Notably Bowe is not writing specifically about deaf students here, but nonetheless he clearly displays his enthusiasm for the potential of mainstreaming.</p> <p>In the mid-1980s, he chaired the congressional Commission on Education of the Deaf where he expressed his views on deaf education more directly. Speaking before Congress in 1988, he testified that he and other commission members had "serious concerns and problems" with deaf education, which he said was "not getting better" (CSPAN 1988). He and other commission members cited such troubling metrics as low average reading levels and the fact that most deaf students did not go to college to support this claim. Agreeing that deaf education had not improved as fast as it should, fellow deaf commission member Gertrude Galloway testified to the importance of retaining heritage, bilingual-bicultural education, and emphasizing language acquisition. While the commission's final recommendations advocated "appropriate education" and placement, it did not say anything specifically about residential schools.[<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref53">58</reflink>] Clearly the commission members were dissatisfied with the status quo; they also probably recognized that mainstreaming was going to stay. One infers that Bowe, wanting more deaf students to shine academically in the future, thought all options should be on the table, including nontraditional ones.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Gannon was strongly in favor of residential schools for deaf students, and the decreasing number attending them forms a backdrop to all of his published work, even if he avoids addressing the decline directly. In his memoir, he recounts many positive experiences at residential schools; if we count Gallaudet, he attended them, met his wife at one, and worked at them all of his life. As we have seen, at such schools Gannon "learned that there were others like me," learned to communicate via ASL, and found a sense of normalcy.[<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref54">59</reflink>] He also valued having deaf teachers who could serve as inspirations and guides; "most of my deaf teachers became lifelong friends," he writes.60 As his collaborator on History through Deaf Eyes, Jean Bergey, points out, he also thought it important that at residential schools, deaf students had many extracurricular opportunities, from sports to the yearbook to cheerleading, that would be harder for them in a mainstream setting.[<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref55">61</reflink>] As the football coach at the Nebraska School for the Deaf, he proudly names each of his players and how they achieved an undefeated season to the happiness and excitement of the whole school and local deaf community. That kind of communal spirit is something that Gannon treasured, and something that contrasts with Bowe's accounts of crushing isolation as he was growing up attending a public school. In Deaf Heritage, Gannon has forty-two pages of entries on all of the nation's schools for the deaf, including when they were founded and other highlights. They long served as the heart of the signing deaf community, where ASL, deaf stories, values, traditions, and communal spirit could be passed on. Because over 90 percent of deaf people are born into hearing families who typically know little about being deaf, the sociolinguistic role of schools has been essential. Gannon also includes a list of eighty-seven deaf people known to earn a PhD by 1980, including Frank Bowe in 1976; to Gannon, implicitly all deaf achievement, regardless of background, is worth celebrating.[<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref56">62</reflink>]</p> <p>While he generally eschews politics in his written work, when the Nebraska School faced closure in 1998, Gannon went to Nebraska and gave an impassioned speech, warning that the loss of the school would be like creating a black hole for deaf children in the state.[<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref57">63</reflink>] His suggestive metaphor suggests how residential schools were crucial to deaf children, enabling students to learn language, find identities, and join a supportive community with a rich heritage. Unfortunately the school closed.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-9">The Importance of Deaf Education</hd> <p>Although they take different stances on kinds of education, both Bowe and Gannon agree that accessible education is crucial for all deaf people, as both recount the tragedy of deaf people who do not get appropriate schooling. Such a lack of education often results in lack of language and illiteracy. When, after earning an MA at Gallaudet, Bowe teaches deaf students in Pennsylvania, he takes on a forty-sevenyear-old man who had had no education. "He had almost no communication whatsoever: a ... testimony to the devastating effect of deafness when educational intervention is not timely and powerful," Bowe says. "There was little I could do to help him: it was just too late."[<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref58">64</reflink>] Gannon reports a similar encounter with a pair of deaf brothers; when they were children, their parents had not let them go to a school for deaf students. They tried a local public school, but it did not work for them. Because of their parents' refusal, Gannon concludes, "the brothers were destined to lives of ignorance and poverty and denied the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential."[<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref59">65</reflink>] Such testimony is reminiscent of Clerc's statement in an 1816 speech that deaf people denied an education "would be condemned all their life to the most sad vegetation."[<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref60">66</reflink>] It also foreshadows movements like the current nationwide LEAD-K initiative, which seeks to give all deaf children language (signed or spoken) during their critical years of language acquisition before kindergarten.[<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref61">67</reflink>] Such language deprivation is a current site of activism. For example, in 2015, Tom Humphries and other leading linguists and deaf studies scholars called attention to the harms that result from denial of sign language,[<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref62">68</reflink>] while Joseph Murray has approached the issue in terms of the linguistic human rights that all deaf children have.[<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref63">69</reflink>]</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-10">Back to the Disability Question</hd> <p>Going along with these attitudes, the two men adopt different positions with regard to disability. Bowe routinely calls himself "disabled" even as he acknowledges that "with an interpreter ... I was not handicapped at all."70 He believes that sign language removes the stigma of disability, but he always defines himself against the larger nonsigning public that has many privileges that he lacks. Gannon does not use the word disability or confront it head on, although he repeatedly shows compassion for deaf people with physical challenges, such as an older teacher at MSD who wavers when he walks or a determined twelve-year-old deaf student in Nebraska with advanced muscular dystrophy. Still, Gannon repeatedly resists charges that he is at a disadvantage. When a hearing woman says she will pray for him, he replies, "I am very happy the way I am."[<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref64">71</reflink>] His views seem to align with Tom Holcomb's observation that "those with access to Deaf culture certainly do not spend their time thinking about whether they are disabled."[<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref65">72</reflink>]</p> <p>As we consider Bowe and Gannon on the linguistic minority versus disability question, we should note that the difference between the two is a matter of degrees and not absolute. Bowe, throughout his life, expressed respect for deaf signers. As he attended Gallaudet for an MA, he studied research "that was beginning to demonstrate that sign language was in no way harmful to deaf children."[<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref66">73</reflink>] That astonishing conclusion disproved the dominant ideology that had governed his whole life. He does not regret how he was educated, perhaps because he does so well in his career, including chairing a Congressional commission, but he does have long talks with his parents about communication method. He asks them to learn fingerspelling but, older and convinced they raised him correctly, they decline to do even that. He writes that he understood intellectually, but "emotionally ... it was very hard. I knew there was much that my parents never said to me."[<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref67">74</reflink>] The words contain the pain of many deaf people who feel isolated from nonsigning families. In addition, the fact that he was a friendly acquaintance of Frederick Schreiber, T. J. O'Rourke, Gannon, and other deaf leaders shows he valued the signing deaf community even as he worked for broader disability justice.</p> <p>For his part, in his role at Gallaudet as special assistant to the president for advocacy, Gannon during the late 1980s attended high-level meetings about the ADA, sometimes substituting for the university president, I. King Jordan. Disability rights leaders Justin and Yoshiko Dart even gave him a poster of an American flag. Says the inscription: "Jack, we love you! Lead on."[<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref68">75</reflink>] The galvanizing 1988 Deaf President Now protest, in which deaf students and their allies closed campus for a week, marched on the US Capitol one mile away, and called for a deaf president (they succeeded), added energy and visibility to agitation for the ADA, which passed two years later. Such examples show "deaf" and "disability" frequently contained slippage and were rarely mutually exclusive to these two authors.</p> <p>Still, in the following decades, controversies persisted. In the 1990s and aughts, many signing deaf people renounced the disability label, probably wishing to contest the appearance of cochlear implants and genetic engineering, which both seemed to threaten the continued existence of a signing deaf world. By rejecting disability, they were rejecting the notion they wanted to be fixed.[<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref69">76</reflink>] In 2002, the prominent hearing scholar Harlan Lane espoused this view, contending that accepting the disability label set deaf people up for the wrong solutions, such as medical interventions. In 2005, the deaf scholar Carol Padden observed, "Truth be told, deaf people see themselves as an odd fit in disability studies."[<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref70">77</reflink>] As she testifies, the discomfort with the term endured. In 2007, after more emotionally draining protests over a deaf president at Gallaudet, several hearing scholars weighed in. Lennard J. Davis drew upon postmodern ideas of identity to argue for an inclusiveness that would bring "people with disabilities, deaf people, gay people, and children of deaf adults" together.[<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref71">78</reflink>] Finally, in 2008, Douglas Baynton maintained that deaf people should claim both a unique culture and disability status that offers them protection: the two, he argued, are not mutually exclusive. As we can see, even among hearing scholars working in deaf studies, there was little consensus.</p> <p>The issue has continued to percolate but seems to have receded somewhat. The controversy around cochlear implants has faded, as they, like hearing aids before them, have not led to the erasure of the deaf community or of ASL. Now they are typically accepted, but controversies over disability still exist, and efforts at the eradication of deaf people, like CRISPR, stubbornly remain.</p> <p>In 2019, the World Federation of the Deaf issued a courageous position paper on which model is most appropriate for deaf signers: a linguistic and cultural group or a disability group. Acknowledging this space is "contentious," the authors, Elena Down and Robert Adam, along with editing from Eeva Tupi and feedback from many leading scholars in deaf studies around the world, nevertheless both recognize deaf signers as a linguistic and cultural group and point out that disability status offers them much-needed protection. The United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, ratified 2008), for example, contains strong protections of a deaf person's right to sign, and the authors point out that, without question, deaf people everywhere face "disabling environments."[<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref72">79</reflink>] Knowing that deaf people around the world often are denied the opportunity to learn sign language, they firmly conclude that both models are valid, not contradictory, and can be helpful to deaf people:</p> <p>Rather than seek to create a hierarchy of rights, or preference one instrument over the other, or say that linguistic rights apply in certain circumstances and disability rights in other circumstances, the Deaf Community must be able to avail itself of all the powerful tools available to it under each of the international legal frameworks. Far from being irreconcilable or diametrically opposed, they are complementary, and as a whole, can assure that every deaf person can thrive as citizens and learners in their communities.80</p> <p>This language helps us to see that Bowe and Gannon's work was not "irreconcilable or diametrically opposed," and how both, in their lives and different approaches, helped to make society, and the world, better for deaf people. This view seems right to me. As we face the myriad paradoxes and challenges confronting the deaf community in society, we need all the tools available to us, including linguistic recognition and disability rights and protections. The linguistic-cultural argument alone seems neither convincing enough nor to offer adequate safeguards, especially when we remember the many cultures in the United States, like various Indigenous cultures, that have gone into decline or disappeared, and how residential schools are in retreat.</p> <p>Most deaf Americans—whether deaf of deaf, deaf of hearing, born deaf, deaf at a young age, late deafened, or educated at a residential school or mainstreamed at a public school—can no doubt recognize aspects of their own experience in Bowe's and Gannon's stories.</p> <p>Now I occasionally think of Bowe whenever I have a sign language interpreter, and of Gannon whenever I teach deaf history. We owe them gratitude for all they accomplished.</p> <hd id="AN0164352547-11">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>I thank Rosalyn Gannon, Jean L. Bergey, Brian Greenwald, G. Thomas Couser, an anonymous peer reviewer, and the editors of <emph>Sign Language Studies</emph> for their generous feedback on this article. I'm responsible for any errors.</p> <ref id="AN0164352547-12"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Because scholarship on these topics is copious and constantly appearing, any listing must be partial and incomplete. Thomas K. Holcomb gives an incisive overview in <emph>Introduction to American Deaf Culture</emph> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). For a general introduction of sign language linguistics, see Margalit Fox, <emph>Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals about the Mind</emph> (New York: Simon &amp; Schuster, 2007); on deaf children not having access to sign, see Tom Humphries, et al. "Discourses of Prejudice in the Professions: The Case of Sign Languages," <emph>Journal of Medical Ethics</emph> 43 (2017): 648–52; on the 1988 Deaf President Now protest, see Jack R. Gannon, <emph>The Week the World Heard Gallaudet</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1989); on the decline in enrollment at schools for deaf students, see Ross Mitchell and Michael Karchmer, "Demographics of Deaf Education: More Students in More Places," <emph>American Annals of the Deaf</emph> 151 (2006): 95–104; on the dramatic increase in the number of college students studying ASL, see the Modern Language Association of America, <emph>Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Summer 2016 and Fall 2016: Preliminary Report</emph> (MLA publications, 2018); on the marginalization of deaf students and workers, see Gina A. Olivia, <emph>Alone in the Mainstream: A Deaf Woman Remembers Public School</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2004) and the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes, <emph>Postsecondary Achievement of Deaf People in Virginia: 2017</emph> (NDC 2017), https://nationaldeafcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Virginia.pdf ; the films mentioned are <emph>The Heart is a Lonely Hunter</emph> (1968, dir. Robert Ellis Miller), <emph>Children of a Lesser God</emph> (1986, dir. Randa Haines), and <emph>Coda</emph> (2021, dir. Sian Heder); on captioning, see Harry G. Lang, <emph>Turn on the Words! Deaf Audiences, Captions, and the Long Struggle for Access</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2021); on CRISPR, see Carol Padden and Jacqueline Humphries, "Who Goes First? Deaf People and CRISPR Germ-line Editing," <emph>Perspectives in Biology and Medicine</emph>, 63 (Winter 2020): 54–65.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Virginia Postrel reports, "The Greensboro sit-in lasted almost six months, drawing hundreds of participants and counterprotesters and spreading to other downtown stores. Finally in July the store gave in, officially desegregating its lunch counter." Virginia Postrel, "What Shopping Did for American Equality," <emph>The Wall Street Journal</emph> (Dec. 10–11, 2022): C4.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref3" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Heumann gives a gripping account of the protest in her autobiography; see Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner, <emph>Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist</emph> (Boston: Beacon Press, 2021). For more about the protest, see also the documentary film <emph>Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution</emph> (2020, dir. James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham) and Bowe's memoir, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph> (Silver Spring, MD: T. J. Publishers, 1986).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref4" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> His books included <emph>Changing the Rules</emph> (1986) and <emph>Handicapping America: Barriers to Disabled People</emph> (New York: Harper &amp; Row, 1978).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref5" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Full citations for Gannon's books: <emph>Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America</emph> (Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf, 1981); <emph>The Week the World Heard Gallaudet</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1989); <emph>World Federation of the Deaf: A History</emph> (Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf, 2011); <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn: Stories through the Years</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2020); and, with Douglas Baynton and Jean Bergey, <emph>Through Deaf Eyes: A Photographic History of an American Community</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2007).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref6" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Robert Weinstock, "Jack R. Gannon: An Appreciation," March 18, 2022, https://gallaudet.edu/university-communications/jack-r-gannon-an-appreciation/.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" idref="ref7" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> The Gallaudet University Alumni Association, <emph>The Gallaudet Almanac 1864-2014</emph>, Second ed. (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2020).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref8" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Rosalyn Gannon, videophone conversation with author, Sept. 15, 2022.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref9" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> My reference here is to H.-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray's thoughtful collection, <emph>Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity</emph> (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> CSPAN, Education of the Deaf Commission Report, Video, March 21, 1988. https://<ulink href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?1728-1/education-deaf-commission-report">www.c-span.org/video/?1728-1/education-deaf-commission-report</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> <emph>60 Minutes</emph>, "King Jordan," produced by Holly and Paul Fine, March 11, 1989, ABC.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Tom Humphries, "Deaf Culture and Cultures," in Kathee M. Christensen and Gilbert L. Delgado, eds. <emph>Multicultural Issues in Deafness</emph> (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> M J Bienvenu, "Disability," <emph>The Bicultural Center News</emph> 13 (April 1989): 1.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin, eds. <emph>Keywords for Disability Studies</emph> (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 5.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lennard J. Davis, <emph>Enforcing Normalcy: Deafness, Disability, and the Body</emph> (New York: Verso, 1995).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Douglas C. Baynton, "Beyond Culture: Deaf Studies and the Deaf Body" in <emph>Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking</emph>, ed. H-Dirksen L. Bauman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 293–313. Tavian Robinson, "We Are of a Different Class,' Ableist Rhetoric in Deaf America 1880-1920" in <emph>Deaf and Disability Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives</emph>, eds. Susan Burch and Alison Kafer (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2010) 5–21.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Laurent Clerc, "Address to the Connecticut Legislature" [1818], in <emph>A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing 1816-1864</emph>, ed. Christopher Krentz (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2000), 17.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> John J. Flournoy, "John J. Flournoy to William Turner" [1856], in <emph>A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing 1816-1864</emph>, ed. Christopher Krentz (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2000) 166.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Edmund Booth, "Mr. Flournoy's Project" [1858], in <emph>A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing 1816</emph>-1864, ed. Christopher Krentz (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2000), 182.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Brian H. Greenwald, "Taking Stock: Alexander Graham Bell and Eugenics, 1883-1922," in <emph>The Deaf History Reader</emph>, ed. John Vickrey Van Cleve (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2007). 136–52.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> The first state to legalize sterilization in the United States was Indiana in 1907 and by 1930, almost 30 states had sterilization laws. See, for example, Philip R. Reilly, "Eugenics and Involuntary Sterilization: 1907-2015," <emph>Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics</emph> 2015 (16): 351–68.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Robert Buchanan, <emph>Illusions of Equality: Deaf Americans in School and Factory 1850-1950</emph> (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2002), 42.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Susan Burch, <emph>Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II</emph> (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 121.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> See Burch and Melissa Malzkuhn, "Compromising for Agency: The Role of the NAD during the American Eugenics Movement, 1880-1940" in <emph>In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History 1780-1970</emph>, eds. Brian H. Greenwald and Joseph J. Murray. (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2016), 181.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Baynton, "Beyond Culture," 308.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Robinson, "We Are of a Different Class," 18.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Susan Schweik, <emph>The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public</emph> (New York: New York University Press, 2009).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Erving Goffman, <emph>Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity</emph> (New York: Simon &amp; Schuster, 1963).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 92.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 2.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 167.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 169.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Certainly many people who find their way to the deaf community as adults—and I count myself among them—go through a culture shock when they encounter a signing deaf environment for the first time. For a useful account of deaf rules for social interaction, see Humphries, <emph>Introduction to American Deaf Culture</emph>, 195–222.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 169.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 14.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 34.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 13.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 15.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 16.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 127.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 178.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 104.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 80.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 150.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 176.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 176–77.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 4.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 17.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 17.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 17.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 177.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> In an earlier book, <emph>Handicapping America</emph>, he imagines the daily life of a deaf person and does acknowledge the importance of deaf-deaf interactions. He creates a hypothetical deaf "you" relaxing with deaf friends, sharing "bitter jokes about 'the hearing world'" and exchanging news about other deaf people. "Later, you return home filled with the glow of friendship," he concludes, giving a sense of his ambivalent views of the deaf community (Bowe 1978, 47).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bernhardt E. Jones, "Competencies in K-12 Educational Interpreters: What We Need Versus What We Have," in <emph>Educational Interpreting: How It Can Succeed</emph>, ed. Elizabeth A. Winston (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2002), 114.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Heumann, <emph>Being Heumann</emph>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Mitchell and Karchmer, "Demographics of Deaf Education."</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Leo Jacobs, <emph>A Deaf Adult Speaks Out</emph>, Third ed. (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1989), 60.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Handicapping America</emph>, 154.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> "Findings of the Commission on Education of the Deaf," <emph>Education Week</emph> (March 30, 1988), https://<ulink href="http://www.edweek.org/education/findings-of-the-commission-on-education-of-the-deaf/1988/03">www.edweek.org/education/findings-of-the-commission-on-education-of-the-deaf/1988/03</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 15.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 16.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Jean Bergey, conversation on Zoom with author, Sept. 9, 2022.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Brian Greenwald astutely points out that the list of earned doctorates in <emph>Deaf Heritage</emph> showed there were many deaf people who had the requisite academic credentials to serve as president of Gallaudet. In this sense, Gannon's book helped lay the foundation for DPN seven years later and deaf empowerment more generally.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Rosalyn Gannon, conversation with author, Oct. 29, 2022.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 171.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 52.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Laurent Clerc, "First Speech in America" [1816], in <emph>A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing 1816-186</emph>4, ed. Christopher Krentz (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2000), 9.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> LEAD-K website, https://<ulink href="http://www.lead-k.org/">www.lead-k.org/</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Humphries et al. "Discourses of Prejudice in the Professions."</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Joseph J. Murray, "Linguistic Human Rights Discourse in Deaf Community Activism," <emph>Sign Language Studies</emph> 15, no. 4 (summer 2015): 379–410.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 177.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon, <emph>Get Your Elbow off the Horn</emph>, 253.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Holcomb, <emph>Introduction to American Deaf Culture</emph>, 262–63.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 169.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe, <emph>Changing the Rules</emph>, 170.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Rosalyn Gannon, e-mail to the author, Sept. 15, 2022.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ironically, it was often the hearing parents of deaf children who decided to get a child implanted.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Carol Padden, "Talking Culture: Deaf People and Disability Studies," <emph>PMLA</emph> 120, no. 5 (2005): 508.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lennard J. Davis, "Deafness and the Riddle of Identity," <emph>The Chronicle of Higher Education</emph> 53, no. 19 (January 12, 2007): B6.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> World Federation of the Deaf, "Complementary or Diametrically Opposed: Situating Deaf Communities within 'Disability' vs 'Cultural and Linguistic Minority' Constructs," 2019, <ulink href="http://wfdeaf.org/news/wfd-position-paper-on-the-complementary-or-diametrically-opposed-situating-deaf-communities-within-disability-vs-cultural-and-linguistic-minority-constructs/">http://wfdeaf.org/news/wfd-position-paper-on-the-complementary-or-diametrically-opposed-situating-deaf-communities-within-disability-vs-cultural-and-linguistic-minority-constructs/</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> World Federation of the Deaf, "Complementary or Diametrically Opposed."</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0164352547-13"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibtext> Thomas K. 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Reilly; Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics; 351; 2015</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Robert Buchanan; Illusions of Equality: Deaf Americans in School and Factory 1850-1950; 2002; Gallaudet University Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Susan Burch; Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II; 2002; New York University Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Burch; Melissa Malzkuhn; Brian H. Greenwald; Joseph J. Murray; In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History 1780-1970; 2016; Gallaudet University Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Baynton</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Robinson</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Susan Schweik; The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public; 2009; New York University Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Erving Goffman; Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity; 1963; Simon &amp; Schuster</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Humphries; Introduction to American Deaf Culture; 195</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules; 176</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bernhardt E. 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Murray; Linguistic Human Rights Discourse in Deaf Community Activism; Sign Language Studies; 15; 4; 379; 2015</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gannon; Get Your Elbow off the Horn</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Holcomb; Introduction to American Deaf Culture; 262</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Bowe; Changing the Rules</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Carol Padden; Talking Culture: Deaf People and Disability Studies; PMLA; 120; 5; 2005</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lennard J. Davis; Deafness and the Riddle of Identity; The Chronicle of Higher Education; 53; 19; 2007</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Christopher Krentz</p> <p>Reported by Author</p> <p></p> <p>Christopher Krentz is an associate professor at the University of Virginia with a joint appointment between the American Sign Language Program and the English Department.</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref11"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref16"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref17"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref18"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref20"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref23"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref24"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref25"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref28"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref29"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref30"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref31"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref33"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref34"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref35"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib41" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib42" firstref="ref38"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib43" firstref="ref39"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib44" firstref="ref40"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl32" bibid="bib45" firstref="ref41"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl33" bibid="bib46" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl34" bibid="bib47" firstref="ref43"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl35" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref44"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl36" bibid="bib49" firstref="ref45"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl37" bibid="bib51" firstref="ref46"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl38" bibid="bib52" firstref="ref47"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl39" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref48"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl40" bibid="bib54" firstref="ref49"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl41" bibid="bib55" firstref="ref50"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl42" bibid="bib56" firstref="ref51"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl43" bibid="bib57" firstref="ref52"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl44" bibid="bib58" firstref="ref53"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl45" bibid="bib59" firstref="ref54"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl46" bibid="bib61" firstref="ref55"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl47" bibid="bib62" firstref="ref56"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl48" bibid="bib63" firstref="ref57"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl49" bibid="bib64" firstref="ref58"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl50" bibid="bib65" firstref="ref59"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl51" bibid="bib66" firstref="ref60"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl52" bibid="bib67" firstref="ref61"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl53" bibid="bib68" firstref="ref62"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl54" bibid="bib69" firstref="ref63"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl55" bibid="bib71" firstref="ref64"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl56" bibid="bib72" firstref="ref65"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl57" bibid="bib73" firstref="ref66"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl58" bibid="bib74" firstref="ref67"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl59" bibid="bib75" firstref="ref68"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl60" bibid="bib76" firstref="ref69"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl61" bibid="bib77" firstref="ref70"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl62" bibid="bib78" firstref="ref71"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl63" bibid="bib79" firstref="ref72"></nolink> |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Illuminating the Paradoxes of Deaf Experience: Bowe, Gannon, and Disability – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Krentz%2C+Christopher%22">Krentz, Christopher</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Sign+Language+Studies%22"><i>Sign Language Studies</i></searchLink>. Spr 2023 23(3):355-385. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Gallaudet University Press. 800 Florida Avenue NE, Denison House, Washington, DC 20002-3695. Tel: 202-651-5488; Fax: 202-651-5489; Web site: http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/SLS.html – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 31 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Descriptive – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Deafness%22">Deafness</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+States+History%22">United States History</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Civil+Rights%22">Civil Rights</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sign+Language%22">Sign Language</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Experience%22">Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Oral+Communication+Method%22">Oral Communication Method</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Parent+Role%22">Parent Role</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Placement%22">Student Placement</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Special+Schools%22">Special Schools</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Mainstreaming%22">Mainstreaming</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Disabilities%22">Disabilities</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1353/sls.2023.a899423 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0302-1475<br />1533-6263 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: The last sixty years have been a time of tumultuous change in the American deaf community. Two deaf figures who made a great difference during this period were Frank Bowe and Jack Gannon, who passed away in 2007 and 2022, respectively. Bowe was a prominent disability rights leader, helping to secure more rights for deaf and all disabled Americans, while Gannon helped to advance appreciation of deaf signing communities with his advocacy and several influential studies of deaf people who sign. Although they both lived in the second half of the twentieth century and knew each other, they had quite different lives, mostly because Bowe did not attend a school for deaf students or learn sign language until he was an adult, while Gannon grew up in the deaf community. Their memoirs offer a valuable way for us to investigate the details of recent deaf experience. The books illuminate not only Bowe and Gannon's work to make the world a more just place for deaf people, but also the pressure they both experienced to adopt oralism, the importance of parents and educational placement, the liberating nature of sign language, and the move from deaf schools to educational mainstreaming. The memoirs also give differing perspectives on signing deaf people's complicated relationship with concepts of disability, suggesting a way forward. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1387116 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1353/sls.2023.a899423 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 31 StartPage: 355 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Deafness Type: general – SubjectFull: United States History Type: general – SubjectFull: Civil Rights Type: general – SubjectFull: Sign Language Type: general – SubjectFull: Experience Type: general – SubjectFull: Oral Communication Method Type: general – SubjectFull: Parent Role Type: general – SubjectFull: Student Placement Type: general – SubjectFull: Special Schools Type: general – SubjectFull: Mainstreaming Type: general – SubjectFull: Disabilities Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Illuminating the Paradoxes of Deaf Experience: Bowe, Gannon, and Disability Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Krentz, Christopher IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2023 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0302-1475 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1533-6263 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 23 – Type: issue Value: 3 Titles: – TitleFull: Sign Language Studies Type: main |
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