American Deaf Culture: The Deaf Perspective - Part One - Deaf Heritage.
I thought that this video was very enlightening and gave me a rare glimpse into deaf culture. The video started off by having individual deaf people talk about how they felt about deaf culture and deaf heritage. Some of the things that they said were very interesting, like how deaf people are no longer just participating in exclusively deaf activities but branching out into the rest of society. Someone else pointed out how deaf people today are much more willing to spread out geographically, doing more traveling outside of their community and out of the country. Another talked about how in San Francisco (where these people lived) the hearing community recognized the sign language really well, and this makes the deaf community seem a little more respected and important. One man talked about how he loves being involved in deaf clubs and activities, but he's afraid of hearing people because he feels like they whisper secrets. A lady talked about how deaf kids are sometimes not raised with the love and respect that they deserve, and that parents should always be inclusive to their kids, hearing or deaf. Yet another discussed how he wishes that everyone was deaf and that nobody could hear so that he wouldn't feel so left out anymore.
As the video goes on, we see how deaf people aren't simply classified as those who can't hear, but they have a complex cultural structure which defines who they are. It is a rich heritage which has evolved mush over time. Along the way, there have been some key players in this process. One of these was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, an American teacher who began to produce a system for American sign using a little French influence. He did this through his tutelage with Laurent Clerc, a deaf teacher from France. The two taught sign to American children at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut (which they founded in 1817), and worked with the kids" own already existing system of sign to come up with a system of signing.
