Growing up with Deaf parents never struck me as odd. I mean sure, my parents had plenty of things that annoyed me, but I imagine most kids can say that about their parents. I suppose however, that there were some issues that were unique to being a child of Deaf adults (CODA).
One of these things was that my mother, who loves to chat, often complained about being left out of conversations. Since I was usually the only one who could bridge that linguistic gap, I was the one who had to interpret. As a child, this was pretty annoying since it’s very hard to both interpret and be a part of the conversation at the same time. It’s especially frustrating in large groups or when my mother would take over the conversation and convert me into a purely uninterested interpreter. Varying degrees of annoyance clashed with my desire to please my mother, but inevitably any effort made on my part was never enough, and an argument often arose. That was, until my first real stint abroad.
Living in Spain, without speaking the language, was just the thing I needed to empathize with my mother. I often found myself at dinner tables where people would do their best to speak to me in English or interpret the conversation, but ultimately I was often left out. The feeling of loneliness is amplified by a crowd. I once gave up trying to participate in a dinner table conversation and left my girlfriend and her friends to chat one-on-one with someone at the bar. Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with her, but I just felt hopeless and needed a decent chance at interacting with someone. At some point it dawned on me that this was exactly what my mother was feeling.
Deaf people experience much of the same loneliness and frustration in their own country as immigrants, who don’t speak the local language, do abroad. Take this recent article about a journalist working in France. Her brain was fried just after a month of trying to navigate in a foreign language. She even had 6 years of French lessons under her belt. You can imagine how challenging it is for a Deaf person to live their entire lives in a country where their native language is a tiny minority, and there is no natural chance of “learning” the language fully enough to seamlessly interact with the majority of the population.
This is why Deaf communities form. These communities are the “ahhh I’m home” moment for many Deaf people. Deaf ‘bubbles’ such as Gallaudet in Washington D.C., Riverside or Fremont in California enable the Deaf to mingle with other American Sign Language (ASL) speakers just as a hearing person would in spoken English. This is often where they feel most at home and don’t feel like “the deaf person.”
The experience of living abroad and being linguistically limited, was exactly what I needed to truly empathize with my mother. I now try harder and try to have more patience when she asks to be included. I’m not saying I’m able to fully satisfy her thirst for inclusion, but at least we get along more at the dinner table, which is important because it’s hard to eat when you’re angry.
As a side note, this also stresses the importance of having an interpreter at these social gatherings. It doesn’t occur to many people to have an interpreter for a Deaf relative during Christmas or Thanksgiving, but this could be just what they need to be able to feel included. Providing an interpreter during a special event, so they could better get to know their own family, would be a much better present than anything you could find on Amazon.
If you would like to book an interpreter or translator for any event, feel free to email spotoninterpreting@gmail.com or call 855-562-7768.
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