Thursday, May 15, 2008

coda

here is the video i made for my final project!



This project was created to consider the differences in forms communication. I was raised in a family with two deaf parents and two other hearing sisters and I feel that this has formed my personal identity as well as my cultural identity. I learned from a young age to be the connection for my parents between their culture and the hearing world. The title of my video piece “C.O.D.A.,” stands for Children of Deaf Adults. C.O.D.A. is an international group for the culture of hearing children of deaf adults. These hearing children are in a similar situation to the children of immigrants, in both cases the children may have to negotiate between two very different ways of life.

Being the child of deaf adults has allowed me to be a part of two separate and distinct cultures. The deaf world, unlike other types of disabilities, is considered its own culture because it has it’s own language and form of social interaction (Filer). Although my parents never used sign language with our family, we have learned to communicate differently than other hearing families do. This video piece highlights one of the most important ways of communication within my family, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). While AIM is often associated with today’s tech savvy youth, my parents have quickly adapted to it, email and text-messaging.

According to Rex and Peggy Filer, in the article “Practical Considerations for Counselors Working With Hearing Children of Deaf Parents,” there is a set of shared characteristics for many children of deaf adults, although not all children have all of the characteristics. A brief summary of these characteristics, for example: the hearing children (most often the oldest daughter) become the parents link to the hearing world, these children often feel like they are neither part of the hearing nor the deaf world, the children are both interpreters and censors, they are protectors, of real threats like fire alarms, police sirens, and burglars, as well as perceived threats like discrimination.

The video starts off with a conversation between my partner and I. It is a fairly banal conversation, we acknowledge the camera and continue to talk in a normal fashion. The middle portion of the video focuses on two views of me sitting at my computer. I am talking to my mom on AIM, although this may not be immediately obvious. Unlike the conversation between my partner and I, while talking to my mom, I am checking my email, listening to music; my cat even jumps onto my desk at one point. These two conversations come in two very different forms, although they do tend to drift toward some of the same topics. The video ends with another clip of a conversation with my partner and I. We mainly focus on some of my everyday worries until my partner suddenly breaks into a description of what he sees as my “mothering” tendencies.

One of my personality traits that I have always thought of in a negative way and as a very gendered idea can be understood differently when looked at through the lens of C.O.D.A. “Mothering” turns into “protecting,” which comes across as more neutral. I am very protective with the people in my life I am close to, both hearing and not. This is the way that I have managed to bridge the two cultures that make up my identity.