Understanding our region’s unique and vibrant Deaf community must start with understanding how its members acquire and share information. Most people who count themselves as part of the Deaf community are profoundly deaf, with hearing impairment severe enough to keep them from comprehending spoken conversation. The majority of these people, about 1% of the population, have been unable to hear since birth or an early age, and think and communicate, not in English, but in American Sign Language
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“Many people, even well-educated people, assume that American Sign Language is merely a way for the Deaf to express English words and phrases,” says Nancy Ordway, CEO of the Bangor Interpreting Agency. The agency provides translator and interpreting services in over 15 languages, including Portuguese, Urdu, and Cantonese. “American Sign Language is actually a foreign language.” (See sidebar.)
This language barrier, perhaps more than even the inability to hear, makes Maine’s Deaf community, in many ways, a world unto itself.
“Those of us who work in this field refer to those who use ASL as their primary language as Deaf with a capital ‘d’,” says Ordway. “It is a separate culture.” One of the tenets of Deaf culture, she says, is valuing interdependence over solo achievement, a marked difference from mainstream American society. “The Deaf people I know value each other’s wisdom and expertise before that of outside experts, and turn to each other first as resources.”
One reason for this is simply that, for the profoundly deaf, communication with hearing people who do not know sign is difficult. Lipreading and voice training work for some deaf people, but it tends to be for those who have some hearing or for those who lost their hearing after birth. Even the best lip-reader “gets” about 80% of what a familiar speaker says, and struggles to gain 20% of whatever else is flying from mouth to mouth. Many English words are not visible on the lips.
Written communication in English is also no slam-dunk. “Most people don’t realize that the majority of deaf Americans can only read and write English at a very rudimentary level,” says Robert Sterling of Bangor, a retired graphic designer and ASL teacher. “In-depth communication for most deaf people requires ASL.”
Sterling, who is Deaf, is also an activist for the Democratic Party and serves as a delegate to the state convention. Without interpreter services, he says, such involvement in the political process would be impossible.
Text-based technologies such as instant messaging, chat rooms on the Internet, and text messaging are not used as often by deaf Mainers to communicate as one might imagine. “I use what amounts to a videophone to communicate with people who can sign,” says Sterling. “I use email but only with a few Deaf. Many Deaf people find it a trial to communicate in written English and believe it is because they are stupid. They are not stupid. They are a product of an educational system that tries to teach them English in a language they don’t know—English.”
(Editor’s note: As this article went to press, Mr. Sterling passed away after a brief struggle with lung cancer.)
Interpreting services, the most natural way for the Deaf to communicate with hearing people, are unfortunately not inexpensive. Most ASL users make use of these services only when they are provided, as required by federal law, by larger entities such as hospitals, public schools, colleges, and law enforcement.
Another communication tool to bridge the gap between the deaf and hearing are teletype phone machines (TTYs). In Maine, TTYs have been in general use by the Deaf and their connections for more than 30 years. Airports and other public access areas are required to provide them, as they would a wheelchair ramp. A TTY is a keyboard upon which one can type a message that is then carried across telephone lines. The typewritten message can be received by other TTYs. Communication between the hearing and the Deaf requires a relay system, where a human operator answers the typed or spoken message and transcribes it or speaks it to the other party. However, this still-recent innovation may be on its way out.
A large number of Deaf TTY users are now switching to video relay systems, which allow the Deaf user to sign to a camera, to an ASL interpreter wearing a telephone headset. The interpreter (whom the Deaf person can see on a monitor) speaks the message to the hearing person at the other end of the telephone, and then signs the responses. Many Deaf people far prefer this to using English typed into a TTY.
Even with these innovations, communication between the Deaf and hearing is not nearly as frequent as it could be. Willie Tarr, a central figure in Maine’s Deaf community and vice president of the board of directors for the Maine Center on Deafness, believes the central conflict comes from the need to involve a third party in the communication process. “Among people who can hear, there is often unwillingness, through ignorance, discomfort, impatience, or a feeling of intrusion, to use a third party in order to communicate,” he says. Maine happens to be one of the few states to require that ASL interpreters be licensed. Yet, Tarr says, the fact that the third party is a professional who follows a code of ethics and respects confidentiality may not be enough for someone who can hear. “This is an excellent example of a cultural conflict. We [in the Deaf community] accept using these human communication aides and view them as necessary and a right.”
Deafness is known as “the hidden disability” because a Deaf person is not outwardly different. Among the thousands of people watching a folk festival performance, it’s not readily evident who is watching the ASL interpreter, not as a curiosity or an enhancement, but as a vital communication link.
For a Deaf person, looking exactly like a hearing person is a source of constant misunderstanding. One local Deaf woman, who preferred not to be named, says, “I am faced with someone who is obviously irritated with me, but I don’t know why, on a daily basis. This happens most often when I’ve been shopping for groceries and am standing in line waiting to pay. Someone will tap me on the shoulder, or with his or her basket, and I’ll turn to see someone red-faced and mouthing at me—but I don’t know why. It’s unnerving.”
Pat Heitmann, a nationally certified interpreter and transliterator, hears stories like this frequently. “Think of how often you have said, ‘Excuse me,’ but the person has failed to move, or beeped your horn without result,” says Heitman. “That person may indeed have been deaf and unaware that you were using sound to try to engage.” To the question, “What, are you deaf or something?” the answer, Heitman warns, may indeed be “Yes.”
Even a visual “clue” that someone is hard of hearing, like a hearing aid, can give a false impression. Most of the time, a hearing aid means the wearer needs a little help to hear. But for the profoundly deaf person, like Bangor resident Kenny Condon, it has a completely different function. “Without a hearing aid, I hear nothing. With a hearing aid, I get riding mowers and incoming aircraft. And high-pitched sounds like ambulance sirens.”
“What about a shrieking woman?” asks his Deaf friend.
“Why would I want to hear that?” Condon replies.
Perhaps the man most widely recognized as deaf in the Bangor metro region is Loreston McCrum. He’s often seen dispensing stamps and passport applications, weighing packages, and answering questions at the U.S. Post Office on Harlow Street in Bangor. A small sign standing on the counter in front of him states that he’s deaf. When the next customer-in-line’s turn arrives, they step up to McCrum. He looks over whatever the customer gives him, does some rudimentary lipreading, and through that and the use of gestures and notes, takes care of the customer’s needs.
McCrum, in his characteristically self-effacing way, declined to make a comment about his job or the challenges of being deaf for Bangor Metro. He signed, “I’ve been invited to share my life story for a book about my experiences, but really, I can’t think of anything to tell you, nothing anyone would want to read about.”
Willie Tarr, who was present during the conversation between McCrum and this writer, laughed at McCrum’s response, and offered this about his friend: “Loreston is very effective at his job. I’m sure there are people waiting in line at the post office who’ve never dealt with a deaf person before, and who assume that obtaining what they want will take up more of their time than they can afford because of difficulties with communication. But if you watch Loreston, you notice he is efficient and as quick as any of the other clerks.”
“Deaf workers, successful deaf employees,” he continues, “develop excellent work habits and are adaptable in the ways they communicate.”
Annette Mayhew also works for the post office and, in addition, is the assistant to the community development director at the Bangor Interpreting Agency. She successfully works in the hearing world every day, is bubbly and outgoing, and has a passion for helping others. Her laugh is infectious, though she’s never heard it herself. “I want deaf people and others with disabilities to find what I’ve found. I want them to realize that life does not have to be endured, and that they can find and pursue whatever will make them happy.”
Willie Tarr’s past work experience also includes helping people with disabilities, through Alpha One of Bangor. Today, he describes himself as a “househusband” as he works to start his own business while his wife, Bonita (who is also Deaf), works outside their home. While there are many state resources for someone starting a business, accessing them is difficult for Tarr. “I have to go to six to eight meetings and a variety of state agencies to get the information that I need,” he said at a recent public meeting. “This is hard, because I have to request ASL services. It takes a lot of time and effort. I would like to be able to get all the information from one person at one time.”
While every budding entrepreneur can relate, at least in part, to his frustration, the larger issues are much more profound for Tarr. He offers this analogy: “I am standing on the banks of a river, as a Deaf man. The water in the swollen river represents information. People who are in the river can hear. They are swimming in information every moment of their lives. They are buoyed by it, wet with it, overwhelmed and surrounded by a volume of information that is more than they can ever use. As a Deaf man on the banks of the river, I am thirsty for information and dry. I know little, not even the names of the fish. If I want information about anything at all, I must take my bucket down to the river and attempt to scoop up exactly the knowledge I need.”
Deaf achievers like Tarr must go after what they need in order to thrive. Thankfully, technology is increasingly helping them fill the bucket. With the advent of flashing or vibrating alarm clocks, an unprecedented choice of distance communication devices—from text-message cell phones to TTYs to videophones—and a choice of education venues that include both residential and local options, the argument might be made that now is the best time ever to be living with deafness.
At the American Folk Festival, audience members often stopthe ASL interpreters after they come down from the stage to ask questions. Two of the most typical is: Is sign language difficult to learn? (To express and comprehend it fluently, yes, it is.) And, do deaf people really enjoy the music?
The answer to this second question, says Theresa McLaughlin of Hermon, who is Deaf and has attended every festival, is that some do and some don’t. “We are as individual in our likes and dislikes as anyone else. Those of us who do enjoy the ASL interpretation of music are passionate about it.” McLaughlin sits or stands on the ground in front of the stage so she can feel the music as she watches the performers and sees the message and the rhythms expressed by the interpreter.
“I come to the festival every year with my husband and friends, who are Deaf, and with my children, who are teens and can hear. I love the storytelling and being able to laugh or be surprised along with the crowd. I enjoy knowing what my children are hearing. I get into the loves and losses of the country western and bluegrass lyrics. When there’s a gospel performance, I’m on my feet and singing along with my hands. I wouldn’t miss it!”
In years past, at least one performance at the folk festival has been signed at all times; sometimes more have been signed simultaneously. But, Annette Mayhew relates, a representative group from the Deaf community requested this year that there be only one performance interpreted at any one time during the festival. “It’s extraordinary to have interpretation access to something this wonderful,” Mayhew explains. “These folks felt having to decide between the performances was too tough a choice to make.”
