As soon as the South Asian Summit was over last Sunday, I headed over to the original Busboys and Poets for my first D.C. Sepia Mutiny Meetup. I was nervous since I was hosting solo and we were expecting about twenty people. As people slowly filtered in, I realized that not all twenty would show up – it would be intimate for sure.
As we sat there, this tall guy walked over to our table and wrote down something on a paper. He then signed to his two friends with his hands, and they pulled a table to join us. I walked over and introduced myself. It was clear that they were deaf, so I pulled out a stack of note cards and pens I always carry with me and placed them on the table next to me. The next three hours turned into the most fascinating conversation (using writing, speaking, and signing) about the intersection of being Desi and Deaf in an American world.
There was Shazia the Pakistani/Muslim/Californian who could speak verbally better than the other two, and served as a translator. There was Sharvedh who had just moved back to DC and was raised in South Africa in the same historical Indian neighborhood that Gandhi lived in. Finally, there was SM reader Karthik, the Desi Born Desi who had a Cochlear implant recently done and what English he spoke had an Indian deaf accent. They all represented a different aspect to being Desi, yet they were friends that were brought together in this parallel world of deafness.
“Do you know any Deaf Desis?” Shazia scrawled on a paper and handed to me. I didn’t. But seeing it on paper it struck me how I had just been at the South Asian Summit, listening to a panel on language access and how the Deaf community was not even mentioned. As activists, we fight for in-language resources for government agencies to provide in Hindi, Urdu, Bangla and other Desi languages for our limited English speaking population. But being deaf is a limited English speaking population too. What struck me was how we were having this South Asian Summit in DC talking about the needs of our community and how there was this Deaf Desi community that was not even represented at it. Washington D.C. is home to the largest Deaf population in the nation, perhaps because Gallaudet University is located here. It should then be no surprise that there is a large group of Deaf Desis in the D.C. area. The Metro South Asian Deaf Association (which Karthik is on the board of) has around 100 registered members (as of 2007) and has been around since 1980.
This association now encompasses Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and India. The members do not have to be born in any of these countries-just have roots in of these and are living in DC metropolitan area. They are more enthusiastic to work together as team, in the present to the future. The benefit to join the MSADA community is to enjoy the cultural social and recreational aspects rather than political. Also, to educate each other the varieties of culture in each country we would be more enriched and knowledgeable. Non-South Asians and hearing people can be part of the club, too.[MSADA]
Our conversation was worthy of a documentary and I kept wishing we had a better way of documenting it outside of note cards. We learned how sign language from South Asia is different than American Sign Language and how even in sign language, New Yorkers speak way too fast. We learned the sign for Hindu (thumb making mark on head), Bangladeshi (opening fist like a flower), Sikh (two hands making a turban), Tamil (hand across forehead), Sri Lankan (circling pointer finger at open palm), Muslim (hand in front of face moving down) and FOB (hands in boat shape and finger jumping out). I was surprised at how many of the signs were so blatant. “That’s racist!” I mouthed to Shazia as she signed ‘Moroccan’ (two hands making a niqab) for me. She mouthed back, “Deaf people are blunt.” Touched upon in an earlier post by Amardeep on Russel Peters’ and his deaf stand up routine, I thought about how space to be politically correct in a deaf world was marginalized. Sure, it makes for faster conversations, but I also wondered how racism and South Asian identities developed. Does it make it less racist since these signs are inherently how this community communicates?
This led into a conversation about elitism in the community. If people were born deaf or became deaf later in life, it played an element into how ‘elite’ the person was perceived. People who used hearing aids were looked down upon by others in the Deaf community. But what was the most interesting to me was how the intersection of white racial domination interplayed, and how Deaf Desis were marginalized by Deaf whites. Should be no surprise, I guess, since intersectionality of race and identity comes in all forms. But for some reason, it was a surprise to me.
And of course, how can we have a Desi conversation without it moving towards our favorite topic: dating. Sharvedh shared that he preferred dating white women to Desi women. When asked, he shared his experience of dating a white hearing woman and a Desi hearing woman. The Desi woman’s family had more prejudices – they were worried he’d pass on the deafness to his children. It was less complicated to date the white woman, she had less prejudices. I asked Shaziah if her parents wanted her to marry someone Muslim and what type of pressure was she getting. She responded that her parents would think it was nice if she found a Muslim, but they really wanted her to be with someone she could communicate with – without communication there would be nothing.
Communication. Isn’t that what it comes down to? I often feel that at Sepia Mutiny meetups you can get into deeper conversations because the blog serves as the vehicle for like-mindedness. It isn’t just our South Asian identity that brings us together, but in many ways, how we choose to navigate this hyphenated identity that lets us empathize with each others stories, even though there may be stark differences. I felt like the conversation on Sunday was communication of the deepest kind, a real connection of merging South Asian personal histories, similar yet unique because of one thing that set us apart: voice. But that’s why we write, right? To give voice to the voiceless? And that for me took on a whole new meaning after that meetup’s conversation.
To learn more about MSADA, please visit their website. If you are in the D.C. metro area, they do have events periodically – please contact them to join and get on their list. If interested in further reading, check out this memoir titled Deaf in Delhi or this article titled, “Young South Asian deaf people and their families.”
Or you can simply watch Uncle Ramesh teach you ASL here. 😉
Thank you to all the folks that joined us for the meetup! I made some friends for life, for sure. I’d love to hear what you thought about it was well!
I was surprised at how many of the signs were so blatant. “That’s racist!â€
yeah, i’ve talked to others who have had the same experience with the signs that the deaf make.
A very nice, thought-provoking post. You make some great points, and they all ring true. Thank you, Taz.
Interesting post and topic. This was unintentionally (I think?!) funny:
Really great post. From what I’ve witnessed in my own family, Indians have a very low tolerance for disabilities– mental or physical. The treatment of these individuals ranges from dismissive to hostile, but there is always this fear of contagion, most probably due to the arranged marriage system (keep your bloodlines pure). Do you think the love marriage system lends itself to more acceptance of disabilities, and could that explain why some cultures are more accepting of people than others?
By the way, I’ve seen all kinds of things labeled as ‘disability’ — poor eyesight for one.
Wow, I’ve never thought about the deaf desi expat experience. I know only one deaf desi but he’s an older uncle back in the desh, and it always amazed me that NO ONE in our entire family has learned any kind of sign language in order to communicate better with him. They don’t even write notes, they just grunt and pantomime and guess until it seems there’s some kind of mutual understanding. I agree with musing about that there seems to be a better acceptance/accommodation/advocation cause for many types of disabilities outside of Pakistan (/India) and I think it’s largely because there’s a longer history of work towards those goals.
What a revelation about the different sign languages, though. It never occurred to me…
It was nice seeing a post on deaf people on this site. I admit I have never seen this site before, so I might be wrong about this being a first post on deafness or Deaf Desis. I have been in this country since 1967 when Indian people here were as rare as Americans are in India. I met, maybe, ten Indians during my first five years here. Every time, I saw an Indian, I used to run to them introduce myself and see the excitement on their faces seeing another Indian. However it would change to a strange expression once they knew I was deaf. They would pat my back and make a hurried retreat. Talk about prejudice among Desis for disabled people! No wonder, I ended up with all my friends being Americans–both deaf and hearing. However, things are changing. One of the keynote speaker at the ASHA convention in Dallas this month is a deaf person. You can get more information about the book, Deaf in Delhi, at http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/bookpage/DIDbookpage.html and read a chapter. Those of you who are interested in knowing more about deafness and deaf people as well as what they can do to help the deaf, please post your thoughts there.
I was just about to chime in about Deaf in Delhi, and then I planned to either IM or e-mail my father to tell him about this entry, but . . . well, sure enough, I scroll down and find that my father has magically already found this page!
It is unfortunately true that older Indians — particularly if they were born and raised in India, are far less likely to make much of an effort to get to know deaf Indians (if they don’t write them off completely). I do think this has a lot to do with my parents’ circle of friends being largely deaf and non-Indian.
In any event, I’m sure “Pop” will address any other questions that might arise, so I’ll defer now. 🙂
My cousin-brother has been deaf since he was born. His mother, my aunty, contracted a virus during pregnancy. I am the youngest in my family, but because he was seven years younger than me, I always treated him as my own kid brother. Growing up he had to leave his family and attend deaf school because the specialist education centres were far away from home. So it was basically only at weekends and holidays that we saw him for a few years.
Everyone missed him like crazy, but he became independent really quickly, and got confidence he simply would not have achieved had he been cosseted at home. He has a wide circle of friends, and his best friends over the years have been other deaf guys from an Indian background like himself, although he has lots of white mates too. So it’s interesting how even in that situation, just like us, people from certain backgrounds tend to gravitate to people who have similar experiences and families.
Over the years I did the male bonding thing when you talk to your kid brother about girls….turns out my cousin was very popular with the white girls at his school! About three years ago he finished further education at a local specialist college and started working in an office.
Growing up we learnt to sign. A point to the bindi in your forehead is ‘Indian’. Doing the ‘namaste’ sign with the palms of your hands together is the expression for ‘temple’, basically when we go to the Gurdwara. I always feel so moved when I sign with him because we have conversations with our whole body and face….there is such expressiveness in our communication. There is no whispering….you are open and face-on and so attentive. You pay such attention to gesture, expression and facial expression …. it is quite literally, ‘body language’.
We have never really encountered prejudice from people in the Indian community, although we know some people are not so lucky. Just some people kind of treating him as if he is stupid, or not talking to him, but talking to the person standing next to him, as if he is in some way invisible. In my family everyone embraced him, in fact if anything he hated the way people went out of their way to treat him with more love and attention because he just wanted to blend in with everyone.
A couple of years ago someone mentioned to his Mum that there was a Sikh girl originally from Kenya who she knew, who was also deaf, just slightly older than my cuz. At first he was reluctant to meet her, because he was shy of the whole thing where you are introduced to girls, the ‘introduction’ thing. So I told him to at least look at her picture, and she was beautiful, and worked in a fashion store. They met and hit it off and were married by the end of the year. He always said he wanted to marry a deaf girl, because he felt only someone who understood his life like that could relate to him, but he never cared if she was white or Indian, and to be honest nobody in the family was really bothered if he married a white girl, everyone just wanted him to be happy. He just didn’t feel really comfortable with hearing girls, but with a deaf girl he could be himself.
But now that he is married to a deaf Indian woman, he understands that there were other aspects of his identity and experience that make sense only to others like you, and she could understand things that he knew but other white deaf men and women didn’t understand, about racism they may have faced, and just the general life of being Indian in the UK, the family culture, all that kind of thing.
Just before his wedding, after the official stag party, me and him went out for a few drinks and got so drunk I forgot how to say things in signing, so we had a couple of drunken conversations in writing about how much we loved each other. The next day we laughed at the obscenities and stupid things we wrote down and he told me to throw it away because it was embarassing. But I kept that piece of paper and will keep it forever. Everything works out the way it does. I don’t think he would have been a different person if he was hearing. He would have ultimately been the same guy, happy, friendly and positive.
Terrific post, Taz.
I’m not making any judgments here but I just thought its interesting that often in desi conversations about dating and marriage, white is the only alternative to brown.
Great story Billy.
Getting so drunk that you lose the ability to communicate in sign is pretty funny.
That’s because desis from India associate primarily with other desis and white people. Desis from the Carribbean (Indo-Carbs) however are more likely to associate with black people to a greater degree than desis from India.
Indians have a very low tolerance for disabilities– mental or physical.
well, this i a phenomenon common across many cultures & societies. the sign of the gods’ disfavor, etc. etc. in muslim countries the predestinarian streak in islamic thought is used to justify them as the will of god, and of course karma can easily be used to “explain” why someone is the way they are. with affluence and smaller families presumably the attitudes will change as people learn to appreciate what different people can contribute even if they aren’t in the typical mold.
Taz, I thought this post was fabulous and thought provoking. I don’t know any deaf desis, but I do have a couple of relatives in the motherland that had various mental disabilities. It is definitely true that a huge concern in our community about whether disabilities are genetic and families still hide the disabled to protect the marriage prospects of their able-bodied children. Hopefully, both education about disabilities and better services for the disabled will dispel these prejudices soon.
Great post, it touched on a lot of things that have never even occurred to me. I hate to admit it but I probably haven’t thought of the deaf desi experience since I saw the movie Khamoshi when I was younger and even then nothing productive occurred to me.
I agree that there is definitely a dismissal of people with disabilities in many families I have met but I always love it when my Dad describes someone with a serious disability as rab da roop (the face of God). It always reminds me that such apparent differences aren’t always a life sentence against a fulfilling life, they can be an opportunity to see the warmth and acceptance in the world in an entirely unique way that most of us will never understand.
loved this post, thanks taz
You may be interested to read a story I wrote for Rediff about 6 years ago about deaf Bharata Natyam dancers: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/nov/17spec.htm
They were really amazing to watch! I wish I had video at that time because it would’ve made a great video.
I rocked that HTML: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/nov/17spec.htm
Great post!
Now a few questions arose from the comments:
when confronted with someone different (differently abled, disabled, or plain different) why do people tend to either dismiss or elevate them to a pedestal (re:”face of god”)??
what do those with mental disabilities have in common with deaf people?? very little. This kind of reductionism is what most deaf people try to avoid. Totally different needs and abilities here.
🙂 and a good mornign to you too. it just got sunny here. i have extended family with downs, ms, severe autism etc – and they keep on trucking along. oh there are low points. but the affection one gets and gives isnt any less diluted – but is perhaps purer for the faith that inspires it.
true. but i dont htink that was implied in the posts above. it is not a corollary old peanut.
When someone says, what is the difference between mentally challenged and deaf people, it shows the general ignorance about disabilities. Unfortunately, it is very common. I have been asked if deaf people use braille to communicate. A leading educator in India who wanted to help the disabled, asked me if he should start a college for the disabled? He meant a college in which all disabled persons will study side by side–deaf, blind, mentally challenged, physically disabled and whoever. I hope discussions like this one will help raise awareness about disabled people and disabilities. Thanks, Taz for starting it.
What’s up ex-colleague! Great article on deaf classical dancers.
Thank you for this post. Having worked with deaf people, I can tell you that they do not consider themselves “disabled.” In fact, they detest that label. It is a culture not a disability.
Growing up, there was a deaf boy in my community who I never talked to even though we were the same age. I always wondered how he communicated with his family, and whether he learned ASL. I can’t imagine how isolated and lonely he must have felt in our community considering nobody signed. I’m glad you highlighted the Metro South Asian Deaf Association as a resource….definitely going to look into that.
Taz, your post made me think about this issue, so thank you. I will make an effort to learn sign-language.
Also, do you know that toddlers in some daycare centers in US are being taught sign language before they can even speak ? This is because most toddlers can communicate in sign language much faster than they can speak. Hope this new impetus will be helpful for our deaf brothers and sisters in future.
i absolutely loved this post and how insightful it was. a topic that never gets discussed should deserve more attention.
good post. this is sepia mutiny at its best.
Great post, Taz. I like how heartfelt you are because you humanized your encounter. I like your style of writing — it is very personal, yet objective — and you engage with the people you are interviewing or talking about.
It is unfortunate that “defects” of any kind are seen as curses in our communities, but that is not something restricted to South Asians. Physical defects are viewed with suspicion in most communities around the world — from Asia to the Latin Americas, and have been seen as a hand of the devil (or other similar manifestations relevant to belief system) or evil (and I am not just talking about views in major religions). It was a stigma in America, too, until recently in its history.
I’d love to see you do a post on mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc.) in our communities because the stigma there is shocking. Instead of helping, there is a tendency to hide the person away for life. When I was a young girl, I had a neighbor who had a daughter with some form of down syndrome, and she always had an ayah with her, but I remember being terrified of the girl. She ran into our house once and sat down at our dinning table (she had “escaped” her ayah) and I remember being so scared of her, and although my mother served her tea with biscuits and talked to her that didn’t lessen my fear of her and I was relieved when the ayah came in and took her away. Years later, I wish I had taken the time to hug her and to try to talk to her. It’s a memory I recall with some shame, but I also remember how lovingly her mother (my neighbor) treated her daughter.
Interestingly, with amniocentesis (sp?) and selective abortions, fetuses with congenital “defects” have in recent decades been aborted. Pregnant women are given the option to abort kids with down syndrome — I am shocked that there isn’t more outrage over that. But this is off topic.
And I am not equating deafness with down syndrome, so let’s nip that in the bud. I am talking about how societies in general treat people who are different.
Hi Taz,
I really enjoyed your write up. Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Great post – thanks for being an advocate 🙂
awesome and insightful. thanks for this
Just a side note that may be of interest, since Taz mentioned language access – intuitively, language access does seem to include issues of communication with the hearing-impaired. But from a strictly legal standpoint, the laws on language access stem from prohibitions on national origin discrimination, so deafness doesn’t really fit. Rather, issues of hearing and deafness fit within the legal framework of the Americans with Disabilities Act and disability law generally. . . . Taz’s points are so insightful and bring up the lack of representation that south Asians with disabilities receive at gatherings that tackle the issues related to being south Asian in America. Maybe at the next South Asian Summit or other similar conference, a segment featuring issues specific to south Asians w/ disabilities (even during a plenary) would serve to educate even the most activist among us. Learning about the issues facing this subset of our community might serve to broaden our outlook on what civil rights for our community really means at a nuts and bolts level. . . . sometimes it means that the civil rights activists among us have to embrace and assimilate the “non PC” ways in which some of us have to express ourselves.
Great post. From a deaf friend’s experience, the deaf community in Chennai and Bangalore are quite well-served by schools and other facilities. My friend works as a manager in the Titan factory in Hosur, they employ a sizable number of deaf people–they also live near the factory in a large community.
I also second the call for a separate post on how intellectual disabilities are seen by desis everywhere. In my experience, the only way they’ll be accepted is if they were gifted at something else. There is a lot of ignorance and rudeness.
My older sister, now 40, has epilepsy and a mild intellectual disability. Life in 80s India was very hard for us all. My sister grew up to become a bit more independent, had an arranged marriage and had a child. Unfortunately, our world came crashing down, when their child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, followed closely by the death of her husband. It’s a mess. You’d think there’d be some appreciation of my sister’s difficult situation and how well she’s done inspite of it–instead, people have erroneously and ignorantly suggested to us that her child is disabled because of her illness and that we should have never tried to give her a normal life.
In my experience, Indians everywhere have still not changed enough for my nephew to be accepted easily. However, facilities in India are quite good now and that makes a big, big difference. There are special schools in major cities–my nephew goes to an excellent one in Bangalore.
Great discussion! I used to work with the deaf community (directly/indirectly) and my name sign was an A with the thumb on the forehead. Yes, only Indian around so it was unique enough.
Madan – Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m absolutely interested in your experience with American sign language after being in India. One of the key distinctions with sign language is that it’s not all the same, you have dialects and accents like any other language.
stop it with the self-loathing and the simpering tone will you. it’s vain, venal and really grates on my nerves. thank you.
Puh-leeze.
Liya is expressing her own personal opinion based on her entire life’s experiences.
Your’s may be different. That does not mean her’s are invalid.
I have/had several relatives who are deaf although none that I know of in my own generation, but in my parents’ and grandparents’ generation. I am wondering if there is any literature, even fiction, that describes deaf culture and sheds light for those of us who do not have any direct contact with the deaf. Thank you.
“stop it with the self-loathing and the simpering tone will you. it’s vain, venal and really grates on my nerves. thank you.”
I can barely contain my anger at this statement. Liya was sharing with us an incredibly person (and incredibly common) story of hers and you come back with….this. Usually I just let trolls like you go, but this was so out of line I think it warrants a comment.
I don’t know if you’re just an angry, bitter person, but you definitely need to spend some time reflecting on how and when you lost your ability to empathize.
I’m assuming deaf desis in America learn both South Asian sign language and ASL. Wondering how easy it is switch between both ?
I recall reading somewhere that in Canada, they were building a township more suitable for deaf people (all doorbells have lights, low tables that permit sign language) etc. Anyone has pointers to this?
Also how long does it take to learn ASL?
oh sod off. i didnt care for the holier than thou tone, “o! look at dem indians. they suck. me the exception. tres grand”.
Lord of the Dings,
Nope. Most learn only ASL and English if they grew up here. It would be very difficult to switch between ASL and South Asian Sign Language (& other languages) unless you heavily use South Asian SL in your home (while communicating in English and ASL outside).
As for time to learn ASL – short answer is it depends….It is a full fledged language that is very different from English in its grammar, syntax and structure.
This is in response to Ashi’s question/comment; Madan – Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m absolutely interested in your experience with American sign language after being in India. One of the key distinctions with sign language is that it’s not all the same, you have dialects and accents like any other language. ASL is very different than ISL (Indian Sign Language). For example, when I arrived at Gallaudet University in 1967, I was totally lost as I knew ISL, but not ASL. It took me several months to express myself and almost a year before I could comprehend a classroom lecture in ASL. As for dialects, like any language, ASL and ISL and other sign languages have their share of it. Not much research has been done on ISL, however. It is generally believed that sign language is universal, it is not. Thanks for asking this question and giving me the opportunity to clarify this misconception prevalent everywhere. Madan
Hi, I am a man of Indian origin born in a predominately Indian community in Africa and I attended an Indian school for the deaf only. Yet, I only knew how to sign ASL. This experience illustrates the diversity within Deaf South Asians community. I don’t ever know how to sign Indian sign language. I only knew how to sign American sign language because I spent most of my teen years in the States – and I matriculated at a high school here in Washington, DC. Also, I knew how to sign British Sign Language because I lived in London, England for a year and half. In United Kingdom, there are several Britons of south Asian origins and a vast majority of them don’t ever know how to sign Indian sign language.
Sunzari, yes, I agree totally with you that deafness may be perceived as a medical condition to the mainstream society however this is our culture and our way of living really. But from the political point, I will not mind the term, disability as this grant our rights such as in the case of ADA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_With_Disabilities_Act
I agree, for family reasons that I prefer not to discuss. Those who would take such an un-nuanced view as that there exists a “Desi deaf community,” while possibly well-intentioned, could definitely benefit from some sensitivity training, in order to teach them to recognize each further degree of nuance, such that they reach the ultimate correct conclusion that every snowflake is unique. Perhaps a SAALT (plenary?) session could address this in the not-too-distant future.
Khoofi , about Liya, I must tell that I do agree with her based on my experiences. This is not the question of my self-loathing about my Indian. Being a deaf man, I must say that I have such experiences and as a result, if I see the gathering of the Indians then I would walk on the other side to avoid them and I suppose this is the cumulative result of my survival mechanism in negotiating in my social life. I often have better experiences with non-south Asians particularly whites and blacks rather than South Asians. I am glad that Taz addresses this in her posting. Hopefully this is the catalyst for better things to happen – perhaps – by educating the South Asians about deafness and addressing such issues that may contribute to the betterment of the south Asians community. Razib, Indians have a very low tolerance for disabilities – mental or physical – I always ponder whether this is the institutional outgrowth of beliefs in caste.
Musings, I don’t understand how love marriage would result in higher tolerance for disabilities. It all depends on the right attitude and right mindsets with the reservoir to give love and whether the disabled children are the offspring of an arranged marriage or love marriage are completely irrelevant. I have had seen with my own eyes that disabled children are loved in the institution of arranged marriages. Sunzari, I agree with you – I am blessed that my mother is able to sign well. My father is able to fingerspell (there is a vast difference in signing and fingerspelling) and otherwise, my father and I tend to communicate in writing. Several of my cousins are able to sign. Many deaf Indians came forward and always told me that I am quite lucky that I am able to communicate with my family and relatives. So I sense that they are quite lonely. If anyone has a deaf relative, then it should be motivated by love to at least learn how to communicate. Besides, learning how to sign is helluva a lot of fun!
Lurker Auntie, I am an avid reader. Based on what I recall, there is no mention of deafness in Indian ancient literature. I may be wrong. But I don’t think this is mentioned. Lord of the dings, about the township that is built for the deaf people. Mark my words, isolating them into a township that is built for deaf people will not solve anything. It is best to assimilate them into the mainstream society.
Razib, I find that very interesting to consider some signs as racist. I never thought in this way but I can see why the others would interpret this as racist signs. Deaf people are by nature not necessarily blunt but they are visually motivated to express. Sign language is a highly visual language.
Sharvedh, when you type words do you “hear” what you are typing in your mind?
How are you able to formulate the “sound” of words in your mind?
I have always wondered if deaf people hear language in their minds and if so, how?