96 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
is inescapably entangled. The interconnections themselves are part of the construc-
tion of identity” (Massey, 2005, p. 139). In a state of constant comparison,^11 the tra-
jectories of people, their experiences, and their lives in their home countries are
connected with those at Gallaudet and in the United States in “a sense of place
which is extroverted, which includes a consciousness of its links with the wider
world, which integrates in a positive way the global and the local” (Massey, 1994,
p. 154). Salman Rushdie used the concept of translated people to refer to people who
speak from the “in between” of different cultures, always unsettling the
assumptions of one culture from the perspective of another, and thus finding
ways of being both the same as and at the same time different from the others
amongst whom they live (Bhabha, 1994). of course, such people bear the
marks of the particular cultures, languages, his tories and traditions which
“formed” them; but they do not occupy these as if they were pure, untouched
by other influences, or provide a source of fixed identities to which they could
ever fully “return.” (1991, cited in Hall, 1995, p. 206)
The people I interviewed for my research were multilingual, moving back and forth
between the spoken and written language(s) and sign(ed) language(s) used in
their geographical homes and English and ASL, the languages used at Gallaudet.
Matthews (2006) has found that ASL competence organizes social life at Gallaudet
Univer sity, placing American deaf students of deaf parents with an ASL background
at the center. This is a governmentality and territoriality that often excludes par-
ticular groups of students who have not mastered ASL (yet) and for whom educa-
tional and social access at Gallaudet University may be problematic: “Thus while
Gallaudet Univer sity is arguably Deaf space, a particular form of deafness dominates
a particular set of power-geometries (Massey, 1998) that locates students differen-
tially as in or out of place” (Matthews, 2006, p. 206). Although diversity is highly
visible and present on campus through student clubs, such as the Black Deaf Stu-
dent Union, the International Student Club, and the Asian Pacific Association, and
through awareness raising via lectures and workshops, research participants also
shared experiences of linguistic, ethnic, and racial discrimination (see also Stuart
& Gilchrist, 1991).^12 A sense of awareness of those axes of difference was also pres-
ent during the 2006 Unity of Gallaudet protest, and this was also a topic that was
debated among international deaf people at that time.^13- The contribution of these student clubs to creating room for difference is illustrated by yerker
Andersson’s personal view on changes at Gallaudet since his arrival there in 1955 as an international
deaf student from Sweden: “During my first years, we knew that we would not survive if we could not
get adjusted. Besides, we could not discuss foreign issues because many U.S. students tended to believe
that the United States was superior to all foreign countries in all the ways. We simply were willing to get
adjusted to the United States. When foreign clubs came up on campus, I got a feeling either that new
foreign students were more resist ant to a quick acceptance of the United States or that U.S. people were
more tolerant or aware of changes in other countries” (personal communication, 25 February 2008). - Thanks to yerker Andersson for paying attention to this perspective.
- For a personal account of this protest, see Chapter 7, the section entitled “Learning to be a strong
deaf person.”