my brothers in South America. Truths that hurt. (..)... I would say I am a "dull" with "s" in lower case for my sin of being born listener, having become deaf approximately 6 years, and have been educated orally. I admit that education in oral schools produce a kind of "brainwashing" as in discrimination against those who had "no chance" of agreeing to an optimal education.
The bad thing is that induce oral schools to separate between deaf people themselves, to prevent the spread against what they labeled as "half less communication (body language as they would use only !!!).
monkeys being born listener (...) gives me the existence of post-lingual language, and therefore I felt somewhat identified oral language .... But life is a long way where everyone is experiencing experiences and fraternizing with all types of people and each person is a particular entity in itself.
the highway of my life I met other deaf people for much of my life I had been off limits ... I met deaf signers, which the author of this paper defines as "Deaf".
At first I did not understand the language of gestures ... I found something completely incomprehensible, indescribable ... and my surroundings did not help me, because naturally people had oralizadas environment.
Gradually I went trolling and meeting them "deaf", until one day I made a sign language course to learn to understand them (this shows my willingness to approach), and finally I realized that it considered that language rough at first, had its own beauty, their own strength, and laid bridges of communication between a vast community of deaf people.
simply because I could not hear, I think a deaf person ... beyond not dominate the sign language as a language, but like any deaf am a person who used and abused of gestures as a companion to my words ...
When I participate in a congress, drifting die if there were an interpreter, since the lack of hearing makes me completely useless, so I depend on any interpretation that in my country, Argentina, are ambivalent signs and spoken words at the same time.
that mark I have deaf friends who respect "my stupidity and ignorance" for the management of sign languages, with whom I have social, emotional and intellectual ....(..)
(..) And every time I see some injustice attacking some deaf people, I run to defend it with my own weapons, and the strength of my pen and my words .(...) situations
Experience that I had to serve as interpreter to deaf people who could not speak against a kind of tribunal that prejudge, because he does not understand his sign language, and to provide my words fraternal vigorously defended them. Was defending a "brother" rather than methods of communication ....(..) My ideal of the Deaf have a powerful intellectual development, which has an excellent command of reading and writing, which have mind comprehensive and well incorporated concepts to avoid being trampled, and function as a heterogeneous body.
Nothing so simple as this ... and this is my thinking and my way of being ... and do not ask anyone's permission for me to accept, in the same way that not prejudge anyone. Luis Osvaldo Palladino
A deaf adult Argentine
Another letter:
(..) While I was born listener, hearing loss and I am now way to lose more and more the hearing.
However I do not feel less than anyone else and do not feel discriminated against or excluded, many times I wanted to learn sign language, but for economic reasons could not.
My interest in learning sign language, it is because I want to connect more with the other, with my neighbor, in any case was never prevented, the not knowing, since I've communicated in writing or with a few signs I learned in rudimentary form.
I think in my case the desire connect was stronger than any prejudice.
I guess I fit in the lowercase deaf, but I had never really considered this as a problem. You
oral language, sign language exists, the body and the soul. I try to perfect myself in all of them, to cultivate more friendships.
I have neurological problems that have made me express myself better in written than oral, so I dive into my ideas and thoughts, let the plasma flow and paper.
Silvia Rivas, hard of hearing.