Rosie Cappa was born hearing, but at the early age of three months lost her hearing due to high altitude flying on a trip to Puerto Rico to visit her grandmother. The oldest of multiple siblings, Rosie is the only deaf person in her family, and growing up deaf in the 60s and 70s proposed many trials with both her immediate family as well as with intercultural communication outside her family. Rosie Cappa, age 50, helps teach us about the deaf culture, the challenges deaf people have faced coexisting in a dominantly hearing culture, and what communication between these cultures looks like today.
While I was on a long road trip with a new acquaintance, discussion turned to a subgroup in our culture – as well as all cultures that I know of - deaf people. The acquaintance said her sister-in-law is deaf and was able to introduce us via Facebook where she accepted my humble request for an interview.
In the 60s and 70s, Rosie’s parents were adamant about her assimilating into the dominant hearing/speaking culture and sent her to St. Joseph’s School for the Deaf in New York City. There she underwent vigorous training with a speech therapist to learn how to “speak” with the use of hearing aids. Such approaches were not uncommon in these days.
David Luterman, D.Ed., author of “Early Childhood Deafness: A 50-year Perspective” writes, “Back then, after a child was diagnosed with a hearing loss, there was little or no help for the families in making the adjustment to having a child with special needs. The parental role was often one of a passive observer and recipient of professional expertise” (Luterman, 2010, para. 1). This process actually worked very well for Rosie and her type of speech was largely understood in communication with the dominant culture, however, at age 11 she stopped using hearing aids due to the noise of low flying aircraft near their home and her speech declined rapidly. Another form of communication had been available to her since the age of eight, American Sign Language (ASL). Rosie picked up on this form of communication quickly, a language based on body language with emphasis on hands/arms and facial expressions.
She learned this language from a friend she had who had two deaf siblings. This communication mode was a problem in that she was actually punished for using it in school in the latter 60s and was only free to use ASL as she pleased after 1970. Even with the acceptance of sign language in schools- and in later year’s permission for interpreters to be present during lessons- deaf people continue to face extra challenges academically. In an article called “Starting in the classroom, Jordan’s deaf community faces obstacles”, published in the McClatchy - Tribune Business News (IL, USA), a university student interviewed said, "I have faced some problems during my study at the university. Some teachers used to ask for written assignments, but we are unable to write complete, accurate sentences as deaf people” (Zghoul, 2010, para 4.). The article helps readers understand that even today, in many places of the world (Jordan in this example), deaf people struggle to integrate into mainstream curriculum and that deaf university students can be a rarity outside of classes where signing is the method of communication. “During written exams he sometimes failed to comprehend all the questions, and some teachers refused to allow an interpreter into exam sessions, he [Zghoul] recalled” (Ali, 2010, para 5). Conversely, favorable reports in recent years of signing among the hearing is becoming more common among infants and toddlers before they are even able to talk, used in conjunction during their learning, and according to an article called Hands-on baby talk assures “It's never instead of and it actually helps to accelerate their speech" (Castello, 2010, para. 6).
Further challenges inherent with Rosie and most deaf people who attempt to communicate with members of the hearing/speaking culture are in the basic logistics. Deaf people had to write messages on pads, she recalled, and have to be there -physically present- without the luxury of, for example, picking up the phone to order something. Technology changed with the proliferation of TTY machines for the deaf community, which stands for teletypewriter, a kind of typewriter with a communication channel for telecommunication, allowing phone call communication.
However, Rosie reports that these machines were large and heavy, not suitable for transport until newer technology scaled down the size and made them easily portable. It could be said that the common texting on cell phones today was being used in this subculture first. Today Rosie uses a Sorenson VP (Video Phone) and a computer laptop. Additionally, she utilizes closed captioned TV, keeps up with news online, and is a voracious reader. Her views about media are that she doesn’t feel very affected by what’s happening in the world but she definitely takes particular notice to deaf-related issues like Cochlear Implants (which she is against) for babies. Cochlear Implants, starting in 1969, continues to be a controversial topic. An apt contribution from the Yahoo! Contributor Network says “Some people in the deaf community consider cochlear implants as forfeiting one's right to deaf culture, while others in the deaf community consider cochlear implants to be merely a personal decision” (ZWQ43, 2008, para. 1). Obviously in the latter case, it could be further argued that individual is not making that decision for themselves that the personal decision is with the guardian. A popular misconception about the implants is that they restore hearing, when in actuality they restore auditory perception through electronic generated impulses to the brain using components like a transmitter, microphone, and sound processor. The procedure to insert the implant into the body is not without risks of other physical problems and side-effects. Ultimately, the person choosing or having chosen for them, cochlear implants, may be presented with a challenge of fully relating to either the deaf subculture or the dominant hearing culture, a cultural identity crises of sorts. 
Comparing her past to today, Rosie says there is a big difference now; she embraces the newer technology because she says it bridges some of the gaps between the deaf and hearing that caused miscommunication, frustration, and delays before.
Since 2001, Rosie has had occasion to travel quite a bit, living in various states including Alaska, and Florida where she currently resides. Today she wishes her siblings had their own VPs because of the persistent dependency on people’s facial expressions/body language to help encode moods and their emotions. Gaps that still exist between deaf people and the hearing people who do not know ASL account for credible amounts of misunderstandings, the need for clarification, and the time it takes for repeating. Rosie has four hearing children and each of them is part of both cultures, having been trained in ASL since the age of one. Because of the amount of time it takes to learn ASL, deaf people are known to be very appreciative and patient with people who have taken the interest and are trying to be a part of their culture. Rosie shared with me how many people are against “audism”, a term with many definitions but has to do with stereotyping that some hearing people do regarding deaf people and the effects of that stereotype, like discrimination in the workplace.
Rosie does report frustration at wanting to communicate the need for strobe lights for deaf people when there is a fire emergency. She would ask that places of employment make it mandatory to install them so that deaf people do not have to rely on just visual cues from hearing people and having to extract from them the nature of the emergency.
It is likely, once again, that technology will continue to lead to additional shared consciousness between cultures, and that ingenuity will meet the need, starting with highest demand. Technology has already made strides for the deaf community as well as shared experiences among cultures globally via online interaction. The internet and wireless technologies are using a shared communication method that deaf people have had to use for years with hearing people who did not know how to use sign language- the written word. Likewise, through the ever-increasing ease of information exchange, subcultures are better known, decreasing ignorance, and empowering understanding.
Rosie says she is always learning, she loves life, and loves being deaf. Compared to all her “hearing” memories when she used the hearing aids, she relishes what she calls “sound proofing pollution” and enjoying a “blessed, quiet environment”. Hearing Rosie’s story, and other deaf subculture stories about struggles and accomplishments, and by comparing deaf struggles of the past to modern day, we enable an intercultural knowledge-share that opens new channels of communication and makes cultural convergence closer each and every day.
References:
Luterman, D.. (2010, November). Early Childhood Deafness: A 50-Year Perspective. Volta Voices, 17(6), 18-21,6. Retrieved January 30, 2011, from ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source
Lubna Ali. (6 May). Starting in the classroom, Jordan's deaf community faces obstacles. McClatchy - Tribune Business News, pp 1. Retrieved January 31st, 2011, from ProQuest Newsstand.
Islam Al Zghoul
Renato Castello. (2010, December 5). Hands-on baby talk. The Sunday Times,44. Retrieved January 31st, 2011, from ProQuest Newsstand.
ZWQ43, associatedcontent from Yahoo! Cochlear Implants: The Pros and Cons, pp. 1. Retrieved January 31st, 2011, from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/824053/cochlear_implants_the_pros_and_cons.html
