In a different voice: Sign language preservation and America's deaf community

Bilingual Research Journal, Fall 2000 by Burch, Susan

Other local Deaf religious organizations provided social outlets for the community. The Hebrew Congregation of the Deaf (HCD), for instance, began around 1906 and had close contact with the New York Fanwood School. Like other groups, the HCD held balls, created a drama club, and sponsored boat and car excursions, in addition to their religious events. Forums, dramatic readings and tutoring were popular activities in the club as well. As membership swelled beyond 200, the HCD asked the larger organization in New York, the Society for the Welfare of the Jewish Deaf to act as the general agent of the Jewish community. By 1931, the group boasted over 500 members in New York, with various branches in Philadelphia, Chicago, and other major cities ("HAD Message," 1931, p. 1; "The Future of the HAD," 1916, pp. 6-7). The various organizations for Deaf people reflected the diverse interests and experiences of the community, but all shared a common use of an appreciation for signed communication.

Many of the local and state associations acknowledged their personal stake in the preservation of Sign Language among young people. As oralism infiltrated Deaf schools throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, Deaf leaders feared that students would create their own signs to communicate with each other and lose the historic tradition of experiencing "appropriate," eloquent signs from the masters, usually Deaf teachers. This literal communication breakdown isolated Deaf people from one another, and hampered attempts for members of the community to instill specific cultural values to the next generation, including pride in their identity and appreciation for the language and folklore which united them. Admittedly, many young Deaf people joined Deaf groups as adults and thus gained unhindered access to their culture. However, leaders fought to uphold the historic tradition of Deaf acculturation in the formative school years.

Although it was clear by the early decades of the twentieth century that Deaf people would defeat attempts to suppress Sign Language outside the schools, a real point of contention within the Deaf community was which Sign Language would remain. A major result of oralism's rise in the schools was the decline in Deaf teachers, often masters of Sign Language. The result was a rising disparity in signs between communities. As Elwood Stevenson, superintendent of the California school and son of Deaf parents, noted, "in the regular oral schools and special day schools, the children 'bootleg' signs as a means of communication among one another" (Stevenson, 1945, p. 4; see also Fay, 1916). Elizabeth Peet, dean of women at Gallaudet College, was more colorful in her criticism of oralism's impact on Sign Language. In a lecture to undergraduates at Gallaudet, she signed,

The fact remain[s] that signs are used by the Deaf, and if not permitted openly in school, they shoot up in the dark like "weeds" . . . and the result is a curious and grotesque combination of furtive gestures and expressive faces which no one but the children themselves can understand. (Peet, 1934, p. 2)