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The Other Side of Silence: Sign Language and the Deaf Community in America
Examines the use of sign language by the deaf and discusses the education and social conditions of deaf people in the United States
301 pages, Hardcover
First published October 12, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 1, 2019
As friends know, here at the age of 50 I've started learning American Sign Language (ASL) for the first time, and am doing a deep dive into the politics and culture of the Deaf community with a capital "D," as a way of compensating for my ever-decreasing hearing and hopefully opening a new avenue for my shrinking social life. (See my review of A Deaf Adult Speaks Out for a long explanation of what exactly "Deaf culture" is, and why it's so important to learn about before getting involved with the community.) This is another one of the "foundational texts" about modern Deaf culture, recommended to me by Michelle Jay, founder of the StartASL.com online courses I'm currently taking, and is so far the best out of the four books I've now read on the subject.
The reason is that it takes a penetrating and deep look at the entire subject of ASL, other forms of sign language, and other theories about how best to educate deaf people, all written during a time in the early 1980s when all of these theories were still being bandied about as roughly equally popular with each other, making it a fascinating historical document now that we live in an age where ASL has clearly and overwhelmingly won out over the rest. To give you the briefest recap possible, there are basically three events that happened in three years that now mostly define modern Deaf culture: the Gallaudet University student protests of 1988, essentially the Deaf community's "Stonewall" moment where everything changed; the day in 1989 that the Supreme Court ruled that the US government is required to acknowledge ASL as a legitimate language with legal rights; and the day in 1990 that Congress passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, which among other things now requires schools to provide ASL interpreters to its deaf students, and police and courts to provide them to those accused of a crime.
That means that for the last 30 years, we've now been living in a world where ASL is simply assumed to be the best option for those in the Deaf community to communicate with each other, an assumption that here in the 2010s barely anyone even questions anymore; so it's important to go back and read books like this 1983 one, a time when an entire half of the population (if not more) thought that the best thing to do with deaf people is to force them to learn how to lip-read and speak without hearing, which has been proven over and over and over again to be a disaster that simply doesn't work for most deaf people, and that only became the norm because hearing people kept insisting that they were smarter and better than "those poor dumb deaf-mutes" for whom they were making life-changing decisions against their will. (And this is to say nothing of "Exact English Signing" [in which a deaf person attempts to sign every single word in an English sentence], or "Total Communication" [which you can think of as "Deaf Spanglish," an attempt to combine ASL with hearing gestures and pantomime], two other schools of thought about sign language that were just as popular as ASL back in the day.)
I'm not giving the book a perfect score, because you can basically skip the last hundred pages as hopelessly outdated to the point of not even worth bothering with. (Among other things, they deal with the controversy at the time over teaching ASL to chimps and apes, a theory that's now been disproven and abandoned by the scientific community; the emergence of "closed-captioned television," a rare and pricey alternative in the early '80s [before Marlee Matlin and others helped push Congress to make captioned TV shows and sets a national law in the '90s]; and what the future might be of videophones and teletype machines, the book's fanciful science-fiction musings on the subject now not even worth bothering with in an age of iPhones and Skype.) But still, if you're trying to get an understanding of where the Deaf community came from in order to get to where it's at now, this is a riveting must-read, a great example of primary research (Neisser actually crisscrossed the country numerous times and personally interviewed everyone featured), and a deeply intellectual look at many of the questions about Deafness that have thankfully now been answered three decades later.
The reason is that it takes a penetrating and deep look at the entire subject of ASL, other forms of sign language, and other theories about how best to educate deaf people, all written during a time in the early 1980s when all of these theories were still being bandied about as roughly equally popular with each other, making it a fascinating historical document now that we live in an age where ASL has clearly and overwhelmingly won out over the rest. To give you the briefest recap possible, there are basically three events that happened in three years that now mostly define modern Deaf culture: the Gallaudet University student protests of 1988, essentially the Deaf community's "Stonewall" moment where everything changed; the day in 1989 that the Supreme Court ruled that the US government is required to acknowledge ASL as a legitimate language with legal rights; and the day in 1990 that Congress passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, which among other things now requires schools to provide ASL interpreters to its deaf students, and police and courts to provide them to those accused of a crime.
That means that for the last 30 years, we've now been living in a world where ASL is simply assumed to be the best option for those in the Deaf community to communicate with each other, an assumption that here in the 2010s barely anyone even questions anymore; so it's important to go back and read books like this 1983 one, a time when an entire half of the population (if not more) thought that the best thing to do with deaf people is to force them to learn how to lip-read and speak without hearing, which has been proven over and over and over again to be a disaster that simply doesn't work for most deaf people, and that only became the norm because hearing people kept insisting that they were smarter and better than "those poor dumb deaf-mutes" for whom they were making life-changing decisions against their will. (And this is to say nothing of "Exact English Signing" [in which a deaf person attempts to sign every single word in an English sentence], or "Total Communication" [which you can think of as "Deaf Spanglish," an attempt to combine ASL with hearing gestures and pantomime], two other schools of thought about sign language that were just as popular as ASL back in the day.)
I'm not giving the book a perfect score, because you can basically skip the last hundred pages as hopelessly outdated to the point of not even worth bothering with. (Among other things, they deal with the controversy at the time over teaching ASL to chimps and apes, a theory that's now been disproven and abandoned by the scientific community; the emergence of "closed-captioned television," a rare and pricey alternative in the early '80s [before Marlee Matlin and others helped push Congress to make captioned TV shows and sets a national law in the '90s]; and what the future might be of videophones and teletype machines, the book's fanciful science-fiction musings on the subject now not even worth bothering with in an age of iPhones and Skype.) But still, if you're trying to get an understanding of where the Deaf community came from in order to get to where it's at now, this is a riveting must-read, a great example of primary research (Neisser actually crisscrossed the country numerous times and personally interviewed everyone featured), and a deeply intellectual look at many of the questions about Deafness that have thankfully now been answered three decades later.
August 20, 2010
I enjoyed this book despite quite heavy content in some places. Some of the information/references that Deaf people "use" is out of date, but then again, this book if from the '80s timeframe. LOTS of interesting research done both by the author and by those with whom the author spoke. Kind of jealous author had opportunity to speak with so many influential people and had the chance to expose herself to so many Deaf experiences.
Overall: great read. Wouldn't classify it as a "fun" book, except if interested in this topic/genre. Great reference and source for studying other studies and research projects done in the past, back when not much was known about ASL/Deafness.
Overall: great read. Wouldn't classify it as a "fun" book, except if interested in this topic/genre. Great reference and source for studying other studies and research projects done in the past, back when not much was known about ASL/Deafness.
July 12, 2011
FASCINATING! Interesting, thought provoking, neat points of view presented
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November 5, 2024read this book for my ASL 301 class and wrote a book report on it. overall, not a “fun” read, per say, but very informative and covers a vast range of relevant topics to the Deaf community, its culture, and ASL
August 17, 2024
Really loved this.
Wish there was something comparable (maybe there is) that was a little more up to date.
Wish there was something comparable (maybe there is) that was a little more up to date.
May 24, 2014
I've been interested in Deaf culture since I took a course as an undergraduate called "Deaf Culture and Heritage." I bought this book for that class, but we only read selections. I don't know why it's taken me this long to finish it (the course being about eight years ago now!), but I'm so glad that I finally did.
Neisser clearly spent a lot of time researching for this book. She read tons of material, interviewed many people, and looked into legislation regarding the deaf and the handicapped. She tells a story of a language, of a culture, and of a people that want to be left to develop both on their own without interference from the hearing world. The two worlds must meet, but they don't have to collide. I love that Neisser respects Deaf culture and respects deaf people. Sometimes, her book is a little disorganized, but in the end, it didn't matter to me because I got the picture. Even if I didn't already side with the idea of "total communication" (sign language and oralism combined), I would after reading this book. Neisser never argues her point yet still makes it clear which way her readers should believe. She wins the reader over seemingly without even trying.
I highly recommend this book. It's slightly outdated, but many of the issues and concerns that Neisser addresses continue today. Mainstreaming is the biggest one, which she highlights in the last section called "Reflections." The other segments, though, on teaching sign language to apes (well, trying to), on the history of ASL, on home sign, on the residential schools, deaf education in general, and on Deaf theater, are extremely interesting and informative. Anyone, hearing or deaf, can appreciate this well-written, thoughtful, and sympathetic account of ASL and the Deaf community.
Neisser clearly spent a lot of time researching for this book. She read tons of material, interviewed many people, and looked into legislation regarding the deaf and the handicapped. She tells a story of a language, of a culture, and of a people that want to be left to develop both on their own without interference from the hearing world. The two worlds must meet, but they don't have to collide. I love that Neisser respects Deaf culture and respects deaf people. Sometimes, her book is a little disorganized, but in the end, it didn't matter to me because I got the picture. Even if I didn't already side with the idea of "total communication" (sign language and oralism combined), I would after reading this book. Neisser never argues her point yet still makes it clear which way her readers should believe. She wins the reader over seemingly without even trying.
I highly recommend this book. It's slightly outdated, but many of the issues and concerns that Neisser addresses continue today. Mainstreaming is the biggest one, which she highlights in the last section called "Reflections." The other segments, though, on teaching sign language to apes (well, trying to), on the history of ASL, on home sign, on the residential schools, deaf education in general, and on Deaf theater, are extremely interesting and informative. Anyone, hearing or deaf, can appreciate this well-written, thoughtful, and sympathetic account of ASL and the Deaf community.
January 5, 2009
I enjoyed this because it offered great insights into the deaf community.
January 1, 2023
read it for the ape communication segment
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews