Alone in the Mainstream

In Alone in the Mainstream, author Gina A. Oliva documents her experience as a “solitaire,” the only deaf or hard of hearing student in her school. Oliva felt alone because she couldn’t communicate easily with her classmates and because she had no peers who shared a similar experience. As an adult, when she began her career at Gallaudet University, she realized that she wasn’t alone and that her experience was shared widely with other mainstreamed students. She decided to write about this commonality and invited other solitaires to reflect on their own experiences in emails and essays. Collective themes of isolation, low expectations, and low self-esteem emerged. Alone in the Mainstream blends Oliva’s personal narrative with the reflections of sixty other solitaires and makes the case that deaf and hard of hearing children need each other.

This twentieth-anniversary edition is a reminder that little has changed for deaf and hard of hearing students in public school settings. Oliva brings this new edition up to date with observations, resources, and discussion questions that accompany her appeal for all deaf and hard of hearing children and their families to have access to sign language, to develop a deaf identity, and to be part of a deaf community.