Foreword to the Reissued Edition
IN MARCH 1991, there was a national conference—“Deaf Studies for Educators”—held in Dallas, Texas, and this reissue is a compilation of the papers that were presented there and then published the following year. Multiple presenters argued the case for integrating deaf studies across the curriculum. By teaching deaf studies, the deaf experience and deaf identity were centered. There was a push for bilingual and bicultural education, an emphasis on the value of deaf artistic expression, and the development of deaf-centered curriculum. All of this occurred at a conference that was held not long after pivotal events that had a significant impact on society as a whole, and in the deaf community specifically. This was a time that was rife with potential, when deaf people were reclaiming their power.
In 1991, the idea of “deaf studies” was a liberating one—a few years prior, the 1988 Deaf President Now movement opened people’s eyes on deaf empowerment and autonomy, and in 1990, the Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law, which provided rights and protections to disabled people. The concept of a curriculum rooted in deaf history and sign language was radical and revolutionary then. However, as the effects of time occur, things can either stay stagnant or evolve into something even richer. I often say that we should not spite the past but look at it with a sense of gratitude for creating pathways toward the present and the future.
Deaf studies, according to Dr. Harvey Corson in his keynote address featured in these proceedings, redefined what it meant to be disabled, even to the point of running away from the label “disabled.” Deaf studies was a form of liberation from ableist views; however, the undertones of whiteness in its framework did have the effect of erasing marginalized, diverse, and intersectional identities. In these proceedings, Gleason and Lavong (1992) are the only ones to explicitly recognize diversity in the deaf community. While Gleason and Lavong used terminology that is now considered offensive, their call to emphasize and recognize the issues facing multiply marginalized deaf students still has relevance today. However, I’m glad to say that times are changing and that we are now amplifying and including diverse perspectives and voices in the field of deaf education.
Furthermore, in the book chapter “Black Deaf Gain: A Guide to Revisioning K–12 Deaf Education” (2022), myself and my coauthors, Akilah English and Dr. Gloshanda Lawyer, critiqued how the term “Deaf” as a standalone, comprehensive term for all members of the deaf community ignores members of DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, hard of hearing, late deafened, cochlear implanted communities. In addition, it also erases the identities of Black, Latinx/e, Asian, and Indigenous peoples of color who are members of the Deaf community. For this reason, we now use the acronym DDBDDHHLDCI (Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, hard of hearing, late deafened, cochlear implanted) when addressing our community as a whole. The chapter also addressed the need to incorporate “Black Deaf Gain” in the K–12 setting, aiming to have the same effect as the authors of the conference proceedings intended, but with the goal of elevating the Black Deaf experience and Black history in the classroom. Black Deaf Gain was built on the work of Dr. Rezenet Moges-Reidel and Dr. Carla Garcia-Fernandez (the latter of whom proposed the theoretical framework Deaf-LatCrit). By thinking beyond a simplistic view of deaf studies, Dr. Carolyn McCaskill was able to establish the Center for Black Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University in 2021. Nuestra Casta, a center for Latinx/e deaf studies, followed with its launch in 2023. We can only imagine the possibilities of future centers of deaf studies–a dream even bigger than the one from the 1991 conference.
Despite some outdated information and language, these reissued proceedings give us a sense of what it was like to live in a time where deaf people were riding the wave of the Deaf President Now movement and the ratification of the American With Disabilities Act. It was a vibrant time to be deaf. To be revolutionaries, to dream big of a world that was fully accessible to us, and to be equally functioning members of society. Those dreams pushed for change in our educational system. As a product of deaf education and as an educator in both P–12 and higher education, I have witnessed some, if not many, of these dreams come to fruition—ASL as a language of instruction, learning about ASL, incorporating deaf studies into the curriculum, and weaving and infusing the general curriculum with DDBDDHHLDCI role models and their stories. I was able to teach my students to love their identities and to know themselves in and out of the classroom. I gave them the education I wish I had received as a young Black and brown deaf girl born into a hearing family. As a result, I was able to see my students become self-actualized and proud of their place in the world. However, I wouldn’t have been the educator I was if it wasn’t for the people before me who fought to dream big and believe in a world that embraced our DDBDDHHLDCI community.
As you read these reissued proceedings, I challenge us to think about how the 1991 conference would be similar or different if it were held today. What would we change (or keep), knowing what we know now about our beautiful, multifaceted DDBDDHHLDCI community? How do we move forward with how we use sign language dialects or varieties (such as Black ASL or heritage sign languages) in our mode of instruction? How do we embrace translanguaging in our classrooms? How do we embrace the multimodalities of the next generation of deaf students? How do we incorporate technology into our learning and teaching? How do we embrace neurodiversity into our instructional practices? There are many questions we can ponder as we reenvision the future of deaf education and deaf studies.
Dr. Onudeah D. Nicolarakis
Gallaudet University
February 18, 2025
Reference
Nicolarakis, O. D., English, A., & Lawyer, G. (2022). Black Deaf Gain: A guide to revisioning K–12 Deaf education. In F. R. Waitoller & K. A. King Thorius (Eds.), Sustaining disabled youth: Centering disability in asset pedagogies (pp. 59–73). Teachers College Press.