Sign Language Studies

Those who know me well, know that I have two serious chronic diseases. The first is rheumatoid arthritis, which has had some serious consequences, not the least of which for my signing skills. I can no longer make a fist, nor can I raise individual fingers. As a result, my deaf colleagues teasingly tell me that when I sign now, I "slur" like a drunk. My second chronic disease is a mental obsession: I am constantly driven to guarantee access to communication to those who are denied it, and this affliction dates back to long before I entered the Deaf world.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1944 into a family of Eastern European immigrants from four countries. They arrived in New York Harbor, welcomed by the Statue of (so-called) Liberty! What a linguistic opportunity: I could have become multilingual and multicultural, effortlessly; each grandparent had only to speak to me exclusively in their language.

Not a chance! They were all browbeaten into believing that to succeed, they must shed their language, culture, and accent and (heaven forbid) must never talk to the grandchildren in anything but English. My sister and I would enter the room while our grandparents were conversing in Ukrainian. Grandma would immediately whisper to Grandpa "Onuki tut" ("The grandkids are here"), and they would immediately switch to their broken English. Young as I was, I was furious!

Lucky for me, my Uncle Pete married Maria, a beautiful Cuban woman who spoke a language my family could not understand—Spanish! That was it! I was determined to master it. (I'm a tad embarrassed to admit that my prime motivation was revenge.) I even [End Page 421]

changed my name from Ellen to Elena. I studied Spanish through junior and senior high and majored in it for my BA, then lived and studied for a year and a half in Spain to become fluent.

Obviously, my language deprivation was nothing like what most Deaf children go through. Yes, I was deprived of being bilingual as a child, but I acquired my native English from my parents, which enabled full cognitive and linguistic development at the appropriate developmental moment in time. Furthermore, I was fully accepted by my parents as being similar to them. This is not the case with 95 percent of deaf children, who are born to hearing parents. But what drew me to the Deaf world and sign language? My father happened to be the best friend of the famous American television comic and mime, Sid Caesar (figure 1).

From the age of ten, I spent many weekends at Sid's home. He had a Deaf gardener named Eddie, my first Deaf experience. Eddie did not use full American Sign Language (ASL) with Sid, but they got on [End Page 422] fine because Sid was an expert mime, had remarkable gesturing, and had learned fingerspelling and a dose of ASL from Eddie. Since I had acted in camp and school plays, I was intrigued by this visual-gestural communication. I must have tucked ASL deep into my gray matter, but I did not pursue it until much later. (Sid became attached to the Deaf community and starred with deaf actress Phyllis Frelich in Love Is Never Silent, a Broadway show based on the 1970 novel by Joanne Greenberg, In This Sign. I dedicated my doctoral dissertation to him.

I began my PhD program in 1976 at New York University (NYU). It was chaired by Neil Postman, and inspired by Marshall McLuhan, examined communication environments. Each student was to select a communication medium to analyze throughout the program. I did not know what to choose. The very evening before the decision deadline, on my way to class, I entered the wrong room and found twelve Deaf students, hands flying in the air in lively conversation. I stood there gaping. This was definitely not Sid and Eddie's language. I excused myself and closed the door. I turned around to find an announcement for an intensive course in ASL...