Through Deaf EyesA Deaf Woman's Review

On March 21st 2007, PBS broadcasted a documentary called "Through Deaf Eyes," which covered the past 200 years of Deaf life in America. The documentary is two hours long, so keep in mind, there's only so much one can cover in two hours long. As a Deaf woman who has done quite a bit of reading on Deaf history, I could think of several things that carry great importance in Deaf history and was not covered in the documentary. Such as Martha's Vineyard, where a good amount of the residents of the island were Deaf, and most hearing people would sign and even communicate in sign language without a deaf person present. This occurred before Gallaudet brought Laurent to America, thus bringing French Sign Language to America. Despite the fact that the documentary did not include this important information, I felt that overall, the documentary was done quite well.

The majority of hearing population has no knowledge about the history of Deaf people in America. There are often many misconceptions and assumptions that people have about Deaf people and the lives they led in the past. "Through Deaf Eyes" does a good job on revealing the history of the biggest struggle that Deaf history has gone and still goes through. That would be the communications debate, a.k.a. the manual/combined method vs. oral method when it came to educating Deaf children. A definition of what the three methods means would be that manualists believed that it was best and more natural for Deaf children to be taught in sign language. Combinists believed that it was for the best to educate Deaf children in sign language, and also give them access to speech lessons/therapy. Oralists believed that it was for the best to educate Deaf children via speech/lipreading, and outlawed sign language in school settings as they believed that use of sign language would interrupt the progress of mastering speech/lipreading. This film showed a bit about the infamous Milan conference where all Deaf educators [one must note that Deaf teachers were not invited to the conference] met to debate on the best way to educate Deaf children, the oral method won, and over the following years, Deaf schools after another would outlaw the use of sign language and replace the education method. I personally thought that the documentary could have shed a lot more light on this issue, but once again, I reminded myself that it was only two hours long after all.

You get to see the consequences of the communication debate by watching interviews of Deaf elders and adults who were taught via oral method. Some described it as the dark ages of Deaf education, often people who were raised orally, would eventually go on and learn sign language, while others just accepted it as their fate and still live life as an oral Deaf person. Also one individual even commented on how she prefers to "turn her voice off" despite the fact that she has excellent speech, because by speaking, the people around her will assume she is hearing and act as if she does not need any interpreting help at all. One difference between oral deaf people from the past and our present oral deaf people is that back then, oral deaf children still attended deaf schools, so more often than not, they learned sign language and would secretly use it at their dorms. Oral deaf people nowadays usually are raised as "solitaries," meaning they were mainstreamed into public schools as the only deaf student, never meeting other deaf children or adults, some don't even know that sign language exists until they reach adulthood. One issue I wished that the documentary touched on more was the mainstream topic, as I was mainstreamed as the only Deaf student as well, with the exception that I had an interpreter and used Signing Exact English (SEE2). Speaking of SEE2, which actually brings up another topic that I wished was mentioned, which were the various signed systems that were developed due to the majority's false belief that American Sign Language (ASL) was not good enough to educate Deaf children with, due to that, various signed systems were invented, such as Seeing Essential English (SEE1), Signing Exact English (SEE2), Linguistics of Visual English (LOVE), Simultaneous Communication (Sim-Com), Signed English (SE), Pidgin Sign English (PSE), Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE), and also there's Cued Speech, which is actually not really a signed system but more of a visual access to understanding speech.

I thought that the documentary did a fairly good job on staying neutral, showing stories from both sides, casting no judgements on two major figures of the communications debate a.k.a. Edward Miner Gallaudet who promoted the combined system, and Alexander Graham Bell who supported the oral system. The film leaves the job of judgements to be cast by the viewers.

Other than covering the communication debate of Deaf education, the documentary also covers the progress of various technology that was invented for Deaf people, some were even invented by Deaf people, such as the TTY, which helps Deaf people use the telephone. It's very exciting to see how much progress has been made, nowadays, Deaf people have access to using video phones where they can sign directly to their friend via a TV screen, which is equal to hearing your friend's voice, we instead get to see our friends signing! We also get to learn about the history of ASL, how it was thought as not a real language for a long time until the 60's when William Stokoe discovered and proved that ASL was indeed a true language in every way, and the impact it had on Deaf people and the culture itself. Cochlear implants are also discussed in the film and features several people who are implanted. One unique feature that the film has is how six short art films directed and produced by Deaf film makers, are woven into the documentary at appropriate times, giving a refreshing look into the thoughts and opinions of Deaf film makers. Another exciting point in the film is when they featured a Deaf band, yes that's right, a band where the members were Deaf, which includes a drummer, a bass player who also sings in ASL, and a guitar player. Showing this band in the film shows us that sometimes things aren't as simple as we seem to perceive things as. Such as the concept that being Deaf is a tragedy, or how Deaf people cannot enjoy music, that all Deaf people signs, and so on. We also get to see footage of the Deaf President Now protest that occurred at Gallaudet in the 80's. The recent Unity For Gallaudet 2006 protest was not covered, as the documentary was already produced by then. That's one thing I really treasured about this film was all the ancient footage shown, from signing Deaf schools to oral Deaf schools, among others. The film also shows bits on the general life of Deaf people, clubs, communities, plays, art, and Deaf culture itself.

Ever since I watched the documentary, I have read a great variety of reviews written by Deaf and hearing people on this film. Some wished that more was covered on ASL and Deaf culture instead of spending so much time focusing on the deafness itself, while others were very affected and happy with what they saw. Personally I was quite impressed with the film, I did wish there was more information but overall, it was very refreshing to see this documentary on TV, and hopefully it is the first of many more to come, as much more needs to be covered on Deaf culture. My hope is that a good amount of people would be watching and opening their minds up to the concept that being Deaf is not a bad thing according to some, instead being Deaf is a wonderful thing and not considered a disability, but an access to the world known as Eyeth where people communicate in ASL and various sign languages around the world and as a part of a very rich and diverse cultural-linguistic group.