The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry Read Free Page B

written history and they are to be found virtually everywhere today.' The smallest are bands or clans, the largest can encompass one or more countries. Every person is a member of some culturally distinctive group and in that sense we are all ethnic, although majorities frequently reserve the term for minorities whom they disparage.2 There is nothing inherently bad, however, about our ethnic affiliations. On the contrary, ethnic ties are deeply meaningful and strongly felt, rooted in psychology.3 The strength of emotion evoked by ethnicity is reminiscent of that evoked by family ties, and may be based on them; as the aphorism goes, "Ethnicity is family writ large." Like family, ethnicity is woven into the fabric of everyday life and involves shared obligations and traditions. However, ethnicity surpasses family in its scope: it evokes a rich history of one's kind and a historic fate across generations; it entails stereotypes of "us" and "them." It involves distinct values, customs, and myths. These cultural traits are embedded in language and in behavior. In brief, shared culture is the cohesive force in an ethnic group and one that differentiates it from other such groups .4
    This cultural perspective on ethnicity only alludes to something important: ethnic groups commonly encounter one another in shared settings and they construct rules to govern those encounters, rules that reinforce cultural differences, maintain boundaries, and sustain ethnic identity. Such externally oriented properties of ethnic groups demand our attention along with the cohesive forces. This distinction between internal cohesion and external boundaries can guide our inquiry into whether the concept of ethnic group applies to the Deaf-World. In the following two chapters, we examine the properties of ethnic groups and compare them to the properties of the ASL minority. We take up first the "internal" cultural properties and put off to Chapter 2 a discussion of "external properties"-ethnic boundaries and their maintenance.
    Most of the families cited in this book have pedigrees at the following website: http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/DEA.* To see if a given individual appears in one or more of the pedigrees there, consult the Every Name Index in Appendix D at the back of this book. The pedigrees presented here in Figures 2 through 17 also appear at the website with much supplementary detail that could not be reproduced legibly in book format.
    *[http. / /hdl.handle.net/1902.1 /12117]
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    LANGUAGE
    Language is a means of communication but it is also the purveyor of culture, including traditions, rituals, norms, values, and the language arts. Language, handed down across the generations, provides continuity with the past. It is a symbol of ethnicity and identity, and a force for social cohesion. There is no more authentic expression of an ethnic group than its language. To disparage that language disparages the people who speak it and praising their language praises them. When an ethnic group demands more equitable treatment for their language (for example, its use in the media and in schools), they are also seeking more equitable treatment for their group and their culture.' ASL signers hold very dear the communicative, cultural and emblematic functions of their language.
    The language of the ethnic group also provides its name. An ethnic name is a label with which to refer to the group but it is much more than that. Group members feel it captures their very essence and evokes memories of their shared past. Thus it has resonance within the ethnic group and little or none outside. Some Native American tribes retained their tribal names until fully conquered by the Europeans, while others retain them to the present day. The group we have so far designated by its language, the ASL minority, does indeed have a name for their collective by which they refer to themselves in