Carol Padden and Tom Humphries have been married for 29 years and their similarities are as numerous as their differences. Both are professors and researchers at UC San Diego. And both are deaf. As for their differences, Padden was born hard of hearing; Humphries lost his hearing at age 6. Padden grew up using American Sign Language; Humphries learned it when he went to college. Padden was raised by deaf parents, alongside a deaf sibling; Humphries was the only deaf member of his immediate family. Together Padden and Humphries have published four books, two on the cultures and communities of Deaf people in the United States and two American Sign Language textbooks. They have committed themselves to exploring language and culture in all its different forms and shapes.

Carol and Tom: Probably the idea that there is something unusual or exotic about it. We see culture as constitutive of human beings. In the case of this community of deaf people in the United States, there is a shared language and shared institutional histories. But not all people who do not hear have this history. Many people with a hearing loss do not use sign language. We describe signing Deaf people as a linguistic community made up of deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people who communicate in American Sign Language (ASL).

Tom: I did not learn ASL until I was a teenager. For me learning the language and becoming involved in this community of signers was both a process of enculturation and a self-conscious examination of the process of becoming Deaf. I began with an interest in how languages are learned, particularly second languages, and this quickly led to curiosity about how culture works.

Carol: My parents are both deaf, and I have an older deaf brother, so sign language was a natural part of my upbringing. When I was eight, I transferred from a special school for deaf children to my local public school and for the first time, I was among children and adults who did not sign. I often describe this experience as being “educated abroad,” because it gave me a sense of self and difference that I did not have before.

Tom: In childhood I did understand the English word “deaf” was applied to me. However, in all ways, I was a hearing person who could not hear since I knew no deaf people or any sign language until I was older.

Carol: My experience was almost the opposite. I had to learn how to grow up among hearing people.

Tom: I’m not sure they have evolved all that much which is why I am working at UCSD on an experimental program in teacher preparation. We are trying to apply bilingual approaches to teaching deaf children, unlike more traditional approaches which assume that deaf children have a deficit they must overcome. Our approach takes into account research from the past 40 years on structure and properties of American Sign Language and concludes that sign language plays a strong role in language, cognitive and social development of deaf children.

Carol: We now have a large body of knowledge about ASL as well as studies of other signed languages in the world. We know more about how sign and spoken languages compare, and we know more about how children acquire and use sign language. We also know that perceptions of ASL have changed tremendously. For a long time, until about 25-30 years ago, it was very much a private language, mostly known and used within the Deaf community only. Now it has become a far more public language and is taught in high schools and colleges around the country. Tens of thousands of hearing people are enrolled in ASL classes every year including here in the Language Program at UCSD. As for deaf and hard of hearing users of ASL, there is not a firm figure, but 200,000-300,000 primary signers in the U.S. and Canada is a frequently cited number.

Carol and Tom: Baby sign language seems to have developed out of a yearning to communicate by any means possible with babies before they can talk.  We don’t think it is harmful or ill-advised for hearing parents to sign with hearing babies.  At the same time, we can’t ignore the irony that some hospitals and doctors will advise hearing parents that they shouldn’t sign with their deaf babies in order to encourage them to learn spoken language.  We believe sign and spoken languages encompass all possibilities of human communication.  Both of us use spoken language and sign language and we see ourselves as examples that both types of languages can be learned and used by human beings.

Carol and Tom: Technology has undoubtedly improved Deaf people’s lives in the sense that it has allowed us to both benefit from and contribute to our communities. We use email as do others; we also use text pagers and watch close-captioned programs on television. Technology has also expanded the availability of sign language interpreters, allowing us to use interpreters not only in person in the same room with us, but also via webcam from remote locations. What we also find with these technologies - email, text messaging, instant messaging - there is no awareness of deafness during the communication unless one chooses to make it so. Neither party may know if the other party is deaf or hearing. That is certainly a different experience for us, given that we grew up and began our careers at a time when most of this technology was not yet available, indeed, was not even conceived.

Carol and Tom: A lot of groups in our society would like to know the answer to that question. As goes the future of the Deaf community, will go the futures of many others. We are all bound together in this way. Using technology and genetic engineering, all of us, not just deaf people, will be able to intervene in our bodies and change ourselves and our children. We can already select for gender and other characteristics such as height. In time we will be able to select for many more features. We should be thinking about where this may lead, and what the implications are for diversity both biologically and culturally. We believe that deaf people are not alone in addressing this question; it concerns all of us.

Carol and Tom: On a practical level, our main challenge is access and having the resources available to participate in institutions of education, business, work and health. Even when intentions are good and there is a collective attitude to be inclusive, it can be hard to figure out how to do it reasonably well. Deaf people are most challenged by institutions that have yet to develop systems for including deaf people. Sometimes there are policies in place to comply with access laws and codes, but there may also be few working mechanisms or financial resources to carry them out. Most people want to do the right thing but don’t know how. The responsibility then falls on the deaf person.

Carol and Tom: Organizations like these have been a big reason why we are able to do what we do. Service and advocacy organizations have successfully lobbied for policies that enable the type of accommodation and access that we have today. Because we can, we feel obligated to contribute our time and experience as much as possible. At the end of the day, it’s gratifying to be a part of building and maintaining our communities. We like how it keeps us in touch with where our communities are going next.