Being Born into VS Adapting a Culture ~Deaf Culture

Culture is being able to identify yourself, and look back on your heritage, ancestry. It is about learning about traditions that has been passed down for generations and will continue for the future generations. Culture could be seen in a religious aspect, style of clothing, usage of language, and what nationality. Culture itself is about having a long lasting relationship with individuals in the community, and being able to relate with one another. Another way to look at culture is, being able to have a relationship with the past, to get a better understanding with the present and possibly the future.

            There are many who are born into their cultures, and then there are some who decide on what they would like their culture to be. For an example; Parents who are from another country other than the United States, moves to the U.S. and begin a family. And once their children become of age, they are taught the way of how their parents live, and see the world through their perspective, or through the perspective of the community in which the parents grew up in.  Another example would be Mexican-American children who were/ are born into a family from Mexico and have to learn both languages (Spanish and English), their first language being Spanish and English being their second language.

Then, there are those individuals who make the decision to adapt to another culture other than their own in which they were born into. An example of adapting a culture or many cultures is I; I have adapted to more than one culture and believe they are beneficial in a way where I get a better understanding of the world. With these cultures, they have shaped my perspective on life and mostly society itself.  The one culture in which I would be talking about is the Deaf culture; this culture has opened my view on how the “Hearing” is viewed in the eyes of the Deaf.  It also widens my perspective on society as a whole, as well as making the comparisons and contrasts between the two cultures.

Due to my major and past experiences with encountering with the Deaf community through high school, I had made the decision to get involved with Deaf people. I have learned the ways of how to communicate, to understand the history of how both the language and community started, then learning how Deaf people see themselves and those who are not Deaf. With this knowledge, I feel as if this culture is my own because of how I can relate to those who are Deaf, even though I am not Deaf. I can relate in aspects of the difficulties that they face in everyday life of the “Hearing”, and how people think. The one thing that I can honestly say is that in the Deaf culture there is pride of being Deaf , strong long term relationships with one another and very welcoming, as well as there is no judgment in nationality either. Whereas in the “Hearing”, there is judgment, not so welcoming but that depends on the individual as well as there is no prides in who were are because the pride has a lot to do with nationality. In making this choice in adapting this culture, I have so much to learn and I am proud to have considered this as my own.