Diversity and Inclusion: Approaches in Independent Living August 6-7, 1996 BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION in a Rapidly Changing Environment DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION: APPROACHES IN INDEPENDENT LIVING August 6-7, 1996 Salt Lake City, Utah IL NETWORK NCIL/ILRU National Training & Technical Assistance Project Contributors to the TRAINING MANUAL: Bob Michaels Laurel Richards Gina McDonald Dawn Heinsohn Bonnie O'Day Dawn Kemp-Moye Mike Oxford Anne-Marie Hughey Don Brown June Kailes Cynthia Dresden ILRU Program 2323 S. Shepherd, Suite 1000 Houston, TX 77019 713-520-0232 (V) 713-520-5136 (TTY) 713-520-5785 (fax) Permission is granted for duplication of any portion of this manual, providing that the following credit is given to the project: Developed as part of the IL NETWORK: NCIL/ILRU National Training and Technical Assistance Project. TABLE OF CONTENTS Training Agenda List of Trainers and Project Staff About the IL NETWORK About the Trainers Gina McDonald Bonnie O'Day Mike Oxford Don Brown About NCIL About ILRU National Resources on Independent Living IL NETWORK Resource Materials Readings for the Independent Living and Disability Rights Movements Training Objectives Values Clarification Checklist Scenario Policies on Diversity--The Kansas Example In Unity Statement of Solidarity Evaluation Appendix A--Additional Readings in Diversity Issues TRAINING AGENDA DAY ONE 9:00-9:15 Introduction of trainers, review of content, and learning objectives 9:15-9:30 Introductory exercise: Audience warm up 9:30-9:45 Operational definitions 9:45-10:00 Clarifying values pretest 10:00-10:30 Clarifying values, part two 10:30-11:00 Break 11:00-12:00 Managing your mind 12:00-1:30 Lunch 1:30-3:00 History and philosophy of independent living and civil rights for people with disabilities. 3:00-3:30 Break 3:30-4:30 History and philosophy continued 4:30-5:00 Summary of the day and instructions DAY TWO 9:00-10:00 Coalition building with community 10:00-12:00 Group participation and interaction 12:00-1:30 Lunch 1:30-3:00 Model response to multicultural and cross disability involvement 3:00-3:30 Break 3:30-4:30 Model programs, continued 4:30-5:15 Summary and evaluation LIST OF TRAINERS AND STAFF TRAINERS Gina McDonald KACIL 1423 West Crawford Street Salina, KS 67401 (913) 825-2675 (V); 825-7029 (fax) DIMENET: gina Bonnie O'Day 7600 Maple Avenue, #1501 Takoma Park, MD 20912 (202) 466-1906 DIMENET: oday Mike Oxford Topeka IL Resource Center 501 Southwest Jackson, #100 Topeka, KS 66603 (913) 233-4572 (V/TTY); 233-1561 (fax) DIMENET: mlox Don Brown 720-A Stannage Avenue Albany, CA 94706 (510) 528-1744 E-mail: donbrown@netcom.com NETWORK STAFF NCIL Anne-Marie Hughey Dawn Kemp-Moye 2111 Wilson Blvd., Suite 405 Arlington, VA 22201 (703) 525-3406 (V); 525-3407 (TTY) 525-3409 (fax) DIMENET: ncil June Isaacson Kailes 6201 Ocean Front Walk, Suite 2 Playa Del Rey, CA 90293 (310) 821-7080 (V); 827-0260 (fax) DIMENET: jkailes Roland Sykes President, Greater Independence through Management Programs, Inc. 6256 Ramblewood Drive Dayton, OH 45424 (513) 327-8360 (V) DIMENET: rsykes ILRU Laurel Richards Bob Michaels Quentin Smith Cynthia Dresden Dawn Heinsohn Laurie Gerken Redd 2323 S. Shepherd, Suite 1000 Houston, TX 77019 (713) 520-0232 (V); 520-5136 (TTY) 520-5785 (fax) DIMENET: ilru Steve Brown Institute on Disability Culture 2260 Sunrise Point Road Las Cruces, NM 88011 (505) 522-5225 (V/TTY/fax) DIMENET: stebrown ABOUT THE IL NETWORK The IL NETWORK: NCIL/ILRU National Training and Technical Assistance Project is a collaboration of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), the Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) Program, and several other organizations and individuals involved in independent living nationwide. The mission of the IL NETWORK is to provide training and technical assistance on a variety of issues central to independent living today--understanding the Rehab Act, what the statewide independent living council is and how it can operate most effectively, management issues for centers for independent living, systems advocacy, computer networking, and others. Training activities are conducted conference-style, via long-distance communication, through widely disseminated print and audio materials, and through the promotion of a strong national network of centers and individuals in the independent living field. IL NETWORK goals include: conducting training on provisions of the recently amended Rehabilitation Act, including federal reporting requirements, and on independent living center operations nationwide; establishing a technical assistance service through development of a network of individuals around the country who have expertise in various aspects of center operations and Title VII of the Rehab Act; identifying, adapting, and/or developing resource materials to support training and technical assistance activities related to the Rehab Act and center operations; using the DIMENET computer network to support training, technical assistance, and dissemination activities and promoting network development and information sharing among centers and other organizations involved in independent living; exploring the use of distance-learning technology in addressing the information, training, and technical assistance needs of the field; and fostering inclusion in the independent living field of people from various cultural and disability groups and geographic areas through activities carried out with NCIL's Multicultural Committee and the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living (APRIL). IL NETWORK STAFF The IL NETWORK is managed by a directorate consisting of Anne-Marie Hughey of NCIL; June Isaacson Kailes, independent living consultant; and Bob Michaels, Laurel Richards, and Quentin Smith of ILRU. Principal responsibility for curriculum development and training is shared by Kailes and Michaels; logistical coordination by NCIL; materials development and technical assistance coordination by ILRU; and responsibility for information dissemination is shared between NCIL and ILRU. The IL NETWORK also works very closely with a number of individuals and organizations, particularly Roland Sykes of DIMENET, in fostering more effective computerized networking among centers, and Steve Brown, in evaluating project impact and identifying movement-wide factors which impede effective center operations. In addition, individuals with expertise on Title VII of the Rehab Act and on center operations will be involved throughout training and technical assistance activities. TRAINING ACTIVITIES During the first year, training programs were conducted in each of the ten federal regions and were attended by more than 600 representatives of independent living centers and SILCs. Year one training activities focused largely on the amended Rehab Act and its implications for independent living centers and statewide independent living councils. Issues related to center operations and to use of DIMENET as a networking and technical assistance tool were covered as well. Year two training and technical assistance activities emphasized the recently released compliance indicators for centers, critical issues related to statewide independent living councils and development of state IL plans, systems advocacy, computer networking, and a closer look at state-administered CILs in the seven "723" states. Most of these focal points were identified through training participants' input and technical assistance requests. In 1995, IL NETWORK piloted several new and dynamic training methods--national teleconferences, customized training programs for SILCs, and three five-day training sessions designed to be both comprehensive and intensive. Hands-on training for use of DIMENET and other computer networks was also incorporated into training sessions to allow new and experienced users to receive in person technical assistance. To build on training curricula developed during the first two years, project staff assessed participants' reactions to trainings and techniques received in 1994 and 1995, requests received for technical assistance, and priorities for future trainings as identified by centers and SILCs on the 704 Report. As a result, 1996 trainings will address the need for more information about conducting effective systems advocacy, doing outreach to underserved populations, computer networking, developing better presentation skills, innovative management techniques, and systems for collecting and reporting center information (MIS). These topics will again be presented in a variety of ways--through customized, one-on-one, distance learning, and traditional interactive styles. In addition, the IL NETWORK plans to convene a task force with representation by RSA central and regional offices, state voc rehab agencies, and independent living centers for the purpose of examining policies and procedures affecting center and agency interaction. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE Requests for technical assistance, whether from center staff, board members, or others involved in independent activities, are handled through a single point of contact at ILRU. ILRU staff determines who among various partner organizations and individuals are the most qualified to respond to the request, then provides referral to one or more potential technical assistants who may be ILRU staff, NCIL staff or board members, or other members of the project's technical assistance network. In each project year, IL NETWORK staff responded to over 10,000 telephone requests from the field. Beginning in 1996, technical assistance requests may also be made through the ILRU homepage on the World Wide Web (http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/ilru). IL NETWORK STAFF NCIL Anne-Marie Hughey Dawn Kemp-Moye (703) 525-3406 (V), 525-3409 (TTY), 525-3407 (fax) ILRU Laurel Richards Bob Michaels (602) 961-0553 (V), 961-0533 (fax) Quentin Smith Cynthia Dresden Dawn Heinsohn Laurie Gerken Redd (713) 520-0232 (V), 520-5136 (TTY), 520-5785 (fax) June Isaacson Kailes (310) 821-7080 (V), 827-0269 (fax) Steve Brown (505) 522-5225 (V/TTY/fax) Roland Sykes (513) 237-8360 IL NETWORK SUPPORT This three-year project is supported in part by the Rehabilitation Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Education, with additional support provided by NCIL, ILRU, DIMENET and other project partners. ABOUT THE TRAINERS Gina McDonald is executive director of the Kansas Association of Centers for Independent Living, a statewide organization dedicated to advocacy on behalf of independent living centers in that state. Gina currently serves as president on the board of the National Council on Independent Living, sits on the National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and is chair of the Kansas Statewide Independent Living Council. These extensive current responsibilities follow eighteen years of professional experience in the development, management, and training of independent living programs, centers, and associations. Prior to her current positions, Gina served as program administrator for the consumer attendant care and head injury services for the state of Kansas and was executive director of the WHOLE PERSON, Inc., an independent living center in Kansas City, Missouri. Bonnie O'Day is a Ph.D. candidate at the Heller School for Social Welfare Policy at Brandeis University, a consultant to the Independent Living Research Utilization Project in Houston, and a researcher in health policy in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the National Council on Disability, appointed by the President and approved by the Senate to advise Congress and the President on disability policy. Bonnie has directed independent living centers, providing services and advocacy for people with severe disabilities, in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Minnesota. She has been an advocate for civil rights of blind and disabled people since 1973, and has served on the boards of directors of national, state and local advocacy organizations. Bonnie has attended intensive training on the Americans with Disabilities Act sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, and frequently provides guidance and technical assistance on this topic. Mike Oxford is the executive director of the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center and is an organizer with American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT). Mike is active in many organizations including the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) where he is a board member and chairs both the civil rights committee and transportation subcommittee. In addition, he serves on the steering committee for Project ACTION and is co- founder of Kansas ADAPT. Mike is an officer with the Kansas Association of Centers for Independent Living (KACIL) and has been involved with the independent living movement for twelve years. Prior to becoming executive director of the Topeka Center, Mike worked as a legislative analyst for the Kansas Department of Human Resources and managed paratransit services in Lawrence, Kansas. Don Brown is presently employed with San Francisco State University as an ADA/504 Compliance Coordinator. In this position, Don is responsible for coordinating the University's compliance in the areas of human resources, academic programs, student activities, and physical and environmental access. With bachelors degrees in clinical psychology and philosophy, and a masters in human resources management, Don has over ten years of experience in the area of staff development and training. Don has conducted training on disability awareness, diversity and multiculturalism, sexual harassment, Section 504 of the Rehab Act, the ADA, job analysis, and performance appriasal systems. Don currently serves as president of the Berkeley Council of the Blind and is vice president of the Association for Multicultural Concerns. He is also an active member of the National Association of ADA Coordinators. In these capacities and others, Don is committed to creating and enhancing a range of opportunities for persons with disabilities. ABOUT NCIL Founded in 1982, the National Council on Independent Living is a membership organization representing independent living centers and individuals with disabilities. NCIL has been instrumental in efforts to standardize requirements for consumer control in management and delivery of services provided through federally-funded independent living centers. Until 1992, NCIL's efforts to foster consumer control and direction in independent living services through changes in federal legislation and regulations were coordinated through an extensive network and involvement of volunteers from independent living centers and other organizations around the country. Since 1992, NCIL has had a national office in Arlington, Virginia, just minutes by subway or car from the major centers of government in Washington, D.C. While NCIL continues to rely on the commitment and dedication of volunteers from around the country, the establishment of a national office with staff and other resources has strengthened its capacity to serve as the voice for independent living in matters of critical importance in eliminating discrimination and unequal treatment based on disability. Today, NCIL is a strong voice for independent living in our nation's capital. With your participation, NCIL can deliver the message of independent living to even more people who are charged with the important responsibility of making laws and creating programs designed to assure equal rights for all. ABOUT ILRU The Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) Program was established in 1977 to serve as a national center for information, training, research, and technical assistance for independent living. In the mid-1980's, it began conducting management training programs for executive directors and middle managers of independent living centers in the U.S. Since 1985, it has operated the ILRU Research and Training Center on Independent Living at TIRR, conducting a comprehensive and coordinated set of research, training, and technical assistance projects focusing on leading issues facing the independent living field. ILRU has developed an extensive set of resource materials on various aspects of independent living, including a comprehensive directory of programs providing independent living services in the U.S. and Canada. ILRU is a program of TIRR, a nationally recognized, free-standing rehabilitation facility for persons with physical disabilities. TIRR is part of TIRR Systems, a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing a continuum of services to individuals with disabilities. Since 1959, TIRR has provided patient care, education, and research to promote the integration of people with physical and cognitive disabilities into all aspects of community living. NATIONAL RESOURCES ON INDEPENDENT LIVING Several national organizations have been established to provide technical assistance on particular concerns relevant to issues in independent living. National Council on Independent Living Founded in 1982, NCIL is a membership organization representing independent living centers and individuals with disabilities. NCIL has been instrumental in efforts to incorporate independent living philosophy in federal legislation and regulations. National headquarters are located outside Washington, D.C. at 2111 Wilson Blvd., Suite 405, Arlington, VA 22201; (703) 525-3406 (V), 525-3407 (TTY), 525-3409 (fax). Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living One of the best resources for information about rural independent living is APRIL. Established in 1986, APRIL is an association of 33 centers and other organizations and individuals across the country serving a predominantly rural constituencies. For further information, contact APRIL president Michael Mayer at the Summit Independent Living Center, 1900 Brooks Street, #120, Missoula, Montana 59801, (406) 728-1630 (V/TTY), or Linda Tonsing Gonzales at 1919 Kiva Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87505, (505) 984-8035 (V/fax). Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers on ADA There are ten regional DBTACs funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the U.S. Department of Education, to provide technical assistance and training on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The Southwest DBTAC, operated by ILRU, features an Hispanic outreach program. By calling 1-800-949-4232 from anywhere in the country, your call will be routed automatically to the appropriate regional DBTAC. American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today One of the oldest and most active grassroots disability rights advocacy groups is ADAPT. Following its tremendous success in advocating for accessible transportation, ADAPT has focused its mission on personal assistance services. With local chapters in many cities around the country, ADAPT is centered in Colorado at 201 South Cherokee St., Denver, CO 80223; (303) 733-9324 (V), 733-6211 (fax). Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund DREDF is an organization dedicated to promoting the civil rights of individuals with disabilities through research, education, and advocacy. The DREDF offices are located at 1633 Q St., NW, Suite 220, Washington, D.C. 20009; (202) 986-0375 (V), 462-5624 (fax) and 2212 Sixth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710; (510) 644-2555 (V), 841-8645 (fax). Disabled Individuals Movement for Equality Network DIMENET is a computer network that serves the independent living and disability rights movements. It was established in 1985 to meet the demand for a computer network that directly serves the interests of all people with disabilities and that is fully accessible to people with visual impairments. You can access DIMENET from any of three host sites: (508) 880-5412 (Taunton, MA), (513) 439-0557 (Dayton, OH), and (918) 582-3622 (Tulsa, OK). If you have problems or questions regarding accessing DIMENET, technical assistance is also available from individuals at DIMENET regional host sites: Taunton (508) 880-5325 (V/TTY), Dayton (513) 439-0071 (V), 439-0072 (TTY), and Tulsa (918) 592-1235 (V/TTY). Additional help may be obtained from Roland Sykes at (513) 237-8360 (V) or Paul Spooner at (508) 875-7853 (V/TTY). Independent Living Research Utilization Program ILRU Program is a national center for information, training, research, and technical assistance on independent living. Founded in 1977, its goal is to expand the body of knowledge in independent living and to improve utilization of results of related research and demonstration projects. ILRU, 2323 S. Shepherd, Suite 1000, Houston, TX 77019; (713) 520-0232 (V), 520-5136 (TTY), and 520-5785 (fax). World Institute on Disability Originally founded in 1983 from within the grassroots disability rights movement, WID's focus is now international in scope. WID conducts research and training in public policy, personal assistance services, and independent living from its headquarters at 510 16th Street, #100, Oakland, CA 94612; (510) 763-4100 (V/TTY). RESEARCH AND TRAINING CENTERS ON INDEPENDENT LIVING Four research and training centers funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), U.S. Department of Education, focus on independent living. They are: the ILRU Research and Training Center on Independent Living at TIRR; the RTC: IL at the University of Kansas; the RTC on Personal Assistance Services at the World Institute on Disability (WID); and the RTC on Public Policy and Independent Living, also at WID. All four centers conduct research and training projects designed to address the needs of individuals with disabilities, as well as state and private entities involved with independent living. More information about each is given below. ILRU Research and Training Center on Independent Living at TIRR The goals of the ILRU RTC are to enhance management performance in independent living centers through improved management and operational practices developed and tested in research-based models, and disseminated through training, technical assistance, and materials development projects. A major emphasis of these training and technical assistance projects is the promotion of networking among individuals and organizations in the independent living field. ILRU RTC is guided by the independent living philosophy, particularly with regard to the substantial involvement of people with disabilities at all levels of RTC operations. Director: Lex Frieden Associate Director: Quentin Smith Director of Research: Peg Nosek Director of Training: Laurel Richards Coordinating Director: Laurie Gerken Redd For more information, contact: ILRU Program 2323 S. Shepherd, Suite 1000 Houston, TX 77019 (713) 520-0232 (V), 520-5136 (TTY), 520-5785 (fax) URL: http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/ilru Research and Training Center on Independent Living at the University of Kansas The University of Kansas operates a national research and training center which focuses on aspects of independent living particular to rural and other underserved populations, including persons with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities. In addition, the RTC conducts consumer control training, conducts research in prevention of secondary health conditions in people with disabilities, and studies successful attainment of vocational rehabilitation goals. Director: Glen W. White Co-Director: James F. Budde Assistant Director: John Youngbauer Training Director: Kenneth J. Golden For more information, contact: RTC-IL at Kansas 4089 Dole Building University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 (913) 864-4095 (V/TTY), 864-5063 (fax) URL: http://www.lsi.ukans.edu/rtcil/rtcbroc.htm The Research and Training Center on Public Policy and Independent Living Funded by NIDRR at the World Institute on Disability, the RTC-PPIL conducts research and training on major disability policy issues including independent living, leadership development, peer support, and community integration. In addition, WID is attempting to establish the first full curriculum for disability studies. The program will offer courses of study at the undergraduate, graduate, professional training, and continuing education levels. Director: Herb Leibowitz Director of Research: Tanis Doe For more information, contact: RTC-PPIL World Institute on Disability 510 16th Street, Suite 100 Oakland, CA 94612-1500 (510) 763-4100 (V/TTY), 763-4109 (fax) The Research and Training Center on Personal Assistance Services at WID One of two RTCs operated by WID, the RTC-PAS was established for the purpose of creating greater understanding about how personal assistance service systems can further the self- sufficiency and economic independence of individuals with disabilities. The RTC will perform a comprehensive evaluation of PAS programs across the country and will seek to define effective PAS from the consumer's point of view. In developing new service programs, the RTC-PAS also focuses on underserved or unserved populations. Director of Training: Simi Litvak Research Assistant: Valerie Bivona For more information, contact: RTC-PAS World Institute on Disability 510 16th Street, Suite 100 Oakland, CA 94612-1500 (510) 763-4100 (V), 208-9493 (TTY), 763-4109 (fax) Revised 6/96 _________________________ Developed by the IL NETWORK: NCIL/ILRU National Training and Technical Assistance Project. Requests for technical assistance on this and other independent living issues may be directed to the IL NETWORK Project, c/o ILRU at (713) 520-0232 (voice), 520-5136 (TTY), 520-5785 (fax), or NCIL at (703) 525-3406 (voice), 525-3407 (TTY), 525-3409 (fax). IL NETWORK RESOURCE MATERIALS The IL NETWORK: National Training and Technical Assistance project, a collaboration of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) and the Independent Living Research and Utilization (ILRU) Program, is committed to promoting a national network of centers for independent living, statewide independent living councils, and others involved in the independent living field. Through training and technical assistance activities, project staff seek to provide individuals at all levels of expertise with educational and networking opportunities. To enhance our ability to reach as wide an audience as possible, we are making many of our training materials available in the form of individual fact sheets and packets. The following is a description of resource materials concerning the Rehab Act, statewide independent living councils, state IL plans, funding, and other topics. These materials may be duplicated without acquiring permission, providing that the following credit is given to the project: "Developed as part of the IL NETWORK: NCIL/ILRU National Training & Technical Assistance Project." All materials are available in accessible formats, including copies available to download in either WordPerfect or ASCII from DIMENET in the IL_NETWORK file area. For fact sheets about the Rehab Act, download file 'rehab1.wp' or 'rehab1.asc.' For fact sheets about SILCs, download 'silcpak1.wp' or 'silcpak1.asc.' You will also find each piece of the packets available individually. For assistance with downloading call (808) 880-5325 (V/TTY) or (513) 439-0071 (V), 439-0072 (TTY). For further information or technical assistance, contact ILRU at (713) 520-0232 (V), 520-5136 (TTY) or NCIL at (703) 525-3406 (V), 525-3407 (TTY). FACT SHEETS ABOUT THE REHAB ACT Amendments to the Rehab Act: 1986 & 1992: A Comparison--a set of charts showing changes in the Rehab Act which occurred from 1986 to 1992. Where to Get Information About the Rehabilitation Act--how to obtain copies of the Rehab Act and related background information from the government, from public records, and from DIMENET, the national computer bulletin board for independent living. Terminology Related to the Legislative and Regulatory Process--explanations of terms and concepts related to the legislative process. Key OSERS, RSA, and NIDRR Staff--a listing of top-level staff members of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). FACT SHEETS ABOUT STATEWIDE INDEPENDENT LIVING COUNCILS (SILCs) Composition of Statewide IL Councils--an easily understood overview of SILC responsibilities, composition criteria, and examples of some of the problems faced by state IL councils with direct, concrete suggestions for dealing with them. Questions About SILC Governance--identifies many of the pivotal questions an organization can use to establish the bylaws with which it governs itself; covers specific questions for councils operating as private, nonprofit corporations and seeking a tax exempt status. What Every SILC Member Should Know--a checklist of basic information that each SILC member should understand in order to be an effective, voting participant of a statewide IL planning body. Prototype Job Descriptions--basic duties, authorities, and qualifications for the SILC chair, vice- chair, secretary, treasurer, and member; intended as a guideline from which to build individualized descriptions. SILC Profile Analysis--a grid designed to reveal a basic profile of any SILC by mapping characteristics and affiliations of the members; simple, easy-to-follow instructions show whether or not a council is consumer controlled according to legal mandate. SILC Membership Compliance Assessment--a checklist for determining whether or not your SILC is in compliance with the compositional guidelines outlined in section 705(b)(2) the Rehab Act. Directory of Statewide IL Councils--a complete list of all SILCs with contact information for state chairs; current as of December 1995. AUTHORIZED USES OF FUNDS AVAILABLE TO THE STATE IL COUNCIL Authorized Uses of Title VII, Part B--this document gives an overview of the history and development of Title VII, with an emphasis on gains made in controlling how the dollars allotted to support independent living programs and services are spent. Funding Under SILC Jurisdiction--identifies funding sources available to the statewide IL council: Title VII, Parts B and C, Title I, Part C, Social Security Reimbursement Funds, and private or other sources. Funding for Title VII, Part B: Fiscal Years 1994 & 1995--exact 1995 dollar amounts allocated from this source for each state and territory. Funding for Title VII, Part C: Fiscal Year 1994--dollar amounts by state and territory showing 1994 allotments as well as post-reallotment amounts for fiscal year 1993. Revised 3/96 _________________________ Developed by the IL NETWORK: NCIL/ILRU National Training and Technical Assistance Project. Requests for technical assistance on this and other independent living subjects may be directed to the IL NETWORK Project, c/o ILRU at (713)520-0232 (voice), 520-5136 (TTY), 520-5785 (Fax), or NCIL at (703) 525-3406 (voice), 525-3407 (TTY), 525-3409 (Fax). READINGS FOR THE INDEPENDENT LIVING AND DISABILITY RIGHTS MOVEMENTS DeJong, Gerben. "Independent Living: From Social Movement to Analytic Paradigm." Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 60 (October 1979): 435-446. DeJong, Gerben. "Physical Disability and Public Policy." Scientific American 248, no. 6 (June 1983): 40-49. DeJong, Gerben. Environmental Accessibility and Independent Living Outcomes: Directions for Disability Policy and Research. East Lansing: University Center for International Rehabilitation, 1981. DeJong, Gerben and Janice Hughes. Report of the Sturbridge Conference on Independent Living Services. Boston: Tufts Medical Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, 1981. Fasser, Carl E., Quentin Smith, Lex Frieden, Laura W. Smith, J. David Holcomb. "Addressing the Health Care Needs of People with Disabilities." Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants 7, no. 1 (January 1994): 26-32. Kailes, June. "Language is More Than a Trivial Concern!" (1984) reprinted in Disability Pride and A Guide to Planning Accessible Meetings (available through ILRU publications). Kailes, June Isaacson. Disability Pride: The Interrelationship of Self-Worth, Self-Empowerment, & Disability Culture. Houston: ILRU Program, 1993. Kailes, June Isaacson, and Darrell Jones. A Guide to Planning Accessible Meetings. Houston: ILRU Program, 1993. Kailes, June Isaacson. Putting Advocacy Rhetoric Into Practice: The Role of the Independent Living Center. Issues in Independent Living No. 8. Houston: ILRU Program, 1988. Lachat, Mary Ann. An Evaluation and Management Information System for Independent Living. Staying on Track: ILRU Management Support Series. Houston: ILRU Program, 1988. Lachat, Mary Ann. The Independent Living Service Model: Historical Roots, Core Elements, and Current Practice. Hampton: Center for Resource Management, 1988. National Council on the Handicapped (now the National Council on Disability). Toward Independence: An Assessment of Federal Laws and Programs Affecting Persons with Disabilities - With Legislative Recommendations. February 1986. Available from NCD, 1331 F Street, NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 272-2004 (V), 272-2074 (TTY). National Council on the Handicapped (now the National Council on Disability). On the Threshold of Independence: A Report to the President and the Congress of the United States. January 1988. Available from NCD (see above). Nosek, Peg, Yayoi Narita, Yoshiko Dart, and Justin Dart. A Philosophical Foundation for the Independent Living & Disability Rights Movement. Occasional Paper No. 1. Houston: ILRU Program, 1982. Pflueger, Susan Stoddard. Independent Living. Emerging Issues in Rehabilitation. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Research Utilization, 1977. Richards, Laurel and Quentin Smith. An Orientation to Independent Living Centers. Houston: ILRU Program, 1987. Shapiro, Joseph P. No Pity. New York: Random House, Inc. 1993. Shreve, Maggie, Patricia Spiller, Eric Griffin, Nancy Waldron, and Lynda Stolzman. Martha Williams, ed. Consumer Control in Independent Living. Available from: Center for Resource Management, 2 Highland Road, South Hampton, NH 03847; (603) 394-7040 (V/TTY), 394-7483 (fax). Smith, Quentin, Lex Frieden, and Laurel Richards. "Independent Living." Encyclopedia of Disability and Rehabilitation. New York: Macmillan, Inc., (in press, 1994). Smith, Quentin, Laura W. Smith, Kym King, Lex Frieden, and Laurel Richards. Health Care Reform, Independent Living, and People With Disabilities. Issues in Independent Living No. 11. Houston: ILRU Program, 1993. United States Department of Education. Comprehensive Evaluation of the Title VII, Part B of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as Amended, Centers for Independent Living Program. January 1986. Available through clearinghouses (see below). Willig, Chava Levy. A People's History of Independent Living. 1988. Available from the Research and Training Center on Independent Living, 4089 Dole Building, University of Kansas 66045; (913) 864-4095 (V/TTY). In a special edition on independent living in American Rehabilitation 20, no. 1 (Spring 1994): Giordiano, Gerard and Bruno J. D'Alonzo. "The Link Between Transition and Independent Living," 2-7. Shreve, Maggie. "The Greater Vision: An Advocate's Reflections on the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1992," 8-13. Smith, Laura W., Quentin W. Smith, Laurel Richards, Lex Frieden, and Kym King. "Independent Living Centers: Moving Into the 21st Century," 14-22. Chappell, John A., Jr. "The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts," 23-29. Moore, J. Elton and Barry C. Stephens. "Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who are Blind: Issues and Practices," 30-34. Montagano, Tim. "Bringing the Rehabilitation Family Together: An IL-VR Partnership," 35- 36. Lougheed, Val, Bev Hunter, and Susan Wilson. "Partners for Independence: A Team Approach to Community-Based Rehabilitation," 37-38. Baker, David. "Independent Living in Communities: The Role of the Independence Fund in Vermont," 39-41. Lachat, Mary Ann. "Using the Power of Management Information System Technology to Support the Goals of Centers for Independent Living," 42-48. In a special issue on independent living in OSERS 6, no. 2 (Winter-Spring 1994): French, Duane. "Independent Living: Driven By Principles of Democracy," 37-38. Kafka, Bob. "Perspectives on Personal Assistance Services," 11-13. Kennedy, Jae, Hale Zukas, and Simi Litvak. "Independent Living and Personal Assistance Services: The Research, Training, and Technical Assistance Programs at the World Institute on Disability," 43-45. Mathews, Mark R. "Learning from the Experts: Best Practices in Rural Independent Living," 23-29. Michaels, Robert E. "Title VII: A Major Step Forward," 8-10. Nelson, John. "Changes in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Federal Regulations," 4-8. Smith, Quentin, Lex Frieden, Laurel Richards, and Laurie Gerken Redd. "Improving Management Effectiveness in Independent Living Centers through Research and Training," 30- 36. Tate, Denise and Julie Daugherty. "The Effects of Insurance Benefits Coverage: Does It Affect Persons with Spinal Cord Injury?" 19-22. Westbrook, John D. "Consumer-Driven Supported Employment: Consolidating Services for People with Significant Disabilities," 14-18. Ziegler, Martha. "How Parent Networks Are Working with Independent Living Centers," 39-42. In a special issue on rural independent living in the Rural Special Education Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1992): Clay, Julie Anna. "Native American Independent Living," 41-50. Curl, Rita M., Shanna M. Hall, Linda A. Chisholm, and Sarah Rule. "Co-workers as Trainers for Entry- level Workers: A Competitive Employment Model for Individuals with Disabilities," 31-35. Nosek, Margaret. "The Personal Assistance Dilemma for People with Disabilities Living in Rural Areas," 36-40. Potter, Carol G., Quentin W. Smith, Huong Quan, and Margaret A. Nosek. "Delivering Independent Living Services in Rural Communities: Options and Alternatives," 16-23. Richards, Laurel and Quentin Smith. "Independent Living Centers In Rural Communities," 5- 10. Seekins, Tom, Craig Revesloot, and Bob Maffit. "Extending the Independent Living Center Model to Rural Areas: Expanding Services through State and Local Efforts," 11-15. Smith, Quentin W., Carl E. Fasser, Stacy Wallace, Laurel K. Richards, and Carol G. Potter. "Children with Disabilities in Rural Areas: The Critical Role of the Special Education Teacher in Promoting Independence," 24-30. We Won't Go Away, videocassette. Sells for $20 each, including postage, from the World Institute on Disability, 510 16th Street, Suite 100, Oakland, CA 94612 (510) 763-4100 (V), 208-9493 (TTY). The Disability Rag. A bi-monthly publication reflecting ideas and discussions in the disability rights movement. Available at $12 for a one-year subscription. Write to: Subscriptions, The Disability Rag, 1962 Roanoke Ave, Louisville, KY 40205 (502) 459-5343 (V/TTY/fax). Most of the readings cited above can be obtained from resource clearinghouses. Several are listed below and can be reached for further information about publications and modem-accessible databases by mail or telephone.  National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials, Oklahoma State University, 816 West Sixth Ave., Stillwater, OK 74078 (800) 223-5219.  National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC), 8455 Colesville Road, Suite 935, Silver Spring, MD 20910 (800) 346-2742 (V), 227-0216 (TTY).  ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (formerly the ERIC Clearinghouse on Handicapped and Gifted Children), 1920 Association Dr., Reston, VA 22091, (800) 328-0272 (V/TTY) at the Council for Exceptional Children, (703) 620-3660, ext. 307 (V). ILRU also offers a number of publications and other materials on various independent living subjects. For a listing of resource materials contact ILRU at 2323 S. Shepherd, Suite 1000, Houston, TX 77019, (713) 520-0232 (V), 520-5136 (TTY). For resource materials and technical assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are ten regional Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers (DBTACs). One toll-free number, 1-800-949-4232, will direct your call to a technical assistant in your region. Resource materials are published by the U.S. Department of Justice and many are available free of charge. The Southwest DBTAC in Houston, Texas offers technical assistance and some resource materials in Spanish as well as English. Revised 6/95 Developed by the IL NETWORK: NCIL/ILRU National Training and Technical Assistance Project. Requests for technical assistance on this and other independent living subjects may be directed to the IL NETWORK Project, c/o ILRU at (713) 520-0232 (voice), 520-5136 (TTY), 520-5785 (Fax), or NCIL at (703) 525-3406 (voice), 525-3407 (TTY), 525-3409 (Fax). TRAINING OBJECTIVES The purpose of this training is to:  Clarify values and beliefs regarding multicultural and cross disability issues;  Develop opportunities to involve people from diverse disability and cultural populations;  Identify leaders from groups that are underrepresented at your center;  Ensure that center, board, and staff are accessible to individuals from all disability and multicultural groups;  Identify needs of diverse populations in your community; and  Share training and technical assistance resources for working with and involving people from all populations. VALUES CLARIFICATION CHECKLIST Please rank each of the following statements as honestly as you can. Marking a "1" means that it is acceptable to you, or that you agree; a "2" means that it does not matter and/or you neither agree nor disagree; a "3" means that it is unacceptable and/or you disagree. These checklists are for your own use and will not be collected, nor will you be asked to reveal your responses. 1. People with disabilities all share a common experience of discrimination. 1 2 3 2. People who have developmental disabilities have different needs than people with physical disabilities. 1 2 3 3. People with mental retardation already have programs available for them, and should not have to use CIL resources. 1 2 3 4. If budgets are tight, or if material is delayed, it is acceptable to read information to a blind person rather than not distribute it to anyone. 1 2 3 5. Deaf people want separate programs. 1 2 3 6. Our center has attempted to do outreach to the multicultural community, but they are not interested. 1 2 3 7. Hispanic people don't believe in independent living. 1 2 3 8. People who are mentally retarded have to be supervised. 1 2 3 9. People with brain injuries need to have specialized programs. 1 2 3 10. People with cognitive disabilities don't have the skills to be board members. 1 2 3 11. All staff at a CIL should know basic sign language. 1 2 3 12. CILs should not be required to work with children with disabilities. 1 2 3 13. Parents of children with disabilities should have no input at a CIL unless they have a disability too. 1 2 3 14. Separate programs such as schools for people who are blind or people who are deaf are acceptable because they teach specific skills. 1 2 3 15. An individual with a psychiatric disability should not be required to perform essential functions of a job at a CIL if the reason they cannot is due to their disability. 1 2 3 SCENARIO BACKGROUND Grover's Creek Independent Living Center employs 25 full-time and ten part-time employees and is located in a urban setting in a large southeastern state. Twenty-two percent of the center's employees are female and six percent are individuals from ethnic and racial minority groups. The ten-member board of directors is comprised of eight males and two females. Two of the board members are from minority groups. An adversarial consumer group is formed as a result of dissatisfaction with the perceived underrepresentation of ethnic and racial minorities employed by the CIL and by the alleged non-responsive behavior of GCILC's board pertaining to many formal requests for the board to adopt and implement a "multicultural" model. The consumer group consists of persons with disabilities from ethnic and racial minorities and a few former employees. The group informs the board of its intent to bring grievances to the attention of the center's private and public funding sources, as well as to the local media. 1. Define the problem(s). 2. If you have identified more than one problem, categorize them in terms of "requires immediate attention" and "needs long-term plan." 3. As board members, develop a brief problem resolution plan. What role, if any, would the consumer group play in your plan to resolve the problem(s)? POLICIES ON DIVERSITY THE KANSAS EXAMPLE The following are examples of statements of unity and solidarity as voiced by a statewide coalition of disability rights leaders, Kansans with disabilities, and their families. The statements are addressed to the Kansas legislature and administration and are reproduced here as they first appeared in print. IN UNITY The Undersigned organizations have determined that the following principles are of importance to us as providers of services, advocates, family members and friends, and people with disabilities. We will support legislation that meets these principles and we will work together to assure that there are community based options available to people with disabilities and their families. That the Administration and the Legislature of the State of Kansas promote the rights and abilities of people with disabilities by ensuring that laws, services options and opportunities promote the dignity of people with disabilities and promote their ability to live, work and participate in the community to the extent that they choose. That efforts will be made to redirect dollars from institutional settings to community based programs, services and options for people with disabilities and seniors. That the Administration and the Kansas Legislature ensure individual rights and local control by directing state agencies to include consumers in all levels of the decision making process. That the Administration, when making appointments, ensure that consumers and advocates for services make up a majority of all commissions, task forces, and advisory boards. That all individuals, regardless of disability, have access to this community support system resulting in an inclusive society for those with disabilities; That the Kansas Legislature be responsive to the needs of people with disabilities and enact and amend legislation which promotes and supports involvement in the community; That the first priority of the Kansas Legislature be to fully fund community-based consumer driven services that provide outcomes that ensure that people with disabilities have the ability to participate as equal citizens. Only then will Kansas ensure that all citizens have equal access to housing, employment, education, transportation, recreation, health care and to the community at large. STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY We the undersigned promote the position that the Administration and Legislature of the State of Kansas shall adopt the policy that services to children and adults with disabilities provide the opportunity to live, work and participate in their community to the degree that they choose; That local, state, and federal governments should form a partnership that provides community- based, consumer-driven support systems that promote these options; That all individuals, regardless of disability have access to this community support system resulting in an inclusive society for those with disabilities; That the Kansas Legislature be responsive to the needs of Kansans with disabilities and enact and amend legislation which promotes and supports involvement in the community; That the first priority of the Kansas Legislature be to fully fund community-based, consumer- driven services benefiting people with disabilities; The 1991 Kansas Legislature and Administration shall direct the agencies administering disability related programs to insure that implementation will be community-based and consistent with the independent living philosophy; Only then will Kansas insure that all citizens have equal access to community living, housing, employment, education, transportation, recreation, health care and to the community at large. Signed by: Martha K. Gabehart, Kansas Commission on Disability Concerns Gina McDonald, Kansas Association of Centers for Independent Living Yolanda K. Bestgen, Kansas Association of Rehabilitation Facilities Terry Larson, Kansas Alliance for the Mentally Ill Paul M. Klotz, Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas Michael J. Byington, Kansas Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired Brenda J. Eddy, Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired Mary Pat Beals, Head Injury Association of Kansas and Greater Kansas City APPENDIX A Additional Readings in Diversity Issues APPENDIX A TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments "Untangling the Web of Denial" Edwina Trich Franchild "Defiantly Deaf" Andrew Solomon "Living with a Hidden Disability" Anita L. Pace "Percy Rothwell" Karin Melberg Schwier "The Hunger Artist" Kim Chernin "Sisters" Kim Chernin "Symbol of Suburban Separatism". Malcolm Gladwell "Building in Many Places". Cheryl Townsend Gilkes "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" . 99 Audre Lorde READINGS IN DIVERSITY ISSUES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS "Untangling the Web of Denial," by Edwina Trish Franchild from With the Power of Each Breath: A Disabled Women's Anthology, Susan E. Browne, Debra Connors, and Nanci Stern, eds. Copyright 1985 by Cleis Press, P.O. Box 8933, Pittsburgh, PA 15221 and P.O. Box 14684, San Francisco, CA 94114. By permission of the publisher. "Defiantly Deaf," by Andrew Solomon in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, August 28, 1994. Copyright 1994 by the New York Times, Inc. By permission of the New York Times. "Living with a Hidden Disability," by Anita L. Pace from With the Power of Each Breath: A Disabled Women's Anthology, Susan E. Browne, Debra Connors, and Nanci Stern, eds. Copyright 1985 by Cleis Press, P.O. Box 8933, Pittsburgh, PA 15221 and P.O. Box 14684, San Francisco, CA 94114. By permission of the publisher. "Percy Rothwell," by Karin Melberg Schwier from Speakeasy: People with Mental Handicaps Talk About Their Lives in Institutions and in the Community. Copyright 1990 by Pro-Ed Books, Austin, Texas. By permission of the publisher with thanks to the author. "The Hunger Artist," from The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness by Kim Chernin. Copyright 1981 by Kim Chernin. By permission of the publisher. For information, contact Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022. "Sisters," from The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness by Kim Chernin. Copyright 1981 by Kim Chernin. By permission of the publisher. For information, contact Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022. "Symbol of Suburban Separatism," by Malcolm Gladwell in The Washington Post, Tuesday, February 6, 1996. Copyright 1996 by the Washington Post Writers' Group. By permission of the publisher. "Building in Many Places: Multiple Commitments and Ideologies in Black Women's Community Work," by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes in Women and the Politics of Empowerment, Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen, eds. Copyright 1988 by Temple University Press. By permission of the publisher. "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," from Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. Copyright 1984 by Audre Lorde. Published by The Crossing Press: Freedom, CA, USA. By permission of the publisher. Solomon, Andrew. "Defiantly Deaf." The New York Times Magazine, 28 August, 1994. [p.40] The protests at the Lexington Center, which includes New York's oldest Deaf School, are an important stage in the Deaf struggle for civil rights, and on April 25, the first day of student demonstrations, I ask an African-American from the 11th grade whether she has also demonstrated for race rights. "I'm too busy being Deaf right now," she signs. "My two older brothers aren't Deaf, so they're taking care of being black. Maybe if I have time I'll get to that later." A Deaf woman standing nearby throws in a question for my benefit: "If you could change being Deaf or being black, which would you do? The student looks confused, and is suddenly shy. Her signing gets smaller, as though she doesn't want everyone to see it. "Both are hard," she signs back. Another student intercedes. "I am black and Deaf and proud and I don't want to be white or hearing or different in any way from who I am." Her signs are pretty big and clear. The first student repeats the sign "proud" - her thumb, pointing in, rises up her chest - and then suddenly they are overcome with giggles and go back to join the picket line. This principle is still new to me, but it has been brewing in the Deaf community for some time: while some deaf people feel cut off from the hearing world, or disabled, for others, being Deaf is a culture and a source of pride. ("Deaf" denotes culture, as distinct from "deaf," which is used to describe a pathology.) A steadily increasing number of deaf people have said that they would not choose to be hearing. To them, the word "cure" - indeed the whole notion of deafness as pathology - is anathema. My guide here is Jackie Roth, one of the protest's organizers a Lexington alumna, an actress and an advocate with a practice in cross-culture sensitivity training for hearing people. Charismatic, self-assured and sharp, she has excellent oral skills and lip-reads well. She speaks and signs simultaneously, which has made her a natural for communicating with the hearing world, and , therefore, an object of suspicion among the Deaf (a position made more difficult by the fact that she has, like many influential Deaf leaders, a hearing spouse). She is unyieldingly ambitious. "I'm Deaf of Deaf," she says. "I've always said that I'd get to the top and open as many doors as I could for the whole Deaf community. Every deaf child should know he can do anything except hear." Since 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, Deaf of Deaf carries a certain exclusivity and prestige: Deaf of Deaf have usually grown up understanding from an early age the issues that other deaf people may not take on until much later in life. "My father was a dreamer. If he hadn't been deaf, he would have done big things. His family was so ashamed of his being deaf. My mom was a pragmatist, but my father used to say I could do anything. If I said I wanted to be a singer, he never said, 'Deaf girls can't.' He just told me to sing." With time, I will learn how unusual such attitudes are. "When I mentioned a deaf dentist to my deaf mother," the superintendent of Lexington, which is located in Jackson Heights, Queens, tells me, "she said, 'How good a dentist can he be if he's deaf?'" A powerful sense of self is, for most empowered Deaf, a product of the last 10 years. "My dad worked his whole life in a factory, printing," Jackie says. "It's one of those traditional deaf trades. The machines are so loud you can't talk anyway; if you're already deaf you won't sue when you lose hearing from the noise. Dad had to settle for that. It was the 40's, about as low a time as there was for being deaf in America. He told me never to settle." In Deaf culture, everyone begins with family and school history, then leads back to the topic at hand; it's part of the structure of intimacy I will encounter here. "Lexington isn't going to settle either," says Jackie. An hour after I meet the two proud students, I attend a meeting between the nine-member core committee that organized this protest and the chief executive of the school. Jackie opens. "We do not accept the process by which a new C.E.O. has been named this week to the Lexington Center for the Deaf," she says. "We would like him to resign, and for a new search process to take place." Every detail of the baroquely complex search process is called into question. They want to oust the new chief executive, R. Max Gould, who would oversee the component institutions of the Lexington Center. Most would like to replace him with a Deaf candidate, but whether the new chief executive is Deaf or not, they want him to be approved by the Deaf community. The center's director of public affairs says that the protests will peter out soon, that students just want an excuse to miss classes, but that is not my impression. "There are no Deaf role models at Lexington," Jackie tells members of the press four days later as the marches continue. Her signs, like her voice, are impatient, quick, funny, and fluid. "Few Deaf teachers and even fewer Deaf administrators," The protesters - mostly Lexington students - watch closely. Some are wearing big placards: "The Board Can Hear but They Are Deaf to Us" and "Board Who Can Hear Don't Listen. Those Who Can't Hear Do Listen." Some are wearing "Deaf Pride" T-shirts or buttons. Individuals climb a low wall so everyone can see their rallying cheers, and the crowd chants back to them, many hands moving in repeating patterns. The faculty representatives to the core committee--Maureen Woods, Jeff Bravin and Janie Moran--are especially vigilant. "Do you think the protest will work?" I ask. Maureen's signing is methodical and impressive. "There is no choice," she says. "It must work." Jeff interrupts. "The pressure has been building, maybe since the school was founded in 1864. Now it's exploding, and nothing can stop it." A few days later, at another protest, Jeff and his grandmother chat congenially. "My father and my grandfather went to Lexington," Jeff says. "I am Deaf of Deaf of Deaf. We're ready to take what should be ours." Jeff is 25, a member of the "rubella [start page 41] bulge." In the early 60's, a rubella epidemic resulted in a very high incidence of deaf children, and they have made up most of the leadership of the Deaf Pride movement. Concurrent with these protests, Jackie is giving a performance in the New York Deaf Theater's adaptation of "The Swan." The play describes how a deaf woman of great passion (Jackie) leaves her hearing lover and finds true love with the Swan, who enables her imagination. The lover uses signed English as he speaks; the Swan begins with no language but learns perfect American Sign Language (A.S.L.), the language of the American Deaf, which has its own syntax. Signed English, the use of word signs in English-language word order, is not actually a language at all; cumbersome and slower-paced, it is often used when hearing and deaf people interact. For Jackies's character, love is a liberation from the limitations of hearing culture. As her language, which had suffered the cramp and limitation of her lover's English-oriented signing, opens up into the bodily richness of the Swan's pure A.S.L., she discovers her Deaf self and becomes free. "I didn't learn real A.S.L. until college," says Jackie, "and what a spreading of the wings it was when it happened! Lexington's tradition of arrogant oralism--they've got a lot to make up for." That Jackie should take so strong a stand against oralism--a philosophy that the deaf should learn to speak like hearing people--is striking, since she is an oral "success story," a woman who can carry on a spoken conversation with little apparent difficulty, who could, if she wanted to, pretty much pass for hearing and who is sometimes dismissed by Deaf purists as "not really Deaf." When Lexington was founded as the first great bastion of oralism in America, it was the idealist wish of hearing people to teach the deaf to speak and read lips so they could function in the "real world" from which they had been excluded. How that dream went horribly wrong is the grand tragedy against which modern Deaf culture has constructed itself. Words, Words, Words The story of the Deaf is the history of Deaf education, and is recounted in Harlan Lane's "When the Mind Hears," then analyzed in his "Mask of Benevolence." These are the seminal texts of the Deaf movement. In 16th-century Spain, for example, only those who had given confession were allowed to inherit property or title, so inbred noble families undertook the oral education of their deaf children. But it was more than 200 years before the Abbe de l'Epee pursued a vocation among the poor deaf of Paris, learned their manual language and used it to teach written French, so freeing the deaf from their prison of illiteracy and isolation. In 1815, the Rev. Thomas Gallaudet of Connecticut traveled to the institute founded by de l'Epee in Paris, and persuaded Laurent Clerc, a teacher, to accompany him to America to establish a school in Hartford in 1817. A golden age for the American deaf followed. Clerc's French sign language mixed with indigenous American signs and a dialect used on Martha's Vineyard (where there was much hereditary deafness) to form American Sign Language. Deaf people wrote books, entered public life, achieved. Gallaudet College was founded to provide the highest advanced education to the deaf and is still the world's only Deaf university. In "Seeing Voices," Oliver Sacks suggests that once the deaf were seen to function so broadly, it was natural that they should be asked to speak. Alexander Graham Bell led the oralist movement, which culminated with the dread Congress of Milan in 1880 and an edict to ban the use of sign. The insistence on teaching English only (which prevailed until the 1980's; "I got my hands rapped if I signed," Jackie recalls) served not to raise deaf literacy, but to lower it. Forbidding sign turned children not toward spoken English, but away from language. "We felt retarded," Jackie says. "Everything depended on one completely boring skill, and we were all bad at it. Some bright kids who didn't have that talent just became dropouts." Even those who developed pronunciation lost out. "History lessons," Jackie says. "We spent two weeks learning to say 'guillotine' and that was what we learned about the French Revolution. Then you go out and say 'guillotine' to someone with your deaf voice, and they haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about - usually they can't tell what you're trying to pronounce when you say 'Coke' at McDonald's." Learning was supposed to happen through lip reading, a remarkably inexact science; most lip movements are associated with more than one sound, and the lip reader must guess and intuit in order to make sense of what is being said. "Pat, mat, bat," Jackie mouthed. "Now, did I say the [start page 42] same word three times or did I say three different words?" For someone who already speaks English--someone deafened postlingually--the technique can be developed, but for someone with limited English, it is an excruciating endeavor. "Socially or in secret," Jackie says, "we always signed. No theory could kill our language." Though at least 30 percent of deafness is genetic, more than 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents. So most deaf children enter families that neither understand nor know their situation. They must identify in their peer group; they are first exposed to Deaf ways in school. When you meet a deaf person, his school is a primary mode of self-identification; it's usually told after his name but before his job. "Lexington" and "Gallaudet" were among the first signs I learned. The Deaf debates are all language debates. "When I communicate in A.S.L., my native language," M.J. Bienvenu, a political activist, said to me, "I am living my culture. I don't define myself in terms of 'not hearing' or of 'not' anything else." A founder of the Bicultural Center (a sort of Deaf think tank), M.J. is gracious, but also famously terrifying: brilliant, striking-looking and self-possessed, with signing so swift, crisp and perfectly controlled that she seems to be rearranging the air in front of her into a more acceptable shape. Deaf of Deaf, with Deaf sisters, she manifests, like many other activists, a pleasure in American Sign language that only poets feel for English. "When our language was acknowledged," she says, "we gained our freedom." In her hands "freedom" - clenched hands are crossed before the body, then swing apart and face out - is like an explosion. The fact that A.S.L. is a full (though not written) language, with a logical internal grammar and the capacity to express anything that can be expressed verbally, eluded scholars until William Stokoe published his ground-breaking "Sign Language Structure" in 1960. This became the basis for Deaf activism of which Lexington's is the most recent example. "To establish the validity of A.S.L.," Stokoe says, "we had to spend a long time dwelling on how it resembles spoken language. Now that the validity of A.S.L. has been accepted, we can concentrate on what's interesting - how the life perceptions and experiences of a native A.S.L.-user will differ from the perceptions and experiences of hearing people." Or, as M.J. put it, "There are many things that I can experience for which you have no equivalent." Perception of A.S.L. uses the language center of the brain more than the visual-emotion center. Deaf children show no predisposition to spoken language; they respond intuitively to sign, and acquire it exactly as hearing children acquire spoken languages. During the critical period for language acquisition - at its height between 18 and 36 months, dwindling around 12 years - the mind can internalize the principles of grammar and signification. This paves the way for human thought. (There is no rich abstraction without words.) Once you have learned one language, you can go on, at any age, to learn more or other languages. Spoken-written language can readily be taught to the deaf as a second language. But to bring up deaf children without sign models is terribly dangerous. Though some remarkable ones acquire English through lip reading and residual hearing with constant attention, more often deaf children without exposure to sign bypass the key age for language acquisition without really acquiring any language at all. Once that happens, they frequently fail to develop full cognitive skills; they may suffer permanently from what has been described as a preventable form of mental retardation. Helen Keller famously observed that being blind cuts people off from things, while being deaf cuts people off from other people. Poor communication skills result in psychosis; the National Institutes of Health had a workshop this June on the link between poor hearing (nonsigners) and violence. Deaf to Deaf learn sign as a first language at home and are often surprised to discover that other systems of communication are used elsewhere. For the deaf children of hearing parents, school is often the first place where they encounter sign. It is not just social or intellectual stimulation that school may provide; when it is the beginning of language, school is the first awakening of the mind. As I slide deeper into Deaf culture by way of Lexington protests, I see how a language has defined a system of thought - and I begin to imagine what M.J. may be able to experience that I may not. The Best Time To Be Deaf On Monday May 2, the demonstrators go to the Queens Borough President's office. It is a beautiful, sunny day, and the demonstration, though still in deadly earnest, has that air of festivity that clings to anything for which people are skipping work or school. Jackie Roth is holding forth, and so are a variety of distinguished Deaf leaders. And Greg Hlibok, a leader of the Deaf President Now movement, is expected. In March 1988, Gallaudet University, the center of American Deaf culture, announced the appointment of a new president. Students had rallied for the school to have its first Deaf president, but the chairman, remarking that "the deaf are not yet ready to function in the hearing world," announced that a hearing candidate had been selected. In the following week, the Deaf community as a political force came abruptly into its own. The movement that had begun with Stokoe's validation of A.S.L. took its next great leap forward. The Deaf President Now movement made it clear that the Deaf community was able to function at any level it chose. In a week, they closed down the university, won substantial coverage in the media and staged a march on the Capitol with 2,500 supporters. The chairman resigned, and her place was taken by Jeff Bravin's father, Phil Bravin (who is also on the Lexington board). The board immediately named the first Deaf president of Gallaudet, I. King Jordan. Late-deafened in a motorcycle accident at 21, King Jordan is the most unaffectedly bicultural person I have met; against all the predictions of the hearing world, he has proved a remarkable leader while vastly increasing the school's endowment. Deaf President Now is Lexington's inspiration. At the Borough President's office, Hlibok is electrifying. An articulate signer can build up a picture in front of himself, and the iconic content of A.S.L. provides much of its immediacy and power. Like M.J., Hlibok takes over a substantial block of space in front of himself when he signs. He says that the Lexington board members are like adults playing with a doll house, moving deaf students like dolls. He seems to create the house in the air; by the time he has finished, you can see it and the interfering arms of the board reaching into it. It is as if his fingers have left trails of light behind them that [start page 43] hold the pictures he is drawing. His wrists snap sharply with conviction, and his hands open and close as if they might eventually stop in the shape of fists. The students cheer, many of them by raising their hands over their heads and waving them, fingers splayed, in Deaf applause. In the midst of the Lexington fracas, Max Gould, the newly appointed chief executive, resigns. There are waves of astonishment. Gould claims that his appointment has been muddying the real issues facing Lexington. Seizing the air of opportunity, a board member proposes Phil Bravin as board president, and the incumbent withdraws. The Gallaudet scenario has repeated itself. Many Deaf people, when they are excited, make loud sounds, often at very high or very low pitches, wordless exclamations of delight. In the halls of Lexington, students cheer, almost incredulous that their actions could have been fruitful, and anyone hearing is transfixed by the sound. "It was a real sense of deja vu," Phil Bravin would say to me one afternoon a few months later. "It was so much like Gallaudet all over again, and it showed that victory was just the beginning. It was also the best thing that could have happened to those students, no matter how many classes they missed during the protests. You can't learn civil rights from a textbook. Some of them came from families that said, 'You're deaf; don't shoot too high.' Now they know better." At Lexington graduation, a week later, Hlibok is the speaker. In the midst of a hackneyed, boring speech, he says, rather casually, "From the time God made earth until today, this is probably the best time to be Deaf." At a victory celebration the next day, Jeff Bravin says, "We'll be running our own show now." Jackie Roth says: "It's all great. But the battle's not over." And indeed, within a month a new saga will begin over the appointment of a principal for J.H.S. 47, New York City's only public school for the deaf; once more, the Deaf will be excluded from the selection process. Save the Children Mainstreaming" (or "inclusion") - "the backlash," as M.J. Bienvenu calls it - is making schools ever more the locus of Deaf struggles. The Americans with Disabilities Act, in an attempt to give full educational benefits to people once shunted into second-rate special schools, has recommended that schools be made more fully accessible. Public law 94-142 maintains that everyone who can use ordinary schools should do so. For the deaf, often physically unable to learn the mainstream's means of communication, this is the worst disaster since the Congress of Milan. "Children from Spanish-speaking homes may learn English at school as a second language," says M.J. "Children from nonsigning homes who are taught only in English at school may never learn language at all." The Clinton Administration has not been receptive to calls for separate Deaf schools. "It is a terrible abuse," says Oscar Cohen, Lexington's superintendent. Jackie Roth says, "It makes me sick with rage." "There are some children who can function well in mainstream schools," says Robert Davila, an Assistant Secretary of Education under George Bush and a leader of the Hispanic Deaf community. "They need help from supportive families, special abilities, good language of some kind and constant individual help from teachers. Many children, even if they overcome the incredible obstacles, will be so lonely there. The Deaf school where I went was my salvation." According to Rowley decision, which upheld a school district's refusal to provide interpreter services to a deaf girl on grounds that she was passing, it is the obligation of the schools into which children are mainstreamed to give "sufficient" education rather than to "maximize" those students' potential. Their social welfare is not a concern. Once considered the vanguard of Deaf separatism, M.J. Bienvenu's Bicultural Center now focuses on cooperation; it laid the groundwork for the Bi-Bi (bilingual, bicultural) movement in education, which is the Deaf community's answer to mainstreaming and an alternative to the trend in Deaf education for "total communication." "Total communication" means speaking and signing at once, and it's difficult to do. Non-A.S.L. signed languages, predicated on oral syntax as they are, are sometimes nearly incomprehensible. And the structures of English and A.S.L. are completely different; you can no more speak English while signing in A.S.L than you can speak English while writing Chinese. In English, words are used in sequence; A.S.L. often uses words simultaneously, or amalgamates them into composite signs. So in A.S.L., one gesture could mean "He moved from the East Coast to the West Coast." If you sign "he," [start page 44] then "moved," then "from" and so on, logic disappears; a visual grammar conveyed sequentially is "unnatural" and counterintuitive. In Bi-Bi, children are encouraged to develop sign as a "natural" first language; written English is taught as a second language, and many students seem to excel at it, running close to their hearing counterparts. (It should be noted that, on average, deaf high-school graduates have a fourth-grade reading level.) The technique is gaining: Eddy Laird, superintendent of the Indiana School for the Deaf, has been one of the first to institute Bi-Bi on a full scale. It has also been used at the schools on the Gallaudet campus. Spoken English is taught but not emphasized within the Bi-Bi system. The system's successes are astonishing, and yet the lack of spoken language is a real disability. It is striking that many of the most extreme anti-oralists themselves have and use excellent oral skills. "They're incredibly useful, and anyone who can learn them should," Jackie Roth acknowledged. "I happen to have a skill there, and it's been invaluable for me. But the speech can't be taught at the cost of human growth. Balance!" A 'Family' Gathering Fresh from Lexington, I go to England to meet leaders of the British Deaf community. Word of the protests has reached them throughout the Deaf media (a broad range of local and international newspapers, newsletters, special television programs, fax and E-mail), but in Britain there has been no equivalent of Gallaudet's Deaf President Now; the situation I describe seems inconceivable. "We're 40 years behind," says Doug Alker, the only Deaf executive at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (which the Deaf call Really Not Interested in the Deaf). "Most deaf people in Britain see themselves as victims." Hearing people often make the mistake of assuming that sign is a universal language, but there are almost as many signed as spoken languages. American Sign Language is related to French sign (because of Laurent Clerc), but British sign is extremely different. I also visit the famed Deaf Scottish, musician Evelyn Glennie, who can feel the trembling of the separate instruments of an orchestra, can modulate her voice's timbre with real beauty, can even understand words through vibration. Her solo percussion performances astonish. "If had a deaf child," she says, "I would teach him by holding him against my body all the time, so he could feel the vibrations of my speech. I would lie with his hands on my throat, hold him against my heart, lay him on the piano so he could learn about sound and music from the air. With a hearing child, I'd do the same. Your ears are just one of a multitude of ways of experiencing sound." Back in the United States, I attend the biennial National Association of the Deaf convention, which takes place this year in Knoxville, Tenn., with almost 2,000 Deaf participants. At Lexington, I saw Deaf people stand up to the hearing world. I learned how a TTY (a telephone cum typewriter device for the Deaf) works, met pet dogs who understood sign, talked about mainstreaming and oralism and the integrity of visual language. I became accustomed to doorbells that flashed lights instead of ringing. But none of this could have prepared me for the immersion that is the N.A.D. convention, where the brightest, most politicized, most committed Deaf gather for political focus and social exchange. The association has been the center of Deaf self-realization and power since it was founded in 1880. There, it is not a question of whether the hearing will accept the existence of Deaf culture, but of whether Deaf culture will accept the hearing. I arrive the night of the president's reception. There are 1,000 people in the grand ballroom of the Hyatt Regency, the lights turned up because these people are unable to communicate in darkness. The crowd is nearly soundless; you hear the claps that are part of the articulation of A.S.L., the clicks and puffing noises the deaf make when they sign, and occasionally their big uncontrolled laughter. People greet each other as if they have been waiting forever for these encounters - the Deaf community is close, closed and affectionate. Deaf people touch each other far more than the hearing, and everyone here hugs friends. I see demonstrators I got to know at Lexington and people I talked to only in formal interviews; here at the N.A.D., there are no barriers and boundaries, and I, too, find myself hugging people as if I have known them forever. Yet I must be careful of the difference between a friendly and a forward embrace; how you touch communicates a world of meaning in Deaf circles. I must be careful of looking abstractedly at people signing; they will think I am eavesdropping. I do not know any of the etiquette of these new circumstances. "Good luck with the culture shock," more than one person says to me and I get many helpful hints. As I look across the room it seems as if some strange human sea is breaking into waves and glinting in the light, as thousands of hands move at stunning speed, describing a spatial grammar with sharply individual voices and accents. The association is host to the Miss Deaf America pageant, and the young beauties, dressed to the nines and sporting their state sashes, are objects of considerable attention. "Look how beautifully she expresses herself," says someone, pointing to one contestant, and then, of another: "Can you believe that blurry Southern signing? I didn't think anyone really signed like that!" (Regional variations of sign can be dangerous: the sign that in New York slang [start page 45] means "cake" in some Southern states means "sanitary napkin," which led to considerable confusion at mealtimes; my own poor articulation led me to invite someone not to have "lunch," but to have "a lesbian.") The luminaries of the Deaf world - activists, actors, professors - mix comfortably with the beauty queens. I am one of perhaps a dozen hearing people at this party. I will soon come to understand better how factionalized the Deaf community is. (M.J. Bienvenu and Jackie Roth and Greg Hlibok, for example, do not seem to like each other, though "all the factions always pull together when necessary," M.J. reassures.) I will hear of the crab theory (if one crab is strong enough to climb out of the barrel, the others pull him back down; Deaf people use this metaphor to describe their community all the time), and I will see how petty ideology has split a community that once stood firmly united. Nonetheless, the basic fact of Deaf culture remains. I have heard Deaf people talk about how their "family" is the Deaf community. Rejected in so many instances by parents with whom they cannot communicate, united by their struggle with a world that is seldom understanding of them, they have formed inviolable bonds of love of a kind that are rare in hearing culture. At the National Association of the Deaf, they are unmistakable. Disconcerting though it may sound, it is impossible, here, not to wish you were Deaf. I had known that Deaf culture existed, but I had no guessed how heady it is. The association members are a tiny minority, less that 10 percent of the nation's Deaf; most deaf people are what the Deaf call "grass roots." The week after the convention, the national Deaf bowling championships in Baltimore will attract a much larger crowd, people who go to Deaf clubs, play cards and work in blue-collar jobs. Below them in the Deaf status structure are the peddlers (the Deaf word for the mendicants who "sell" cards with the manual alphabet on subways - the established Deaf community tried as early as the 40's to get them off the streets); on Lexington Avenue around 103d Street in New York, some homeless deaf were living on the roof of a building. "Those people also," says Jackie Roth, "whatever they have lost, have this connectedness in their own Deaf communities. It comes with the territory, so long as they are not isolated from other Deaf people." During the following week, I will do dozens of interviews, struggling to pick up the subtleties of A.S.L. accent that betray so much of the meaning of what people are saying. I will discuss the Deaf travel industry with Aaron Rudner, of Deafstar Travel, who started this business going, and with Joyce Brubaker, of Deaf Joy Travel, who is organizing the first Deaf gay cruise. I will watch videos of eloquent signers telling stories. I will attend seminars on A.S.L. usage, on AIDS, on domestic violence. I will talk to Alan Barwiolek, who founded the New York Deaf Theater, about the difference between plays translated for the Deaf and Deaf plays. I will see Deaf comedians. (Ken Glickman, a.k.a. Professor Glick: "Deaf and dumb? No, I'm deaf and bright. You must be hearing and dumb or you wouldn't have asked me that. You think I'm hearing-impaired? I think you're deaf-impaired. and I can sell you, cheap, a deafing aid. This ball of cotton wool can help any profoundly hearing person who needs it. Put one in each ear and we'll be making a start. My blind dates are always deaf dates. You ever been on a deaf date? You go out with someone and then you never hear from her again.") Over dinner, Bernard Bragg will do his lyrical signed translations of William Blake while his pasta gets cold. (Signers can talk with their mouths full, but they can't easily cut up their food and talk at once.) Gary Mowl, head of the A.S.L. department at National Technical Institute of the Deaf, has come to the conference with his children. He often corrects their grammar and usage in A.S.L.. The importance of having a correct language - "Gallaudet A.S.L.," an answer to standard English - has only recently been recognized. "People ask why you need to teach A.S.L. to native signers. Why do English-speaking students study English?" I think of the sign used by Deaf gangs of Harlem and the East Village, which is completely incomprehensible to an A.S.L.-user. Late one night, I am watching captioned television with Deaf friends. "When I was little, before captioning came in," one says, "we used to watch TV as a family. It was great. We would compare notes on what we saw and propose our own versions of the plot. Later, if we saw other Deaf friends who had seen the same show, we would all discuss what we thought had happened. We would construct personalities and events from our guesswork and imaginations; it was practice for the guesswork and humor we need to interpret the world. We laughed so much, and it brought us so close together." He stops for a moment, and we both look back at the television with its neatly typed messages. "Of course having captions on the news is great, but - this is so boring by comparison to the old days." I get into a lot of conversation about interpreters: the shortage of competent interpreters is appalling. There is always competition between CODA (Children of Deaf Adults; refers only to hearing people) professional interpreters and non-CODA ones. The complexities and ambivalences of CODA-Deaf relations, humorously but knowingly conveyed by Lou Ann Walker in "A Loss for Words," are a big part of Deaf culture. (I have the good fortune to work with a CODA named Marie Taccogna, a gifted interpreter who translates both language and culture.) At public meetings, there are often interpreters who are "doing some kind of a dance," says Rob Roth, who is at the National Association of the Deaf to represent AT&T, "which is lovely as interpretive performance but conveys no information in a language I speak. Hearing people love their picturesque eloquence." A New York City court recently refused to get a new interpreter for a plaintiff "who couldn't understand the trial as it was interpreted to her. There are lawsuits pending involving Beth Israel and New York University hospitals for failure to provide interpreting services. Early this year, Leah Hager Cohen - daughter of Oscar Cohen - published an eloquent book, "Train Go Sorry," which follows the careers of a few students at Lexington, and through a stunningly empathetic examination of their stories and her own creates a brilliant narrative of Deaf culture. One of the most moving passages in that book describes the death of Leah Cohen's grandfather. Oscar tried to stay in the hospital to interpret for his father, but was prevented on grounds that the hospital had an interpreter. The interpreter was in fact off-duty for the weekend, and Oscar's father died without being able to communicate with his doctors, without knowing what was happening to him or where he was going, without being consulted about his own treatments. On Thursday, there is a College Bowl involving Gallaudet, the National Technical Institute of the Deaf and California State University at Northridge. I am impressed by the questions (I cannot answer more than half), and I remember how, 20 years ago, the deaf were generally held to be somewhat retarded. Friday night is Miss Deaf America. For the talent section, two girls do monologues about AIDS. There is some signed poetry, some signed music. The National Deaf Dance Theater, whose members pick up the nuance of music through its vibration, do a dramatic stage piece, and Bob Daniels, a partly deaf performer, does a dance and sign number to "With You on My Arm" from "La Cage Aux Folles." The emcees are Bernard Bragg (who could, tonight, be Bert Parks) and Mary Beth Barber (who was Miss Deaf America in 1980). For the onstage interview, each of the semifinalists is asked how she feels about doctors' attempts to cure the deaf. "If someone's unhappy with being deaf, and he wants to change it, that's up to him," says Genie Gertz, Miss Deaf New York, succinctly. "I wouldn't ever change it. Why would l?" I am in the cheering section for Genie, the beautiful daughter of Russian Jewish parents who came to this country from Leningrad when she was 8. In an eloquently rendered monologue written for the talent section, she tells the story of her parents' struggle against Communism, and of the freedom everyone found in the United States - which included, for her, the move from being [start page 62] a social misfit to being Deaf and proud. I have made endless jokes about the Miss Deaf America contest and yet in reality it's surprisingly moving. It is such a striking idea, such a radical one, that you can be Deaf and glamorous. The V.I.P. party after the gentle, radiant Miss Deaf Maryland has won is back in the grand ballroom at the Hyatt. I am talking to Alec Naiman, whom I first met at Lexington. A world traveler, he was one of the pilots in this year's Deaf fly-in at the Knoxville airport. We are discussing a trip he made to China. "I met some Deaf Chinese people my first day, and went to stay with them. Deaf people never need hotels; you can always stay with other Deaf people. We spoke different signed languages, but we could make ourselves understood. Though we came from different countries, Deaf culture held us together. By the end of the evening we'd talked about Deaf life in China, and about Chinese politics, and we'd understood each other linguistically and culturally." I nod. "No hearing American could do that in China," he says. "So who's disabled then?" At 2:30, I still have not left. I remember that one Deaf sociologist is writing a thesis on Deaf goodbyes. Until the 1960's, deaf people had no means of communication except letters, telegrams or personal appearances. If you wanted to organize dinner with a friend, you had to go to his house; you could take two days just inviting people to a party. Saying goodbye was never easy; you would suddenly remember whatever you had forgotten to tell, and, knowing it would be some time before you could make contact again, you would keep on saying goodbye, and you would keep on not leaving. "It's a Deaf party," people had said to me of more than one event. "It'll go on forever." And so this evening, it is impossible to tear yourself away. People are even more physical, more flirtatious than usual. Upstairs there is dancing to loud, pulsing music whose beat goes right along the floor and up your legs. No matter how great the noise, you can dance and sign - the blurring edge between what bodies say to each other as bodies and what they say to each other with words. I finally tear myself away near 4. But I am of the impression that some people will never leave, that the sun will rise and set before that intense, exuberant conversation will draw to a close. Finding the Cure, Fighting the Cure How to reconcile this Deaf experience with the rest of the world? Should it be reconciled at all? M.J. Bienvenu has been one of the most vocal and articulate opponents of the language of disability. "I am Deaf," she says to me in Knoxville, drawing out the sign for "Deaf," the index finger moving from chin to ear, as though she is tracing a broad smile. "To see myself as Deaf is as much of a choice as it is for me to be a lesbian. I have identified with my culture, taken a public stand, made myself a figure within this community." Considerably gentler now than in her extremist heyday in the early 80's, she acknowledges that "for some deaf people, being deaf is a disability. Those who learn force English while being denied sign [start page 65] emerge semilingual rather than bilingual, and they are disabled people. But for the rest of us, it is no more a disability than being Japanese would be." This is tricky territory. If being deaf is not a disability, then deaf people should not be protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act. It should not be legally required (as it is) that interpreters be provided in hospitals and other public service venues, that a relay operator be available on all telephone exchanges, that all televisions include the chip for caption access. It should not be necessary for the state to provide for separate schools. Deaf people should not be eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (which they often claim). Those who say that being deaf is not a disability open themselves up to a lot of trouble. Few words provoke a more passionate response in deaf people than "cochlear implant." Approved in 1985, cochlear implants are the closest thing to a "cure" for deafness. A tiny chip is surgically implanted in the inner ear and connected to a magnet just under the skin, which attracts another magnet in a transmitter attached behind the ear. A wire leads from that to a "speech processor" you can clip to your belt. The processor converts sound into electrical impulses and sends them to the implant, which conveys them to the brain, where they are processed as sound would be. The result is an approximation of hearing. Supporters say implants allow people to overcome a terrible disability, giving those who would be marginalized access to normal life. Opponents complain, first, of the limitations of the implant itself: that it is dangerous, deforming and ineffectual; that it makes people un-deaf without making them hearing. They object also to the very idea of trying to cure the deaf. Paddy Ladd, a British Deaf scholar, calls implants "The Final Solution." The problem is worsened by the fact that the implants are most effective when put into children at about age 2. ("Like the Nazis," says M.J., "they seem to enjoy experimenting on little children.") Decisions about implanting are therefore usually made by parents, most often by hearing parents (though Hearing Health magazine published an anecdote of a 90 year-old deaf mother who tried to browbeat her 70-year-old son into getting implants). This feeds into an ongoing debate about who the "parents" of deaf children are - their biological progenitors or the Deaf community. Cochlear implants are not very dangerous. Surgical complications are unusual, though several surgeons scoffed at the Cochlear Corporation's assertion that the surgery is "comparable to a tonsillectomy"; some people have suffered disfiguring facial paralysis that appears to be connected to the surgery. The implant has been around for only about 30 years, but so far they have not caused the complications that have resulted from other placements of foreign material in the body. (Deaf activists talk about the horrors of silicone implants and pacemakers.) The implant interferes with certain diagnostic tests (magnetic resonance imaging, etc.), but the electronic stimulation the implant creates appears to have a positive effect on the nerve tissue that surrounds it. Having a wire coming out of your neck can make you look like an extra from a bad "Star Trek" episode, but it is possible to grow hair so the wire is generally hidden. Much National Association of the Deaf propaganda about the danger of implants is alarmist; some of it is positively inaccurate. The question of the effectiveness of the implants is more complicated. Cochlear implants are sometimes very effective, often somewhat effective and sometimes practically useless. A late-deafened adult who "regained" his hearing with an implant said it made everyone sound like R2D2 with laryngitis. For late-deafened people, however, implants can be a godsend; the approximation of sound they provide is sufficient for people already functional in spoken language to understand much of what they hear. Lord Ashley, the Member of Parliament who has been one of Britain's most inspired campaigners for civil rights, was deafened 20 years ago and now has implants; he spoke on the phone with apparent ease, and said that he has no trouble speaking to people he knows, one on one, though he might have difficulty with a new voice or with a busy conversation. Prelingual deaf adults who have the implants often find them ineffective or just irritating; whether this is because they are unaccustomed to interpreting sound and would find that difficult even if they were given perfect hearing is unclear. For small children, there have been mixed results. The F.D.A. failed to set language acquisition as one of the criteria for approval. Almost all children with implants have some "useful" perception of sound, but the sound they receive is often too garbled for them to interpret it as language, and so some fall into that frightening category of the cognitively retarded who develop no real language. The Cochlear Corporation can provide the statistics to show that many implanted children learn more and better oral language, but "more and better" is not really enough, especially if this is your sole mode of communication forever. The problem - in practical terms - is that parents too often want to believe that the implants make their children hearing, which they do not do. Implants are not a cure; to treat them as a cure is a dire mistake. The children who receive them are often not given any special Deaf education. Dr. Robert Ruben, an ear-nose-and-throat specialist at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, said: "If I had a deaf child, I would implant one ear, leaving the other free in case cures develop that require an intact inner ear. I would bring up that child bilingually. Parents could phase out sign later on if they wanted, but it should not be abandoned until it becomes clear that the child can develop satisfactory oral language. The worst mistake is for parents to neglect the one most important thing - that language of any kind, no matter what kind, must somehow be got into the child soon enough." There are also miracle stories of children for whom the implant has been peerless, but they are unusual and unpredictable. The implant destroys all residual hearing a child might have. Though accurate hearing tests can be done on infants, it is impossible to determine how well those children might use their residual hearing. Anyone with a hearing loss over 90 decibels is classified as "profoundly deaf." I met people with a 50-decibel hearing loss who could understand me only with interpretation or lip reading; Jackie Roth is categorized as "profoundly deaf," but I could talk to her as I would to a hearing person. "I don't know," she says to me. "I just get a lot when people speak to me." Hearing loss is measured as an average of loss in various registers, so someone with a 100-decibel loss could have good perception for very high frequency sound - and most sounds operate at many frequencies. Further, detection of sound and discrimination of sound are two separate abilities. Some people can discriminate sound well beyond their ability to detect it. So deciding which children are so deaf that they need implants is not easy, because by the time you can detect discriminatory abilities, it is too late for the implants to be the basis of primary language acquisition. Cochlear implants remind me, more than anything else, of sex-change surgery. Are transsexuals really members of their chosen sex? Well, they look like that other sex, take on the roles of that other sex and so on, but they do not have all those internal workings of the other sex, and cannot create children in the organic fashion of members of the chosen sex. Cochlear implants do not allow you to hear, but rather to do something that looks like hearing. They give you a process that is (sometimes) rich in information and (usually) free of music. They make the hearing world easier, but they do not give you hearing. What they give you has value, so long as you know in advance what that is. While the implant debate rages, doctors are searching for more sophisticated and effective cures for the deaf. There are many kinds of deafness, but most come from the loss of the auditory hair cells in the cochlea. These cells, which receive sound in a form in which it can be conveyed along nerve pathways to the brain, are produced in the first three months of the embryonic period and then incapable of regenerating. Once you lose them, conventional wisdom has always had it, they're gone. In the early 1980's, Jeffrey Cortin, working with sharks in Hawaii, noticed that adult sharks have larger ears than baby sharks - larger in their number of hair cells. This indicated that it is possible for hair cells to be produced by vertebrates in postfetal state; and subsequent research demonstrated that fish can produce hair cells throughout life, even to replace hair cells that have been lost. A few years later, Douglas Cotanche discovered the baby chicks whose hair cells were partly destroyed regenerated hair cells; observable lesions of the inner ear simply disappeared. When deafened chicks were tested, it was confirmed that they had recovered hearing. This blew away the notion that hair cells cannot regenerate. In 1992, researchers in Jeffrey Cortin's lab fed retinoic acid to pregnant mice, and the result was the mice were born with extra hair cells. Building on this, a few scientists began work to see what effect retinoic acid might have on the inner ear of mammals past the usual prenatal stage for developing sensory cells, and in April 1993, a team of researchers working under the supervision of Robert Ruben published an article in Science in which they described their [start page 66] unprecedented success at causing the regrowth of hair cells by treating excised portions of the damaged inner ear of an adolescent rat with retinoic acid and calf serum. It is possible to kill the hair cells of mammals after birth and then get them to regrow. It has not yet been possible to stimulate this growth in a live animal, but, according to Dr. Ruben, successful in vivo work is just around the corner. "I would hope to see trials in humans by the end of the century," he said. If it were possible to cause regrowth of cochlear hair cells in human beings, almost all deafness could be treated. Since most deafness is degenerative (those born deaf have lost the cells in utero; almost no fetus exists that doesn't develop the cells at some stage), the question would be whether the new hair cells would remain alive in the inner ear, or whether they would die off again, as their predecessor cells had done. There can be no question, however, that if hair regeneration were possible, there would be treatments for many deaf people. "From the time God made earth until today, this is probably the best time to be Deaf," Greg Hilbok said; and yet this is also the moment when the Deaf population is dwindling as it has never done before. Even now, deafness is defined as a "low-incidence disability"; there are 20 million deaf or hard-of-hearing people in the United States, but the profoundly deaf population is only about 2 million. Even without cutting-edge research, the control of childhood diseases is shrinking that population. As it gets better and better to be deaf, it also gets rarer and rarer. Making the Irregular Regular What to say, then, of the cries of genocide, the resistance to the whole idea of curing the deaf? I have heard of a couple who opted for an abortion when they heard that their child was hearing, so strong a view did they hold on the superiority of Deaf ways. But I also met many Deaf individuals who objected to the way that the Deaf leadership (focused around the National Association of the Deaf) has presumed to speak for all the deaf people of America. There were plenty who said that being deaf is of course a disability, and that anything you could do about it would be welcome They were righteously indignant at the thought of a politically correct group suggesting that their problems weren't problems. I also met people who subscribed to the old deaf self-hatred, who were ashamed and saddened when they gave birth to deaf children, who felt that they had always been second-class people and that they could never be anything more if they were deaf. Their unhappy voices cannot be forgotten; in some ways, it doesn't matter whether M.J. Bienvenu "cures" them of their ignorance or Dr. Ruben "cures" their ears, but they are out there in numbers and need help from someone. Most hearing people respond to cries of genocide with an arrogant shrug. Of course if you can help deaf people you should help them. Give them hearing. Let them escape from their prison of silence. The triumph at Lexington this year coincided with the Stonewall 25th anniversary celebrations in New York, and one could not help being struck by the parallels. Here were thousands of people converging on New York to celebrate an identity that, 25 years ago, was described not as an identity, but as an illness. Unlike other minority groups, gay men and women are members of a culture that does not include their parents; most are born to parents who would have liked them to be born otherwise. In a procreative society, their condition has been described as a handicap. Twenty-five years ago, before the principle of gay rights had been broadly articulated, few people questioned that it was right and fit to try to cure homosexuality - a terrible misfortune despite which (rather than because of which) some people managed to function at a high level. Lewis Merkin is an actor and playwright, co-author of a remarkably moving play, "Language of Love," which the New York Deaf Theater will open here in December. It is "the personal odyssey of a Deaf gay man." Born to grass-roots deaf parents in Philadelphia, with very good residual hearing, he grew up between the Deaf and hearing communities. "I could fit in almost well enough in the hearing community, almost well enough to pass," he said. "When I was about 18, I had to sort of come out of the closet as a Deaf, person. I had to admit how much I couldn't hear, and to recognize that I would always speak with an 'accent.' I stopped going to parties and pretending I could follow everything going on. I stopped struggling against something I would never be able to change.'' Within a few years, Merkin had grown fully into a Deaf identity, and he became an actor, appearing in the role of Orin in "Children of a Lesser God" on Broadway. He describes the parallel journey of gay and Deaf identity. "When I was growing up, I looked around at these grass-roots deaf people, who were marginal, unimportant, not part of society, completely dependent on [start page 671 others, with no education, people who saw themselves as second-rate. And I recoiled. I thought, that's not me, and I felt sick at the thought that I was deaf. It took a long time for me to understand what it meant to be Deaf, what a world was open to me. When I first began to think about being gay, I saw limp-wristed drag queens and guys in leather hanging out on street corners, and again I thought, that's not me, and I hated the idea of being gay. And it was only with time that I came into a real gay identity." The Deaf community is riddled with prejudice; deaf people tend to be conservative, and can be very intolerant of minorities or of other handicaps. Deaf parents are no happier about gay offspring than are hearing parents - though, interestingly, the incidence of gayness within the Deaf community is perhaps 15 percent higher than in the hearing world. There is a kinship between the groups. It has been suggested that as many as 90 percent of hearing-Deaf marriages end in divorce, but the majority of successful Deaf-gay relationships appear to be between Deaf and hearing individuals. "What we have experienced is so similar," M.J. told me. "If you are deaf, you know almost exactly what it is like to be gay, and vice versa." Some opponents of the implants have demanded that young children not be implanted, and have proposed that people choose when they are 18 whether to have the implants or not. But if you are 18 and asked to make a choice, you are choosing not simply between being deaf and being hearing, but between the culture you have known and the culture you have never known. By then it is too late; your experience of the world has been defined by being Deaf, and to give it up is to reject who you have become. It lacks dignity: it is an admission of inadequacy, a discarding of your self. It's hard to have children who are different from you. If gayness could be detected in infancy and easily "corrected" then many parents would happily pay through the ears for the surgery. "In a world full of childhood cures," said Rob Roth, "I would be neither Deaf nor gay. That doesn't make me feel bad about myself, but I know it's true." Many gay men and lesbians would have been glad, at 8 or 10 or 12 or 14, to become "normal," even if, a few years later, they had grown into selves defined by the experience of gayness. Most Deaf children of hearing parents have had periods of rejecting their Deaf identity. Twenty-five years ago, the arguments for curing gayness seemed as unarguable as the arguments for curing the Deaf seem to be now. When and how did the shift from the pathological to the cultural view of gayness take place? How did we get from the hormone injections and electroshock to gay soldiers and domestic partnership? It is tempting, in the end, to say there is no such thing as a disability. Equally, one might admit that almost everything is a disability. There are as many arguments for correcting everything as there are for correcting nothing. Perhaps it would be most accurate to say that "disability" and "culture" are really matters of degree. Being Deaf is a disability and a culture in modern America; so is being gay; so is being black; so is being female; so even, increasingly, is being a straight white male. So is being paraplegic, or having Down syndrome. What is at issue is which things are so "cultural" that you wouldn't think of "curing" them, and which things are so "disabling" that you must "cure" them - and the reality is that for some people each of these experiences is primarily a disability experience while for others it is primarily a cultural one. Some blacks are handicapped by blackness; some who are gay are handicapped by gayness; some paraplegics thrive on the care they receive and [start page 68] would be lost if their mobility were returned. Some deaf people are better off deaf and some would be better off hearing. Some could perhaps be both: "I would never want to move away from my Deaf identity," Jackie Roth said. "But if I could have full hearing, without complications, I would like to have it." There is something eerie and sinister about the image of a world sanitized of irregularity; there is a terrifying point when good works become fascistic control. If therapists who set out to "cure" gayness had succeeded, and succeeded fast, there would probably never have been a gay civil rights movement, and we would have lost all the singular contributions to the mainstream that an acknowledged gay culture has provided. The National Association of the Deaf convention demonstrates amply that the Deaf have as much of a culture as anyone. There is a race going on. Running on one team are the doctors who will make the deaf hear. They are humanitarian miracle workers, and they are bringing something very valuable to the many nonhearing individuals who would like to know sound and to speak. On the other team are the exponents of Deaf culture. They are visionary idealists who are trying to preserve a remarkable and seductive community. If Deaf culture can be made as visible, important and proud as gay culture now is before the cure is perfected, then perhaps the accomplishments of the rubella bulge activists will allow for a long history of Deaf culture. Perhaps, like the search for a cure to gayness, the search for a cure for the deaf will be dropped by respectable institutions - which would be both a bad and a good thing. If the cure comes before the search for it is obviated, then virtually all hearing parents and many grass-roots deaf parents will cure their children, and the tremendous accomplishments that have followed the Gallaudet uprising will be the conclusion rather than the beginning of a story. Then the history recounted in this article will be as poignant and remote as a tale of Babylon. This, too, would be both a bad and a good thing. As genetic engineering progresses, we may be able to cure everything. and how we will decide which good and which bad we prefer will be increasingly important. "Our situation also bears on yours, on the whole world's," M.J. Bienvenu said, her signs almost mockingly urgent. I think she is right. This race may be a good indicator for how we value difference altogether. The Washington Post Tuesday, February 6, 1996 Symbol of Suburban Separatism by Malcolm Gladwell Washington Post Staff Writer CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y., Feb. 5--At 6:15 this morning--after seven years of frustration, two weeks of angry public debate and the untimely death of 17-year old Cynthia Wiggins--a small measure of justice finally came to Cheektowaga's Walden Galleria Mall. For the first time, the Number 6 bus that runs out to this suburban town from the inner-city, minority neighborhoods of nearby Buffalo was allowed onto mall property. Since the upscale Galleria opened its doors in 1989, charter buses from Canada have stopped daily in the shopping center parking lot. Buses from the affluent and largely white neighboring town of Amherst have been permitted to let off passengers at a bus stop just across the parking lot. But not the Number 6. According to regional transit officials, the mall's developers refused to allow it onto their property, which meant that anyone coming from central Buffalo had to disembark 300 yards away, on the other side of seven-lane Walden Avenue, a busy highway feeding into the New York State Thruway without a sidewalk or pedestrian crossing. Then, just before Christmas, a young, single mother from Buffalo was crushed to death by a dump truck as she made her way from the Number 6 bus stop to her job at the mall. In the ensuing weeks, Cynthia Wiggins became a cause celebre. Her death was taken up in the local newspapers and on talk radio. A boycott was threatened. And this morning, after a concession late last week by Galleria officials, the first Number 6 bus rolled up to a stop in front of the Lord & Taylor department store. "Does it make a difference?" said Michelle Simmons, as she stepped off the bus after the 40- minute ride from downtown Buffalo, bundled up against the frigid air. "Yes it makes a difference. I don't have to cross that damn street any more and then walk across the parking lot." What happened at Walden Galleria has been held up by civil rights leaders as evidence that racism is not dead here or anywhere else, that it has only taken new and more subtle forms. Where it once was public, expressed in law, it now is private, played out in places like shopping malls. Where it once was blatant, it now is concealed in a hundred small ways, like the location of a bus stop. And where discrimination once was confrontational, where blacks and whites battled over who would sit where at a lunch counter, some experts say that racial antagonisms are more likely now to be played out at arm's length, in distant enclaves that by location and design allow those who live in the suburbs to minimize their contact with those in the city they left behind. "This is the phenomenon of suburban separatism," said Evan McKenzie, a political scientist at the University of Illinois, whose recent book, "Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government," chronicled the growth of gated communities in American suburbs. "Shopping malls are alternatives to city streets, privatized versions of city streets. You don't want to shop at Bonwit Teller downtown? Fine. We'll lock it up. Turn it outside in, and we'll keep out everyone you don't want. It's the geographic cure. The way you deal with people who are different is that you never see them." "People call me up and say, 'This is incredible,'" said Buffalo City Council President James Pitts, who led the fight to bring the Number 6 to the Galleria. "But you know, it's not that incredible. There are stories like this all across the country." Because shopping centers are privately owned, local governments typically can only put bus stops on mall property if the mall agrees. According to memos from 1989 released by the Niagara Frontier Transit Authority last week, when transit officials asked to route the Number 6 through the Galleria, mall officials turned them down. "They just said no," said Transit Authority spokesman Daryl Rasuli. "They said they would consider buses from the suburbs but they didn't want the Number 6 coming in." As a result, the 32 bus from Amherst and the Number 43--a shuttle from other regional malls- -were given a bus stop on the perimeter road that rings the mall. But passengers on the Number 6 who wanted to go to the Galleria had to use the closest existing stop, which was on the other side of the highway. Officials of Pyramid Corp., the Syracuse-based developer that built and manages Walden Galleria, said today they had no recollection of any specific prohibition against the Number 6. "We are not aware of any decision not to bring the buses on the premises," said Fred Woods, director of Pyramid sales and operations. "It is the policy of the Pyramid company to bring as many people as possible to our shopping centers. The whole alleged discrimination is totally illogical." Few local political leaders, of course, regard moving a bus stop 300 yards as a major civil rights milestone. But the Walden Avenue bus stop, civil rights leaders and political scientists insist, is important nonetheless as a symbol of the urban-suburban antagonisms that now shape contemporary American race relations. In the furor over the Wiggins death, for example, it was revealed that the Galleria was not the only upscale mall in the area without a city bus stop. Boulevard Mall in Amherst and Eastern Hills Mall in nearby Clarence also did not have stops. Meanwhile, Amherst has for years fought plans by the Buffalo to extend a commuter rail line across its borders. Throughout the country, in fact, urban experts say that suburban communities have increasingly resorted to everything from special zoning ordinances to artful placement of bridges and highways to separate themselves from the problems they associate with neighboring cities. The city of Calumet, just outside Chicago, recently proposed building a 15-foot-high fence around a crime-plagued, six-block area at one end of town. In Pelham, just outside of New York City, the mayor recently called for the demolition of a footbridge that spans the Hutchinson Parkway and connects wealthy, largely white Pelham with poorer, racially mixed Mount Vernon. One upper-middle-class suburb of Newark recently put a gate across the main street connecting it with its poorer neighbor. "I call it defensive localism," said Margaret Weir, an urban expert a the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Communities are trying to put up walls and contain problems as much as possible." The consequence of this kind of protectionism, economists say, is not just to separate rich from poor and black from white--but to cut off poor minorities from precisely the kind of opportunities they need to escape poverty. One of the leading ideas used to explain high, inner-city unemployment, for example, is called the spatial mismatch theory. It says that the reason poor minorities do not have jobs is not that they cannot hold jobs or that working-class jobs do not exist. It is that with the decline of urban manufacturing in the 1950s and 1960s, jobs and minorities just aren't in the same place. "The parts of metro areas--the edge cities in the suburbs--that are growing the fastest tend to be those farthest from the heaviest concentration of blacks," said John Kasarda, an economist at the University of North Carolina. Thus the mismatch is created. Poor minorities cannot get to suburban jobs because they cannot afford cars and, more often than not, they cannot move to the suburbs either because the housing is too expensive. In the Washington area, for example, the greatest number of jobs are now in Northern Virginia, often in areas distant from public transportation. Suburban businesses, meanwhile, say they are having difficulty filling entry-level jobs that would suit many of the city's unemployed. In Buffalo, one local low-income job placement center had 100 jobs go unfilled last year because its clients could not find ways to get to work. Even in cases where blacks and whites are making the same commute, by the same means of transportation, blacks consistently face a more difficult trip. According to Kasarda's data, whites traveling by bus from Chicago to jobs in the suburbs have an average morning commute of 43 minutes. In the same city, however, blacks taking buses to work in the suburbs average a 56- minute morning commute. Meanwhile, whites who drive from Chicago to jobs in the suburbs have a 33-minutes trip, while blacks who drive average a 40-minute trip. This is exactly the problem Wiggins faced when she began looking for work last fall after the birth of her son. According to friends, she wanted a job at her neighborhood McDonald's. But it wasn't hiring. So each evening she had to trek to the suburbs, which is where, in economically depressed Buffalo, new jobs are almost entirely to be found. Had she been rich enough to own a car, of course, she would not have had to take the bus at all. And had she the good fortune to live in Amherst, she would have disembarked on the mall's perimeter road, far from the dump trucks of Walden Avenue. But Cynthia Wiggins was from central Buffalo and from there the road to a steady job is a little tougher than most. She died January 2, three weeks after her accident, without ever regaining consciousness.