city on the hill

recurrent

Each of my collaborators so far have shared stories of Gallaudet with me. John sees it as a place he wishes he was ready to attend, but realizes it is just beyond his reach. Another went to Gallaudet and so sees it both as a real place where he spent four years of his life, but he still retained some of the school's magical elements when he spoke of it to me. Another working class deaf man, in his daily routine, is much more likely to forget that such a place exists. But when he spoke in front of the 75+ attendees of the Deaf Week Banquet, he referred repeatedly to schools like Gallaudet, and a time when all colleges would have services like Gallaudet. Jenny, the cosmetology student from the community college, mentioned Harvard and Gallaudet in the same breath, equating the two. She also sees this far-off land quite beyond her. She readily admitted that she probably wouldn't fare very well there because it would ask too much of her. Sue, who openly and actively associates herself with hearing culture, told me that an all deaf culture would be nice, but it is "unrealistic" because it would cut people off from the "real" (hearing) world and yet she too fantasizes about this mythical place.

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john in context | jenny & sue
deaf:audist | hearing pedagogy | enfi | techno-teaching
city on the hill | "othered" outside
end | cited