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Through this process I was lucky enough to get in touch with people who were either deaf at some point in their lives and or are apart of the deaf community. I met with a student at my high school,  Science Leadership Academy, named Nicholas Ryan who mentioned that he started losing his hearing at a young age, I spoke to a math professor who slowly lost his hearing as a young adult and I talked to an American Sign Language interpreter. I asked them a little bit about themselves and their thoughts about the deaf community and how much it was a part of their lives. Below are some of their thoughts on the following topics. For privacy reasons I didn't want to hold anyone accountable for possible offencive or quite personal opinions so below are a few good quotes that I got from each interview.

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"When I was born I wasn't deaf but a year past and my hearing started going down. My mom would call out my name but I wouldn't respond she would have to stomp to get my attention. It turns out that I have something called Pendred Syndrome. It's genetic and it effects my hearing. It deteriorates my hearing year by year. Now it stoped but that's why I have them"

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"My undergrad was in interpreting so I did four years got my undergrad in interpreting. I then stayed for my masters in deaf education. So I got my masters in deaf ed, I did my internship and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, where I then applied, I worked there for three year, changed to the school district of Philadelphia and I was a teacher of the deaf there for seven year and now I'm on my tenth year of teaching at an approved private school. for kids with autism and behavior needs in addition to being deaf."

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"I read all about sign language before I thought about learning it, and what I read -- is that there have been cultures that have been developed around sing language so in order to learn sign language you have to almost join that culture. -- But there was something about the deaf culture that didn't appeal to me. And so the idea of spending a lot of time learning a language that then would reduce me to having to talk to people who also know the same language and belong, then, to a particular culture that I really wasn't fond of wasn't something that I wanted to do. What I didn't like about the culture was the controversy about what to do with young children. -- In many cases, many people felt, if they were deaf, and there children were born deaf, then they would not want the child to be able to hear" and they would actually act against that if there was a possibility, for example, of getting a cochlear implant. -- I understand that psychology but I very strongly disagree with it. The best thing for a person is to be able to preform at their highest level possible and communicate with the entire world, and it doesn't make sense to limit people on the basis of their culture. Culture should be something that empowers people. -- [the Deaf Culture] is not an easy culture to be part of. I really wan't interested in being part of it."

First Person Perspective

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