Here are selected examples of leaders from the Latinx community. Find more information via CSD re: Latino/a/x/e Deaf peoples and organizations. Some leaders are: Robert Davila, Rachel Mazique, Leah Katz-Hernandez, Samantha Medina-Vazquez, Melissa Elmira Yingst, Florita Tellez Corey, Drago Renteria, Mark Morales, Stephanie Nogueras, and Justin Perez. There is information about these leaders and others via this website. Check out this article about Nuestra Casais Gallaudet’s new Center for Latine Deaf Studies.
The following people are involved: Nuestra Casa’s interim director, Norma Morán, and interim associate director, Leticia Arellano, ’94, as well as faculty members Dr. Franklin Torres, ’00 & G-’02, of the English Program, Dr. Deborah Schooler of the Psychology Program, and Dr. Pilar Piñar of the World Languages and Cultures Program.
The project will dig into DHH Latine students’ relationships with their heritage languages and cultures through an online questionnaire and in-depth interviews probing how their background shapes their identities, social lives, and academic choices. These can be especially complex issues for DHH Latine students, who may traverse the borders of multiple cultures while negotiating between multiple signed and spoken languages.
Unsure of the difference between the word Hispanic and Latino/a/x/e? Check this out from CSD:
Hispanic refers to a person from or a descendant of someone from a Spanish-speaking country. This can include Latino/a/x/e individuals with cultural ties to Spain, Mexico, most of Central and South America, and the Caribbean’s Spanish-speaking nations.
Latino/a/e or Latinx refers to a person from or a descendant of someone from a Spanish or Portuguese-speaking country in Latin America.
Here are some examples:
Someone from Spain is Hispanic, but not Latino/a/x/e. Someone from Equatorial Guinea in Western Africa is Hispanic, but not Latino/a/x!
Someone from Brazil, where they speak Portuguese, is Latino/a/x/e, but not Hispanic.
Someone from Mexico is both Hispanic and Latino/a/x/e.
Three South American countries are neither Hispanic nor Latino/a/x/e! In Guyana, residents speak English. In Suriname, they speak Dutch, and in French Guiana, they speak (you guessed it…) French.
Dreams and Despair
Irma Collier-Anaya was a Mexican immigrant who came to the United States at just fifteen. She had to overcome many obstacles and boundaries. Being deaf was not the only obstacle, but also coming from a traditional Mexican family, she had to fight for her educational rights. And she had dreams but filled with despair as well.
Signing in Puerto Rican
The only child of deaf Puerto Rican immigrants, Andrés Torres grew up in New York City in a large, extended family that included several deaf aunts and uncles. In Signing in Puerto Rican: A Hearing Son and His Deaf Family, he opens a window into the little known culture of Deaf Latinos chasing the immigrant American dream. Like many children of deaf adults (codas), Torres loved his parents deeply but also longed to be free from being their interpreter to the hearing world. Torres's story is unique in that his family communicated in three languages. The gatherings of his family reverberated with "deaf talk," in sign, Spanish, and English. What might have struck outsiders as a strange chaos of gestures and mixed spoken languages was just normal for his family. Torres describes his early life as one of conflicting influences in his search for identity. His parents' deep involvement in the Puerto Rican Society for the Catholic Deaf led him to study for the priesthood. He later left the seminary as his own ambitions took hold. Torres became very active in the Puerto Rico independence party against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement and protest against the Vietnam War. Throughout these defining events, Torres's journey never took him too far from his Deaf Puerto Rican family roots and the passion of arms, hands, and fingers filling the air with simultaneous translation and understanding.
Psychotherapy with Deaf Clients from Diverse Groups
The second edition; Psychotherapy with Deaf Clients from Diverse Groups;features the introduction of six new chapters that complement full revisions of original chapters with advances in the field since its initial publication. The first part begins with a new chapter on the current ethical issues relevant to working with deaf clients. In subsequent chapters it provides updated information on the diversity of consumer knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences. Deaf therapists and their involvement in the Deaf community also are scrutinized in this context. The revised second part examines psychotherapy for various constituencies, including deaf women; lesbian, gay, and bisexual deaf populations; children of deaf parents; and people with Usher syndrome. Part Three chapters consider interventions with African American deaf clients, American Indians who are deaf, and Asians who are American and deaf. A new chapter expands information on therapy for Latino deaf clients. The final section incorporates three new chapters on other deaf populations -- deaf college students, recipients of cochlear implants, and deaf elderly clients. Also, new information has been added to chapters on the treatment of deaf survivors of sexual abuse and deaf clients with chemical dependency. The last addition to the second edition outlines dialectical behavior therapy for deaf clients, a valuable option for clinicians.
A Man Without Words
For more than a quarter of a century, Ildefonso, a Mexican Indian, lived in total isolation, set apart from the rest of the world. He wasn't a political prisoner or a social recluse, he was simply born deaf and had never been taught even the most basic language. Susan Schaller, then a twenty-four-year-old graduate student, encountered him in a class for the deaf where she had been sent as an interpreter and where he sat isolated, since he knew no sign language. She found him obviously intelligent and sharply observant but unable to communicate, and she felt compelled to bring him to a comprehension of words. The book vividly conveys the challenge, the frustrations, and the exhilaration of opening the mind of a congenitally deaf person to the concept of language. This second edition includes a new chapter and afterword.
Use of RIT resources is reserved for current RIT students, faculty
and staff for academic and teaching purposes only.
Please contact your librarian with any questions.
