The Pub

A Shirt to Wear

Laura Popa

Noah and some other friends invited me to the Deaf Expo, a deaf cultural convention held annually across the nation. This year it was about twenty minutes away, and deaf people from all over the Chicago area were expected to come. Since I am a CODA—a Child of Deaf Adults—it made sense for me to be there. I do not interact with many deaf people at college, so opportunities to mingle and let the culturally deaf side of me come out are wonderful.

As my friends and I pushed open the doors to the Deaf Expo convention hall, the first thing that greeted us is a giant display of t-shirts. A garish pink t-shirt immediate drew my attention, printed with a large, white hand, formed almost like the hand sign you see in the air at a hard rock concert, but with the thumb out as well. This bright shirt proudly displays is American Sign Language’s (ASL) shorthand for “I Love You” because the ASL letters “I”, “L”, and “Y” are all included in this hand-shape. The “I Love You” sign serves as a ubiquitous deaf cultural icon—both women and men wear it proudly. It is incorporated into everything from magnets to crochet work, to hats and pens. I even saw it tattooed on someone’s bicep once.

Noah told us, in ASL since he is deaf, when we needed to meet up to head back to campus. After that, we split up quickly, and I soon found myself wandering around the convention hall alone. Being around so many deaf people is invigorating. I am surrounded by hands in motion––all colors, shapes, and sizes moving up, down, and around like popcorn bursting out of an open bag. I see a short, wispy-haired older woman in the midst of the motion. She looks like a grandmother straight out of a movie, the one who always has fresh-baked cookies and a story to tell. I firmly, but gently, tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. She jumps a little in surprise. I wave, and she waves back.

I tell her my name is L-A-U-R-A and then show her the sign-name my mother gave me: my hand forms an “L” shape and makes a circle in the air twice. She tells me her name and her sign-name, and pretty soon we start to share brief life stories. I discover that she was originally born in Indiana, but came to Illinois twenty years ago to work in a factory. Her movements are slow, yet vivacious—they remind me of a little girl expressing herself in an arthritic body.

Nineties rave music interspersed with Reggaeton plays loudly. Intrigued, I attempt to find its source. As I get closer, the music’s bass beats almost knock me back. The music is coming from a Spanish-English-ASL interpreting service, a very helpful amenity in light of the fact that many Hispanic deaf people in the U.S. only know Spanish and ASL in a world that functions primarily through English.

“Why are you playing music?” I ask the service representative in ASL.

“Dancing is a significant part of Hispanic deaf culture in the U.S.,” he says, pausing quickly to gesture to his right where some deaf people are dancing to the rhythm. “See? We really enjoy it.”

I find another gargantuan merchandise stand with shirts proclaiming “I Love You,” “Proud to be Deaf,” and “CODA.” In a strange way, the fact that I can publicly proclaim my identity as a CODA without having to speak comforts me. I have always known how to talk about other people’s identities. The terms for their identities were readily accessible and met with widespread agreement. But attempting to talk about my sister Audrey and my place in the world was like trying to speak without language. There were no terms to adequately describe my place. I did not even know the words “CODA,” “third culture kid,” or “deaf culture” existed until I got to college. All I could say was that Audrey and I were different, unable to fit the mold into which our white skin, fully functional ears, and American accent pressured us. But, with “CODA,” there was an actual term for my cultural place, and it even came on a t-shirt.

An air horn blasts. Startled, I spring around to see an impish child wielding the air horn. I raise my eyebrows and smile at him, and he giggles.

“What are you doing?” I laugh as I ask with both ASL and English.

“I’m doing a hearing test,” the boy replies in English, “got to find out who else hears here.”

“Makes sense, I guess. Have fun,” I say as I shrug and walk away to the sound of another air horn blast behind me.

Here, I have a place. But even here, in this place where no one finds it weird that my hands fly about as I speak, I find myself empathizing with this little boy and his air horn.

****

I am with my mother in our van, driving to my high school youth group. She became hard of hearing as a little girl. However, that never kept her from listening to Frank Sinatra, watching The Sound of Music, enjoying Romanian folk music, or holding aural conversations until she emigrated from Romania twenty years ago. Now all she hears are bells and low noises. Because of the timing of her hearing loss, she never learned English phonemes, so she pronounces every word in a Romanian accent.

The sun shines on me through the window as the radio plays “Amazing Grace.” I cannot help but sing along––“Amazing Grace” is one of my favorite songs. My mother starts singing along off-key, offbeat, and to her own lyrics. She laughs at me and dances, her whole body moving up and down like a slow bobble-head figurine to the music in her head. She softly smacks my shoulder and says, one hand on the steering wheel, one hand signing,

“It’s not fair that you can sing.” She forms a rather exaggerated frown.

“Well, I can’t help it, Mom! It’s not my fault I can sing.”

“I know, my baby. But I want to hear you. Why can’t I hear you?”

“Do you wish you could hear?”

“I accept being deaf. God has given it to me. But sometimes I wonder why He didn’t also give me the chance to hear you sing.”

“I don’t know, Mom. But I like that you’re deaf.”

“I know, but just once. I’d like to just once.”

“Me too, Mom.”

We move on to talk about other light-hearted things. But our bodies slouch and drag as we sign, each carrying the weight of longings unfulfilled.

****

A friend at church greets me and we exchange the usual formalities. Though my church congregation consists of mostly hearing people, my parents have been going to this church since before I was born, and were even the only deaf people in the church for a few years.

“You know, it’s so nice that God gave your parents such great daughters to take care of them. It must have been so hard for them without you two,” my friend says.

“But my parents don’t need our help. They survived alright before we were born,” I replied, somewhat troubled.

“That’s true, but your being there certainly makes it easier for them. And you know someone’s going to need to take care of them when they get older. God has given you a valuable gift, and you should use it. Not everyone can speak Sign Language.”

There is much I want to tell him. I want to say that I have got bigger plans in life than becoming an ASL interpreter. I want to tell him that my relationship with my parents works like that of any other family—that they take care of me, not the other way around. I want to ask him what right he or any hearing person has to expect me to always be an interpreter, never a daughter. Judging by his reaction to my previous comment, he will not hear me, and I have had enough of not being heard by those who claim to listen. If I could scream like an air horn, would it even help? I smile and take my leave.

****

Finals week is over. Mom and Audrey have come up to help me pack and take me home. After packing, we are hungry, so my sister and I head out on a food run.

“Mom, what would you like us to get?” I ask in ASL.

“I want that sandwich from Subway, the one with ham and white cheese on the white deli roll. Remember, white cheese, not yellow cheese. Also, get olives, green peppers, and the shake stuff.”

We tell her to wait in my room for us while we go get the food. This seems simple enough, but my mother tends to be rather headstrong and self-reliant, particularly when she has a need to fulfill. She wanted her ham and cheese sandwich sooner than my sister and I could bring it, so she decided to find food for herself.

My sister and I come back to the room to find that my mother has, in fact, left, and not just for a bathroom break. She is nowhere to be found, and she did not leave a note.

Since my mom does not have a cell phone, we end up having to take part in an unwitting game hide-and-seek with my mom- who does not realize she is hiding. This somehow makes it harder. We had plans to take our sandwiches to the Stupe to meet my friends Bethany and Benjamin, who know ASL, so I call and ask them to join the search. I am very grateful that my lovably loud mother is not hard to miss.

I go around campus, my sister to the laundry room, and Bethany and Benjamin to the Beamer Center. Almost immediately, I get a call from them.

“Hey, we found your mom in the Stupe,” Bethany said, “I think she wants to buy food or something.”

“Thanks! Could you tell her not to, though? We already bought her some.”

“Sure. We’ll meet you down in the Stupe, okay?”

When my sister and I arrive, I see something I have literally never seen before: my mother having an actual conversation with my friends in ASL. And they understand her. I have become more or less used to my friends nodding nicely as my mother tries to speak to them in English. But this is different: Bethany and Benjamin are telling my mom about the ASL club at Wheaton, and for once, I get to listen in. We talk for the next hour, covering a variety of topics from my mom’s history in Romania to her thoughts on worship. My sister and I do not have to interpret. We do not need to be the method of understanding. We join in the conversation.

****

My father comes into my uncle Nicu’s tiny apartment in Romania, hugging and kissing my aunt as he enters. Nicu had a stroke two months prior, a third of the way through my sophomore year of high school. He cannot speak or walk and has limited mobility, but he still hears, thinks, and wishes very much so to speak. Nicu leans over, watching my father from the living room, and a smile dances on his face. Memories spring up in his mind of what their poor family from the mountains had to adjust to—the sudden deafness that happened after my father became severely ill as a young boy.

My father says, “Hello,” in a high-pitched voice that he does not realize he has. My father sits next to Nicu and hugs him. Shaking, my uncle feebly takes his brother’s hands into his own, and my father squeezes them tightly. My uncle looks his brother directly in the eyes, wishing he could only remember how to move his mouth because of the stroke. My father smiles and tries to speak to him with his voice. Nicu begins to cry. He suddenly understood his brother in a way he never did before. He realizes what it is to be completely dependent on touch. He has become my father, as a young boy, receiving that first connecting touch after a complete loss of communication. My father and uncle sit like that for fifteen minutes, knee to knee, hand in hand.

****

I look up at my father, my two-year-old arms stretched out with innocent anticipation. My father gestures swirling, and I nod my head excitedly. He holds one of my wrists, and with his other fits my hand onto his. Our hands fit snugly, like puzzle pieces. I grip his wrist tighter, and he smiles impishly and nods. Then, he holds my other wrist and deftly picks me up. Wildly, he spins me around. I am caught up in the thrill and danger of it all. We laugh, and he spins as fast as his strong arms can take me. I feel my body going up and down, moving more like a flag than a person. When I feel afraid, I look into my father’s joyful, laughing face and feel his stocky, calloused hands tightly holding me. I know I have nothing to fear. We spin faster and faster, and my hands began to slip against their will. A brief flash of terror runs through me before I feel my father’s grip tighten, and all is well again. He tells me, with this one touch, that he will never let me get lost, that he will keep me safe for as long as he is able. I know that I am safe, that I am home.

Laura Popa is a senior anthropology major from Apex, NC. Her favorite dessert item is actually bread, jam (any kind, really), and butter, especially when had alongside a cup of tea.