One of us… and one of us, too.

Apologies for the long time no blog, and especially for the long time no English blog. This time, I am writing to, for and about a community that probably is quite parallel to, and just as transnational as the Deaf community, hence English. I do not know if this community outnumbers us, but would not be surprised if they do. We (and they) call them CODA – Children of Deaf Adults. Are they under 18, many like to call them KODA – kids of deaf adults. CODAs owe us their lives (they would not be born had there not been Deaf people on earth), and we are very glad to have them here. Sometimes they even have magic powers. Read on….

Last week, my son and I were eagerly anticipating a since long and much publicized new TV series, but did not catch until we sat down, that the series would be broadcast at a commercial channel, which do not have the same obligation to caption all their shows, as the public service channels have. *Long faces* of mother and son. Too used to this, mom only raised an eyebrow and resigned, while the son with his instincts intact, got angry. He promtply wrote a letter to the editor of Aftenposten, the largest newspaper in Norway, with a copy to the TV-channel that had disappointed him. The letter read (freely translated by me):

“I and my mom, who is Deaf, had looked forward to watch the advent calendar series on TV. That is a part of the Christmas tradition. When we sat down and the show was about to start, we realized that TV Norge and several other children and family channels don’t have undertitles.  I think it should be mandatory that all TV in Norway should have undertitles. I am sure there are lots of other children with Deaf parents who are fed up with this.  Pedro (13)”

To make a short story even shorter: Aftenposten printed the letter today.  TV Norge announced that they will put undertitles on this series from Monday, and will even put undertitles on several of their major family shows in 2011. (Announcement in Norwegian here)

*Snap*

That was it. Years of lobbying in the parliament, campaigns, frustrated complaints and letters to the editors by Deaf and hearing impaired people: No response.

One letter of a hearing kid: 180 degrees turnaround, change policy overnight, captioning, here we come!

How come?  To expel any misunderstandings; I am p-r-o-u-d of my KODA. His letter alone did not do this, but it definitely had a magic impact. I am happy he wrote the letter, and I am amazed by the power he has.

But how did he get this power? Or better, who granted him this power? I believe part of the answer is in his double position. He is not Deaf, but is certainly affected by the discriminatory barriers Deaf people face. He is in his own way, one of us, one of the Deaf community, like KODAs tend to be.  At the same time, he is Hearing, someone Hearing people feel related to. He is not a stranger, not an excluded poor Deafie, who, regardless of diversity and tolerance talk, remain different, an outsider, an alien, one who cannot hear, and therefore, inevitably locked out – in the eyes of the ignorant Hearing. He is one of the –Hearing- us.  The message in his letter was that HE was excluded from a cosy Christmas tradition (family watching TV together) as a consequence of how the TV channel had ignored his mother. All of a sudden, the captioning issue was not longer a Them-the-Deaf-issue, but a We-the-Hearing-issue. Because my hearing son is someone other Hearing people can relate to, it took them no time to understand the feeling of being left out.

As the only true border crossers between the Deaf and the Hearing world, CODAs are our foremost allies. They are one of us, and one of us.