Book Review: "Deaf Again"
Why I wanted to read this book: It was a required reading for my American Sign Language class
This is the story about the author, Mark Drolsbaugh *who is also my ASL professor's husband*, and his life growing up as a hard of hearing/Deaf child in a hearing world.
He starts at the very beginning: how he began his childhood being able to hear, discussing his deaf parents, how his father's side of the family is deaf and his mother's side of the family is hearing. So, when it is discovered that Mark is starting to lose his hearing, his hearing grandparents send him to every specialist possible, drilling into Mark's head that being deaf is not a good thing.
He goes on to talk about growing up, his love of baseball and martial arts, struggles with having his deafness accepted by the hearing side of his family, having to go to hearing schools,eventually ending up at Gallaudet University where he meets my ASL professor, Grad school, and working as a school counselor at PSD.
Throughout all his experiences and his ups and downs in life, he rediscovers the joys of being apart of the Deaf community and finally overcomes his initial embarrassment of being deaf and becomes proud of who he is and what he has accomplished in life.
Despite the fact that I know I am going to hate this book next week since I have to write a 5-6 page paper on it, I actually enjoyed reading this. It was an autobiography, but instead of just filling it with facts about his life, he also added in his own feelings into it, because not only did I learn about Mark, but I also learned about the Deaf community as well. It was as though I was also reading about the lives of many other deaf children. As the reader, I was allowed access inside his head and given the chance to experience what he went through on some kind of emotional level. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that is interested in Deaf culture.