Miss-Delectable

Kalamazoo Shopper::Complete Article

People who are deaf have their own jokes, their own folklore and their own approaches to artistic creativity in addition to their own special ways of communicating.

All of that “word of mouth” and “story sharing” will come to life when Simon Carmel presents “Deaf Folklore: Deaf People, Culture and Identity” on Wednesday, Nov. 11, in the Student Commons Theater at 7:30 p.m.

The event is open to the public with tickets ranging in cost from $5 to $8 if purchased before Carmel’s appearance, the program is sponsored by the Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the Kalamazoo Rotary Club.
Since the late 1970s, the 71-year-old Carmel, who was born deaf, has been collecting anecdotes and material reflecting on the hearing impaired and the communities in which they live, how they cope in a world of sound, their forms of humor, and their modes of communication.

Raised in Baltimore, Carmel can recount a childhood in which “oralism” or lip reading was the favored way to “speak.” He remembers having his hands slapped if he resorted to signing, which he credits for his early failures at the high school level because he equated reading lips with “guessing.”

Deciding to enroll at Gallaudet University, a school no longer exclusively for the deaf in Washington, Carmel recalled experiencing for the first time an environment in which he was not handicapped, in which he was “perfectly normal.”

With his academic bearings firmly in place, Carmel went on to earn both a master’s and doctorate in cultural anthropology from American University in Washington.
Skills as a swimmer matched those he had in the social sciences, and earned him a spot on the U. S. team that competed in the International Summer Games for the Deaf in Helsinki, Finland. That experience led him to learn how to sign in foreign languages, a talent that served Carmel well when he was an interpreter for Russian athletes who competed in the 1965 olympics for the deaf.

Yet, his best sport was skiing and Carmel was instrumental in convincing the American Athletic Association for the Deaf to begin sponsoring a team for the winter games.
When Carmel joined the National Bureau of Standards, the job took him to Israel where he met deaf people from a variety of cultures. That planted the seeds of a new interest that delved into the “invisible” cultures of the deaf, to which much of the hearing world seemed blind.

“Deaf Israelis helped me understand deaf Americans better,” said Carmel, who is now based in West Palm Beach, Fla. “Israeli Sign Language helped me understand American Sign Language. I now knew for the first time that deaf people in America have a culture.

“Deaf culture - with its stories, jokes, games, arts and crafts, legends, cartoons, beliefs, riddles and anecdotes -- is inside American culture,” he said. “It is part of American culture, but it is separate from hearing culture. And it is beautiful.”

His time in the Middle East forged a new career path - in-depth studies of the culture of the deaf.

Along the way, Carmel coordinated the first Deaf Folklife Section at the American Folklife Festival sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. He is also regarded as an expert on the Society of World Deaf Magicians.

Hosting Carmel’s presentation is the KVCC chapter of the American Sign Language Honors Society, a student club.

For more information, contact the chapter adviser and full-time ASL instructor Su Cutler at extension 4862 or scutler@kvcc.edu. She is one of 11 instructors who teach ASL courses at KVCC.

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