HOW TO BE DEAF is the name of Rosie Malezer’s latest book, which she penned during her Deafhood journey.
Tell us about yourself?
I am an Australian Indigenous domestic violence survivor. I was born hearing. When a Deaf woman started working in my office (and spent every lunch hour alone), I took up AUSLAN studies at the Queensland Deaf Society.
It was the best thing I ever could have done because she and I became best of friends. I studied sign language for the next 10 years, until my domestic violence situation forced me disappear. It was not until severe head trauma and illness in 2007 that I became Hard of Hearing, eventually being diagnosed as profoundly Deaf in 2014.
What led you to write this book?
People take many things for granted. Hearing people believe hearing people are “normal.” Once I was diagnosed as profoundly Deaf, the reactions from people when they met me changed significantly.
Audiologists said Cochlear Implant was my only option, and that not hearing would make me insane. When I chose to learn ASL with my husband instead, Finland’s doctors and government workers lost their fake smiles, accusing me of “wasting your talents by settling for being Deaf.” I didn’t settle. I made a choice. The longer this continued, the more frustrated I became. Then I started to write.
Have you written books/blogs before?
I quickly found that regardless of university qualifications in legal and veterinary medicine, I was suddenly deemed unemployable because I was Deaf. I had also just finished five years of full time study to learn Finnish.
I was rejected for a seamstress course because I was Deaf. Do they work the pedals with their ears? Having been Copy-Editor of a government magazine 20 years ago, I decided to start writing again and prove the government wrong. This year, I’ve focused solely on my books and blogs, which are directed at Deaf rights, animal rights and life lessons.
What kind of advice does your book contain?
After being treated so badly in such a very short time, I became a very angry person. I did not want to be angry. This book is written to my younger self, telling me to be calm, explaining Surdophobia and Audism, and that being Deaf can be a wonderful thing.
My marriage is actually so much stronger since I lost my hearing, as we both learned to sign together and now have our “own special language.” While ASL is forbidden in Finland, we continue to use it at Deaf Club and when grocery shopping. I mean… who are we hurting?
How to be Deaf is available both in Kindle and Paperback format from http://www.amazon.com/How-be-
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Linda Richards
April 8, 2016
“ASL is forbidden in Finland”?
That and a couple of other sentences in this article left me a tad alarmed and bemused.
Do others have a different take on this? Thanks.
David
April 8, 2016
I would wish to purchase and read this much anticipating book based on this remarkable author, but not for nearly £20 a throw on a paperback format via Amazon. Am I being unreasonable here?
pennybsl
April 8, 2016
Initially I liked your article, but saying that ASL is forbidden in Finland is weird!
I, as Linda Richards stated above in her comment, am bemused because we have contacts there, there is a thriving Deaf Community in the country, even a Deaf Brit who now lives in Finland with his family.
Rosie Malezer
April 8, 2016
ASL is not permitted to be used by citizens of Finland. You are required, by law, to learn and use Finnish Sign Language as it is the language of Deaf people of Finland. It is also the reason that the police are required to be fluent in Finnish Sign Language when they graduate from the police academy in Finland. I wrote the book to open people’s eyes. Those who wish to keep them closed are sadly welcome to do so. Everybody has that choice. Unfortunately, too many prefer to keep their eyes closed.
As for the price, CreateSpace and Amazon dictate the minimum price to be assigned to the book, depending on how much it costs for them to create it. If you do not wish to pay for the paperback copy, it is also available on Kindle. I don’t twist people’s arms and force them to buy anything. I do, however, believe in free will and human rights, especially when both are taken away.
Finland do, indeed, have a Deaf community which thrives… when they are at Deaf club, are out with Deaf friends or when they are entitled to use interpreters when communicating with non-Deaf at meetings. Please try and walk in my shoes before you judge. Many times, I read “That can’t be true! I have a friend who…. yadda yadda yadda.” I write what is true. I write my own experience. And after two years, I still fight for my rights as a Deafie who has had all of my rights taken away.
Editor
April 8, 2016
Hi Rosie, do you mean not permitted to be used in schools, etc? Just confused as there can’t be laws against using a language of people’s own choice in their own home/time? Charlie (Ed)
Rosie Malezer
April 8, 2016
It means that if you require an interpreter in any spoken language (as a hearing person), they will find one no matter what they have to do so you can attend doctor appointments, police appointments, hospitals, social office etc. As a Deaf person, however, you are ONLY provided with an interpreter in Finnish sign language or Swedish sign language. Any other sign language (ASL, BSL, AUSLAN, etc) meets with an outright refusal to provide an interpeter as, and I quote from the Finnish government, “It is not the language of the Deaf people of Finland and will not be permitted to be used. If you do not wish to learn Finnish Sign Language, you do not wish to communicate.”
The catch is that doctors refuse to see Deaf patients unless they are accompanied by an interpreter. As no interpreters are provided for Deaf people who use ASL, no medical treatment can be offered. Police cannot communicate with you because they are not permitted to use ASL. They are fluent only in Finnish sign language. You are unable to communicate in essential meetings with government officials (unemployment or otherwise) as no interpreter is provided and will not be provided. In Finland, the government is extremely Audistic, some to the point of being Surdophobic. They do not like that the Deaf have a different language and are doing all they can to crush the rights that we have.
Rosie Malezer
April 8, 2016
Keep in mind that I was not born Deaf. I have been hearing for the first 43 years of my life, even taking the time to learn to speak Finnish so I would “fit in” but was immediately written off, the moment I was diagnosed as profoundly Deaf.
Those who are born Deaf or who lose their hearing early in life are given free education in order to learn Finnish Sign Language. Late Deafened Adults are required to pay almost 4,000€ to learn Finnish Sign Language. When you consider that our annual ‘salary’ is 6,000€ you can perhaps understand how unattainable that is.
pennybsl
April 8, 2016
Thanks for explaining, Rosie.
We in the UK were not aware of “ASL is not permitted to be used by citizens of Finland. You are required, by law, to learn and use Finnish Sign Language as it is the language of Deaf people of Finland”. The latter we understand, but the former is news to most, if not all, of us Deaf/BSL Brits.
It is ironic because in the UK, while we have BSL in law in Scotland and the rest of the UK is starting a similar roadway, we have a diverse Signing community.
BSL teachers/assessors, BSL teaching course leaders, researchers and organisations like ABSLTA (Association of BSL Teachers & Assessors) continues to ensure the quality of BSL learning covers the appropriate UK sign vocabulary as used in access and presentation with regional/professional area variations.
I am a predominant hearing aid user (awaiting newer ones) with long periods of non-hearing aid use and endless cacophonic tinnitus. Because I could speak, I had to prove my own Deafhood values many times over since entering the main Deaf World in the early 1990s.
Your experience is important in informing people the consequences of what I call ”anti-deaf” and “un-Deaf friendly” concepts which caused those mindsets you encountered.
We do know a number of people in the UK who have, or/and are going through, experience similar to yours: hopefully your article and book will motivate them to write, or do a ‘Signing Narrative Book’.
Rosie Malezer
April 8, 2016
The two things that pushed my buttons enough to write the book:
1. I use a walking stick and have done since an elevator accident in 1996. I live in chronic pain. But it did not stop a bus driver from physically grabbing, dragging and throwing me off his bus (I landed on my butt in the snow) because I didn’t hear whether or not my bus ticket had beeped.
2. After being refused an interpreter for almost two years, I ended up going into the office of the powers that be, wanting a face-to-face interview with them so they can see how impossible it is for me to communicate without an interpreter. My husband and mother-in-law came with me so they could witness it for themselves. They were instructed (by me) not to speak… just listen. I spoke to those powers that be for about five minutes. They talked (simultaneously) to my husband and mother-in-law, not listening to anything I said. My family refused to answer them. When they both asked them to pay attention to me, I told the powers that be that this is the reason I require an interpreter. I cannot communicate with hearing people without one. This resulted in them kicking my family and me out of their office and threatening to call the police…. because I talked too loudly in a government building.
This is just two examples of what Deaf people (not just me) face every day in Finland. I was even threatened with deportation after I became a citizen if I continued to live as a Deaf person in Finland.
If you are interested in reading my story, I am glad that the silence is broken and that my being swept under the rug like the rest of the Deafies in Finland is coming to an end. If you prefer not to read it, that is okay. People are allowed to make their own choices in life… well, almost all.
Hartmut
April 8, 2016
Rosie,
the best you can do for your specific needs is to go to the headquarters of the Finnish Association of the Deaf in Helsinki. Finding a hearing interpreter who is adequately fluent in ASL in countries not using ASL is always tough or impossible. I venture, you can be served best in Finland by a Deaf interpreter in team with a hearing Finnish Sign Language/spoken Finnish interpreter. The Deaf Interpreter may know ASL or use International Sign, which you may be able to understand. I know a handful of Deafies in Finland who are fluent in ASL. Or you may want to use a typist who will type what your hearing counterpart says. You may reply via spoken Finnish or written Finnish. I bet most hearing people can understand your foreign accent. Since you are not a native speaker of Finnish, an oral interpreter or lipspeakers, as the Brits use this term, may not be an option for you, especially in serious situations.
I can understand that they don’t recognize a foreign sign language to provide (and pay for) an interpreter to fly to Finland. It is quite universal in laws that require authorities to provide (pay for) an interpreter only between the official languages of the country.
If I move to Finland, I would learn Finnish Sign Language. I can become adequately fluent in FSL after six months of interaction with the Deafies there. I was nearly fluent in BSL after three months in UK in 1963, My BSL has become rusty. However I can understand BSL Zone and pennybsl on YouTube videos about 75%. I notice BSL has imported a good number of ASL signs. ASL has become the English in the ASL universe. I am sure FSL has incorporated many ASL signs.
DeafStudent
April 8, 2016
It may be useful to provide some context in terms of wider language protection here. I do know that the Netherlands, for example, has laws that state that any non-EU person migrating to the Netherlands must learn Dutch to a specific standard before they are allowed to take on citizenship. I’m not sure what the rules are for deaf people who might struggle with certain aspects of spoken Dutch. I don’t think the Netherlands is particularly unique in this kind of language protection, and they aren’t unreasonable about it, you have a set number of years to learn to do it, and frankly, when you’re living there and surrounded by the language – both written and spoken – it should be an achieveable task (again, this is for hearing people). Put in this kind of context, the laws surrounding non-Finnish sign language are simply placing Finnish Sign Language on the same basis as – I expect – Finnish as a spoken language. Rosie – can you confirm whether this is the case? You refer to having had to learn Finnish before you became Deaf so I would expect it is.
Hope that helps.
Hartmut
April 8, 2016
Where are you living? In Australia?
Very strange that you were forbidden to be a seamstress. This was the major employment of deaf females in many European countries before 1960. Roughly 90% of them. In Germany, Wardrobe mistresses Deaf females knew them to be best dressed persons, because they themselves made dresses and coats. About 1/3 of Deaf males work as tailors, some even were licensed as master tailors and ran their own shops. I am sure, you will find several Deaf seamstresses and tailors in Australia. Inquire among deaf friends, better elder Deaf ones.
ASL is forbidden in Finnland ?!. That cannot be true. Finnland has their own sign language. Schools for the deaf used to be oral, but not as strict as I know of certain schools in Germany and USA. It is also hard to believe that Finnish audiologists and doctors said what you report in your blog. Finnish Sign Language is recognized as one of their official languages besides Swedish and Lappish. You should have visited the headquarters of the World Federation of the Deaf in Helsinki.
Rosie Malezer
April 8, 2016
Hartmut, I am an Indigenous Australian who permanently lives with my Finnish husband in Finland. I was forbidden to TRAIN to become a seamstress because I was Deaf. Rather than making assumptions at all about me, you can read the story in the pages or on Kindle.
I have been struggling for my own human rights in a country of where I am now a citizen (DeafStudent, yes you must know the basic language before taking citizenship here) and that was almost impossible for me to do, but I did it. After I lost my hearing and was diagnosed as profoundly Deaf, I suddenly had no way to have conversations. Even having bought a small whiteboard, when I tried to hand it to any doctor, they would push it away and start flapping their lips at me so close that I could smell their breakfast.
The book is not a case of “poor me.” It is a case of “Please, hearing world, wake up to the fact that you are not better than Deaf people simply because you can hear! We are equal!”
Hartmut
April 11, 2016
You must have gotten a wrong vocational counselor in Austraiia, an incompetent one who blurted “you cannot become a seamstress, because you are deaf”. He may say that it is the law for this, which is a bullshit and a blatant lie. A vocational counselor, which may function as a governmental official endowed with certain decision powers, would say to a deaf person wanting to become a driver of any motorized vehicle “you cannot become a driver” and upon challenge may produce a regulation of the national ministry of transportation, saying deaf applicants must pass a whisper test five or so meters away to be permitted to operate a machine/vehicle.
Saying “You cannot X, because you deaf” is not the same thing as “you are forbidden by a law or regulation to X” If you hear someone say “you cannot …” challenge him to produce an authentic document. In your case in Australia, you should challenge your counselor, make an appeal, or simply find a trainer willing to train you. I absolutely cannot believe such a legal prohibition exists for a deaf person to be trained a seamstress, because there are deaf seamstresses in Australia for sure.
In the US, there was a court case of a deaf female wanting to enroll in a nursing college. The school denied her the admission and got sued based on the American Disability Act (ADA). She lost the case and all appeals including at the highest level, the Supreme Court of US. The nearly unanimous ruling of the SCOTUS argued that the school has the right and freedom to determine what the requirements for a nursing candidate. What makes a decision discriminatory under the act is difficult to sort out, of course. This deaf lady thereupon applied to other schools and found one who was willing to pioneer the training of a deaf nurse. Now there are dozens of deaf nurses and doctors in this US.
deaflinguist
April 9, 2016
There is surely also a practical aspect as to provision of ASL interpretation in Finland and in any country where ASL is not the dominant SL language. Most professional interpreters have to undergo a lengthy and strict training and will naturally choose to become qualified in the dominant SL or SLs of the country where they live and work as they will have to earn a living and go where the need is greatest for the SL they work in.
It is not unknown for those with an existing SL interpreter qualification to move to another country and retrain as an interpreter in that country’s SL, but you need to be highly motivated to do so and be confident that you will acquire competence in your second SL in order to qualify and/or be licensed/accredited to practise in that SL.
In many countries, including the UK and Finland, interpreters, lipspeakers, deafblind manual interpreters, notetakers and STTR, tend to be spread quite thinly, and the pool of available interpreters will be further reduced by those who are located where you are; whose specialist domains match the situations you need them for (e.g. in medical or legal domains), and reduced further by those you have a rapport with (one person’s favourite interpreter will not necessarily be right for another).
There is an interesting article here on the challenges of providing interpretation in Finland: Salmi and Martikainen, 2012 (https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/47571/978-952-456-132-7.pdf?sequence=1)
Now the pool of people with overlapping skills in FinSL and ASL is likely to be quite small and you will obviously require a competent ASL interpreter or interpreters competent in health domains (or any other as required) and with whom you feel confident and comfortable in sensitive situations.
What are the statistics for those qualified in ASL interpretation in Finland? As I understand it, Finland makes generous provision for FinSL and SweSL interpretation, but there is clearly a resource implication for interpreters travelling some distance or from another country, and it is reasonable for resources to be devoted to where need is greatest, in FinSL and SweSL, especially where the service is free at the point of use.
Cathy
April 9, 2016
A very interesting article this is, indeed.
I never knew that ASL is banned in Finland! To this degree it also means that BSL is banned! Iam wondering what would happen to Deaf BSL users if they were on holiday in Finland for 2weeks and fell ill during that time? From this story it means any Deaf person using BSL would be denied help in BSL by Doctors and other professionals. So what would happen if a Deaf person in this terrible circumstance died?!
This would surely expose the madness of banning other sign languages in any country not just Finland! It means suing the authorities and opening a massive Pandora’s box!
When I think about Britain and all the money spent on interpreters for all the immigrants we have from all over the world, it seems astonishing that Finland can actually get away with banning a language, especially for Deaf people who will not know Finnish sign language at all!
Great Britain could never get away with such behaviour as we have so many Human Rights evangelists! We always have someone championing the “right” to this that and the other, even when these “rights” are often seriously misguided!
So, could someone explain how Finland gets away with such a fundamental ban as language in any form other than Finnish?!
Natalie Mulley
April 9, 2016
I suspect that if a BSL user needed medical help whilst on holiday it would have the same protocol as a English user on holiday needing medical help. I did know that Sweden, Norway and Finland teach their own versions of sign language right from the beginning of school and I have to say, it sounds pretty awesome that all their emergency services know sign language – talk about immersive! But then again, the Scandinavian countries have always been far ahead of the rest of us westerners when it comes to left-wing and immersive ideology. I found it fascinating studying their child protection laws (which many of our – UK – child protection laws come from), and their mentality towards other nations in that they learn so many languages from such a young age – yet we only learn foreign languages from year 11 upwards (in mainstream schools that is).
Little bit concerning that you say ASL (and presumably other sign languages) can’t be used in Finland, although I can’t find any information myself that would suggest this. Maybe it’s more that they expect you to use their language if you’re going to live in their country?
Rosie Malezer
April 11, 2016
All of their emergency services don’t know sign languages. Only the police. Doctors refuse to treat you unless you have an interpreter present (there are only Finnish Sign and Swedish Sign interpreters in Finland). Doctors refuse to use any whiteboard you carry in your handbag, shunning it for their preferred “flap the lips at the Deaf person up close” which is pointless.
If you travel from GB to Finland for a holiday and require medical services…. may the Goddess be with you every step of the way. Finland will not budge on their stance against Deafies.
My husband and I use ASL at home and when talking to each other at the grocery store or Deaf club, but emergency care, doctor visits, even cervical exams and breast exams are off limits without an ASL interpreter present, which Finland do not have. While Finland is, indeed, way at the top of the ladder on most things, they are on one of the bottom rungs when it comes to Deaf rights.
Each chapter of the book is split into three parts: The meaning of the heading in the chapter / my advice to the younger me / my experience which has led to give that advice. If you choose to read it, it really is an eye-opener.
Finland, by the way, has a law in place (yes, literally), which says that Finns are unable to take legal action against the Finnish government for any reason. It would shock many people to find out exactly what it is to be Deaf in Finland. When I interviewed many Deafies (HA users, CI users and former CI users and those who wear neither), I realised I was not the only one.
The WFD were the first people I contacted for help two years ago, who put me in contact with the Finnish Deaf Association, who put me in contact with the Finnish Deaf-blind Society and the government social office for the disabled. I ran into my final brick wall when Legal Aid was shot down and their case to allow me the use of an interpreter (speech to text) in English language was also denied. Now, I am just left to do one thing…. spread awareness.