A Compelling Window into the World of Deaf Education in Mexico
Temas
Detalles
In this compelling text, Pfister takes an ethnographic approach to understanding the experiences of deaf children born into hearing families in Mexico—specifically how they discover the promise of a signed language and undergo a pilgrimage to one of the only signing schools in the country, Instituto Pedagógico para Problemas del Lenguaje (IPPLIAP). Pfister uses her expertise as a teacher who formerly lived and worked in Mexico and collaborated with IPPLIAP, and her training as a sociolinguistic anthropologist to uncover new understandings of how these pilgrimages occur and the experiences of families along the way.
The book begins with thoughtful context setting, wherein we learn about the world of the school, Pfister’s connection to IPPLIAP in particular and Mexico in general, and the stage is set for what is to come. Throughout, Pfister’s work takes a cultural approach. Through this, she rejects essentialization of deafness and medical frameworks that define what it means to be deaf as an absence of sound. One particularly compelling aspect of Pfister’s work is the fictional López family, whose journey from doctor’s offices and therapy clinics to a signing school in IPPLIAP is captured in each chapter. Their journey, meant to be representative of the journey that many families with deaf children undertake, takes the reader through the specific experiences of accessing signing deaf education in Mexico. Similarly, the description of “Hilda’s” confrontation with her family, who never learned to sign and who felt left out of most family communication, was particularly profound. Her expression of feeling excluded from family interactions for her entire childhood, and perceived as “dumb” by her family was heart rending, and her direct challenge to those beliefs via an LSM interpreter was inspiring. The book reaches its crescendo at the penultimate chapter, where IPPLIAP students told their own stories through Proyecto Fotovoz (Project Photovoice). The images, captured and shared by the students, tell a story of family, of culture, and of the impact that access to a signed language had on their lives. It is a profound experience to not only read about their experiences, but to see the world as they see it.