While America celebrates Deaf Awareness Week, the Netherlands celebrates World Deaf Day. During my recent trips to Europe, I’ve been fortunate to develop relationships with people in Europe and as a result, I was asked to come and present in two different forums in the Netherlands for WDD. The main topic of my speech was about identity development and how I developed my identity as a deaf American.

I also attended an Expo which was very similar to DeafNation Expos here in America but on a smaller scale and had the opportunity to interact with many deaf individuals. There were almost precisely the same type of deaf companies and businesses represented at the expo that you would see at a DeafNation Expo, with the exception of VRS companies and deaf-owned merchandise companies. There was one large text provider, AnnieS, stealing the show with their Real Time Text platform.

The first speech I gave was at a debate with a panel of four. Two of the speakers were Dutch, one a very successful profoundly deaf person who uses sign language and the second an equally successful deaf person who received a cochlear implant and is equally as happy. The second comparison was between my identity development as a strong deaf American and the development of a woman who was born in Japan, moved to Australia, and currently lives in America. In between speeches there was a debate (which unfortunately I could not participate in!) with students, parents, teachers, and community members from Amsterdam. It was a very fun experience, especially trying to follow the debate which was occurring in Dutch. Thankfully I had some good ASL interpreters!

The second audience I spoke in front of was as part of the evening program for WDD. The day was an interesting experience presenting in front of an international audience. It was made especially more interesting since I barely knew anyone in the audience, something I am not used to; usually wherever I go and give presentations in America, I know a lot of people in the audience. But in Europe it was a completely different experience and while it was challenging, I enjoyed the short weekend trip very much!

Below is the transcript of the speech I gave:
My name is Anthony Mowl and I am a proud deaf individual. I grew up attending both mainstream schools and deaf schools. I attended a public university while I was in high school and graduated from Gallaudet University with a degree in English.

Throughout my life, I have had had many fortunate opportunities. I have travelled 47 states in America and 10 countries in the world. I have done some crazy things while at it too; I am a certified SCUBA diver, and hope to get my skydiving certification soon. I’ve gone hang gliding and jumped off a 250-foot cliff. I have met many interesting people, and seen many interesting places. I am even the happy owner of a new home, which I am proud to say I bought by myself. It’s been a nice life, and I appreciate what I have. But I am just 23 years old, and a lot of my life experiences have occurred only in the last several years.

While I have been fortunate throughout my life, I have to say I do not lead a charmed or perfect life. I am the fourth generation in my family to be born deaf, and ASL was my first language. I grew up in a culturally deaf household and my entire family is made of educators and blue collar workers, hard working individuals who would always fight for a better life. My deaf heritage grew up without accessibility and devoid of the opportunities that were presented to me, and for a very simple and clear reason. Deaf people were not equal to others, and belonged to a second class of citizens.

My parents spent their entire lives fighting for opportunities. My dad went to a hearing college, the only deaf person in his entire school, and it was a struggle to find interpreters for classes or students willing to share notes. My mom graduated from Gallaudet University, and was at the Deaf President Now movement in 1988, a proud participant in the revolution that told the world that deaf people were capable of leading themselves. DPN resulted in the Americans with Disabilities Act, which ensured that those who were handicapped would have equal access. What this meant for deaf Americans was that we would have as much accessibility as reasonably possible; Closed captioning became mandatory, interpreting is standard protocol, and services like relay are made possible.

Thanks to my parents, I grew up in a world full of access, accessibility not available anywhere else in the world, but I still found myself fighting limitations. The limitation I was struggling with was with myself, and it had nothing to do with being deaf. I wanted to succeed and I wanted to walk through the doors my parents had opened for me. In theory, deaf people in America are now equal, but in practice I could find very few successful deaf individuals. The DPN revolution is over, and the ADA law was enacted 20 years ago, but still very few people understand how to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them and that is why very few people have had the experiences I have.

Here in the Netherlands, and throughout Europe, the ADA law does not exist as it does in America, and the same open opportunities that were presented to me are not available here. But that does not mean stories like myself are not possible, because they are. Unlike my parent’s generation, today’s western world does not believe that deaf people are second class citizens, but capable individuals who need slight accommodations. But interestingly enough, while the hearing world has accepted this fact, as in America deaf people have yet to understand this. It’s like the microwave when it was first invented.
When the microwave first came out, it was expensive, clunky, and nobody wanted to use one. Why use a microwave to boil water when the stove works perfectly fine! But what people did not yet grasp about the microwave was that it could be used to do more than just boil water. When its potential was maximized, long days slaving over hot stoves disappeared, and people found themselves with more time on their hands. Like the microwave, there are countless existing solutions that the deaf community has yet to capitalize upon.

It used to be that books were rare and expensive, and the only place you could find them were in universities. Since deaf people didn’t have communication access, they received an inferior education and as a result didn’t attend universities where they had access to knowledge. Today, the situation is entirely different. The Netherlands has the number one internet penetration of any country in the world and every deaf person has access to the internet. Deaf people in the past who never had the opportunity to speak in public forums now have countless places to express their opinion and interact with mainstream society online where their disability is masked. But have the deaf embraced the internet as a medium of learning, expression and thought, or are they too busy on Facebook to realize the power available in front of them?

When I graduated, I immediately went to work for a startup company called Viable, and saw the company grow from 5 to 150 employees. We are deaf owned and deaf operated, with the majority of our employees deaf. We developed the VPAD, the first wireless, portable, touch screen videophone that will revolutionize how deaf people communicate. We have been tremendously successful, showing the VPAD on the biggest stage there is at the Consumer Electronics Show, and receiving countless media exposure including being on CNN, BBC, Popular Mechanics, and most recently getting on the cover of Fortune Magazine. But for all of our achievements, we have constantly endured so many obstacles and frustrations that have slowed our growth. Interestingly enough, our obstacles may not quite be what you think they are.

We did what everyone said we couldn’t and we made a videophone. We were the 15th VRS company to enter the market, and rapidly ascended to third in the VRS industry. We’ve travelled the world and everybody wants a piece of the VPAD. But interestingly, our biggest naysayers have been within the deaf community themselves; people who said that we would never accomplish the things we have, people who were more concerned about the bugs on the VPAD rather than the world of opportunities that it would provide. Our roll out was frustrated when a customer wrote a scathing blog complaining that his VPAD did not work at all, but a follow up from our customer support department found that he had taken the VPAD to a location without internet access and somehow expected wireless connectivity to magically appear.

Must we be so harsh? I see here in the Netherlands the same opportunities being created, with services like text relay and startups like AnnieS and RTT. There are many parallels to be drawn. AnnieS, like Viable is an organization made up of the community, with a CODA founder and deaf operations. And just like what has occurred in America, I have heard similar criticism about the new options being made available. The deaf community worldwide needs to understand that there is a difference between having something available for the taking, and being force fed something. KPN’s decision to stop TTY relay and provide only IM relay is an example of being force fed something, and alternatives like the internet, IM, and Real Time Text are examples of solutions available for the taking. I wish that Real Time Text were available in America, and I am doing my best to bring it back home with me. To learn that the deaf here have yet to embrace its value surprises me.

American or Dutch, French or Japanese, deaf people all over the world really are not all that different. We all share a common bond and a common experience. We have a long history of being denied a voice, and a long history of being ignored as a people. But now that the day arrives when the world is prepared to accept deaf people as equal members of society, are the deaf ready to accept this place? Will we look back on our long history, and demand retribution for our sorry past? I don’t want to honor my mother and father’s lifelong struggle by kicking down doors. I want to walk through them. We shouldn’t look for change these days, because the world has already changed. We should instead seek progress.

There are countless people in the world who are poor, sick, and have suffered in ways far greater than the deaf have. It is a harsh world, and these are people you would call “normal.” Kurt Vonnegut wrote that what you respond to in any work of art is the artist’s struggle with their own limitations. Not every piece of work is a Picasso, but that doesn’t stop potential artists from creating a masterpiece. Here in the deaf community, what we are all experiencing is a struggle with our own limitations. Our limitation is not deafness, but our own fears that as a person we may not be happy or successful. And like any artist, every deaf person has the tools they need to create a masterpiece of their own. It is there for the taking.