(← return home)
"For many, the deaf 'supercrip' is the deaf person who can read lips and speak, despite the fact that few deaf people master oralism." — Thomas Hehir
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My mother's journey through special education exemplifies the ableist foundations of rehabilitation systems designed to mold individuals into a "prototypical norm." As a profoundly Deaf child of hearing parents, she was enrolled at Clarke School from 1982 to 1987, where signing was prohibited, lip reading enforced, and oral pedagogy mandated—all to help her assimilate into mainstream society.
Yet despite this environment of language deprivation and forced dependence, she thrived. This zine captures pivotal (and silly) moments from her educational journey, from elementary school through college, revealing how she navigated these spaces with resilience, creativity, and quiet rebellion.
On a warm spring day, she returned home filled with simultaneous mischief, joy, and rage after an aide refused to give her a popsicle. The moment the bus stopped, she dashed to the garage, grabbed the hose, and sprayed the departing bus—windows down, children inside still enjoying their treats. This playful act of defiance embodied her frustration at never feeling completely understood by those who made little effort to communicate on her terms.
At Clarke School, students were tethered to their desks through an auditory listening system connected to their hearing aids—immobile, held captive if they wanted to learn. One day, the teacher went to the bathroom with their microphone still on. Every footstep, the sounds of "business," the flush, the door closing—all transmitted directly to the students' ears. In this confined educational setting, they found collective glee in an inadvertently shared intimate moment.
In the absence of permitted sign language, my mother and her friends developed a homesign system to discuss teachers without being discovered. Their sign for "coming!" helped warn others when a teacher approached, with name signs matching each teacher's personality. The warning sign—articulated with an open mouth and palm patting the cheek rapidly—represented their ingenious adaptation, leveraging different sensory abilities to create community within constraint.
In mainstream high school, she was assigned an "oral translator" who simply repeated what teachers said, slightly slower and closer to her face—a useless accommodation by her account. During one particularly frustrating biology lesson, communication broke down completely until the translator asked if my mother knew fingerspelling. When she confirmed, they began secretly spelling technical terms, dramatically improving comprehension and marking a small victory for her preferred communication method.
The journey culminated at Northeastern University, where she won the Paul M. Pratt award for professional growth during her cooperative education program.
My mother became an engineer, teacher, organizer, actress, athlete, and parent—embodying the "presumption of competence" that enabled her success despite systemic barriers.
In creating this zine, I seek to honor her experiences and affirm that I understand her multitudes—not just as her child, but as a person who navigated an ableist world with extraordinary grace and determination. Her stories remind us that accommodations should not be treated as add-ons but built into our environments, affirming that disabled people exist in the world and deserve full and complete access.