CODA: My Mom, My Identity

By Chelsea Hull, H&V Military Project

When the movie CODA came out recently, I watched it immediately and related to it on so many levels. When I tell people my mom was deaf, I get a lot of different reactions and questions. People often refer to me as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), since my mom is deaf. However, I am going to share something very private with you. I have been told my mom wasn’t “really deaf” a few times, which made me not a “true CODA”. When I was new in the field of interpreting, I decided to identify as a COODA, a child of one oral deaf adult. Being quirky, I’d hoped that would open the door for deeper conversations about my mom, and not just about how she communicated but about who she was. Much has changed in the field since then and I attribute much of that to Hands & Voices. I am now comfortable referring to myself as a CODA, though, as many of us know, some wounds don’t fully heal.

The film reminded me of a short story I wrote a few years ago while working as a college-level ASL interpreter. I had enrolled in an English 101 class to refresh my knowledge and wrote a paper about how my parents snuck me into their college-level sign class forty years before. If you could get a seat in “Sign Language” as it was called, you were lucky.  Here’s the story I wrote about that class.  ~

In a boring, white college classroom, about 15 of us sat on chairs. Everyone looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The emptiness of the room made our thirst for academics arousing, the anticipation of meeting the teacher, exciting. The crisp white blinds blocked the bright parking lights from glaring in the room. The professor, of mediocre height and plain clothes, wrote his name on the calming, green chalkboard. People made eye contact. 

The fluorescent lights in the classroom felt warm and barren as each of us listened with our eyes. All of a sudden everyone was up and moving the chairs into one large circle that created a new perimeter for learning. The professor gave visual checks to each pair of eyes in the room. There were adults of all ages, but I was the only child. There were young adults, old adults, women, and men. Some wore hearing aids, others did not. Some had obvious differences. I was drawn to the variety of people in the room.

My mother with her gentle yet scratchy voice would tell me, “Look, Chelsea. They are different just like me. Now, don’t stare!” Thinking back now, I had to stare. That’s how we learn to sign.

The quiet room came alive with crystal clear visual communication. When one pair of eyes met another pair, information was exchanged. Without a hand raised, there was meaning conveyed. A shy smile said something. Facial expressions carried content. Head nods got a point across while hand movements carried breadth and depth. People accomplished more simply by looking at each other than long lingering spoken sentences. There was a sense of keen visual comprehension. It was beyond beautiful to me. Since I was also just five years old, it was also boring –I probably tuned out about half the time.

These classes were the beginning of my journey to better understand my mother. This experience would leave a lifelong impression on me, one that would inspire my career. It would also shape me when I became a mother. 

Silence brought comfort. The void of spoken language felt okay, like being at home. It comforted me. Though the room was silent of speech it wasn’t of noise. I remember someone sat on a squeaky chair and there was a noisy toe-tapper, but that didn’t bother me. There were lots of times when Mom’s voice was too loud or she didn’t know she was making noise. So long as there wasn’t a safety issue, no one cared. So long as she never emptied the dishwasher before I woke up in the morning, it was all good. If a noise was outside of mother’s hearing threshold than it didn’t exist, and we learned to ignore sounds, too. I learned the difference between noise and sound.

As I grew older my role would change. I would become more responsible for helping my mom by explaining environmental sounds and eventually interpreting for her over the phone and at meetings. There’s a scene in CODA when the main character stands up and starts interpreting for her father accurately and passionately. That scene struck home with me. I don’t remember an award-winning scene in my life, but I do remember becoming my mother’s “ears” and her “voice”.

Mom would come home from each class a little different each time: a bit more communicative. a little more confident. She became empowered around her hearing loss. My mother was fully mainstreamed with no legal accommodations throughout her school years since she went to school before the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act) passed in 1975. She was always the only child with a hearing loss at any of her schools.

Finally, instead of being the outcast, she was in the in-crowd. The in-crowd was hard of hearing AND deaf. And I was mesmerized. 

The final exam of the semester would involve my participation. Every night for two weeks my parents and I learned to sign the song Tomorrow from my favorite movie, Annie. During those warm summer nights, my mom and dad would sit with me outside under the shade of our Elm tree and practice “Bet your bottom dollar, there will be sun” with me. We learned how to clear away the cobwebs and the sorrow until there was none. My parents had gained my full attention and were instilling a passion in me. There was no great debate about how to interpret the song into ASL, we just did the best we could. They had created the most productive and effective way to teach me about my mother’s hearing loss, we learned to visually communicate together.

Editor’s note: Chelsea Hull is a parent leader with the Hands & Voices Military Project, a sign language interpreter and a Teacher of the Deaf now stationed in Missouri.

H&V Communicator – Fall 2021