Page 88 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Do Americans Really Have a Culture? 73

The same freedom applies to our selection of occupation. This
perhaps is one of our society’s greatest achievements—that the
sons and daughters of a farmer or factory line worker may pick
any field for which their aptitude qualifies them. Nor are we lim-
ited to a single career choice in our lifetime. We have the opportu-
nity to switch from art to business or from medicine to acting at
any time during our lives.
Deaf people in the United States do not enjoy the same free-
doms that hearing Americans take for granted. When it comes to
employment, for example, their options are much more limited.
Despite the recent passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act,
the reality is that most employers are reluctant to hire deaf em-
ployees. Consequently, it is not unusual for deaf workers to stay in
a position—as a postal worker for instance—for thirty or more
years, whether or not they enjoy their work or feel challenged by
it, for the security of having a job. Even Deaf teachers have a
much more limited pool of potential schools to pick from, and if
we go all the way up the ladder, a deaf school administrator who
aspires to be a college president has basically only one choice:
Gallaudet.
Choice seems to be an intrinsic feature of American life. Per-
haps this is so because, historically speaking, the first Europeans
to settle this land came here by choice. It feels so natural for most
of us to choose almost every facet of our lives from our hair color
to our marriage partner that it strikes us as peculiar that in other
places around the world people’s lives are largely out of their per-
sonal control.

Doing and Achievement

The inevitable icebreaker when getting to know someone is “What
do you do for a living?” And our first question after running into
an old friend or acquaintance is often “What are you doing these
days?” Our fixation on doing seems to pervade our every waking
moment, because what we do provides a large part of our identity
and helps define who we are. No doubt tracing back to our Puri-
tan roots, we believe that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
Although we are supposed to work toward the big reward of re-
tirement, some new retirees are shocked to discover the sense of
uselessness that accompanies having “nothing to do.”

04 MINDESS PMKR 73 10/18/04, 11:25 AM