Deaf And Rich

Sociologists look at class and culture when they analyze society. Last week I began watching the show ‘Switched at Birth’. In my blog post, I will be discussing the overall plot of the show to give you a better understanding of what is going on. I will talk about how living and growing up in very different class cultures, created and shaped the two main characters’ (Bay and Daphne) personalities and even effected the two everyone around them. The show is set to portray the American culture and therefore contrasts the lifestyles between the highbrow, white, American family and the lowbrow, working-class, Mexican single mother who is trying to make enough money to give her daughter a normal life. The main idea is that the two girls were accidentally switched at the hospital and therefore lived lives that were not pre-destined for them.

The Mexican hairdresser raises Daphne, who is deaf. Daphne becomes accustomed to living a simple life of a poor girl in a beat down, not very safe neighborhood. She attends Carlton (a school for the deaf and is used to an environment very different from that of the hearing schools). Meanwhile, Bay is raised in the Kennish household. Her father is an ex baseball player and she attends Buckner Hall – one of the most prestigious schools in her area. Bay always feels like an outsider in her own home because she does not look like any of her family members, her interests are ones that her mother does not encourage, and her temper and sarcasm come from within her as opposed to something she picked up from her parents.

One day she decides to ask her parents for a DNA test to see if they are in fact related. The results come in negative and they all find out about the switch. From there, everything changes and Bay and Daphne and everyone involved needs to start adapting to their new lifestyle and complicated situation. For example, Daphne is now part of a hearing family and needs to keep up with reading lips because her parents have no clue about signing. Moreover, Daphne’s biological family and Bay start learning how to sign in order to make it easier to communicate with Daphne. You can see how the two cultures of the hearing and the hearing impaired come together and work towards better and easier communication through the use of language.

Born and raised in Qatar, I was socialized in an Egyptian/Palestinian home but outside, it was a whole different culture. My brothers and I attended private schools, which meant that we socialized with people of many different cultures – including locals. Because of my social experiences with my Qatari friends and classmates, I learned to speak Qatari fluently and began communicating with my friends in their language, which made it much easier for us to have better flowing conversations. We never really faced language barriers. However, you can see how I was the one who had to change and teach myself their language since I was the outsider living in their society, learning their language and traditions and cultures. Moreover, living in Qatar had influenced me to the extent that I actually got myself a Abaya made since it 'grew on me' and I grew a certain appreciation for it.