Deaf Utopia: A Memoir - And a Love Letter to a Way of Life – Nyle DiMarco with Robert Siebert
Prior to reading “Deaf Utopia,” my knowledge of Nyle DiMarco was that he was a Deaf model and maybe bisexual (note: he identifies as queer). Still, I selected his memoir as a potential Pride Month read, because I haven’t actively sought the perspective of an author with disabilities since finishing Rebekah Taussig’s “Sitting Pretty” in October 2020.
I honestly wasn’t interested in reading this, viewing it mainly as a memoir from a reality TV star — DiMarco won seasons of “America’s Next Top Model (ANTM)” and “Dancing With the Stars (DWTS)” — and begrudgingly started it because I was waiting on other library holds and figured it would be easy to categorize as DNF (did not finish).
I was completely wrong.
Within the introduction, it became clear how uninformed I am about the Deaf community. The fact this is considered a translated book — adapted from American Sign Language (ASL) into English — was something I had never considered, and it was the first of many eye-opening revelations about the 37 million Americans that are Deaf and hard of hearing.
DiMarco’s Hollywood experiences are secondary to the true intent of the book — the “love letter to a way of life” — which provide a fascinating entry point into learning about the intersectionality of Deafness and queerness, historical and ongoing biases and the resiliency and pride of this community.
While DiMarco states the lessons he shares shouldn’t be “the last stop for someone looking to learn more about us,” it is certainly a great place to start. Here are few of the things that struck me:
The history and impact of sign language: DiMarco provides an excellent primer on sign language in its various dialects — more than 300 — and why it is the preferred method of communication for the Deaf community. He breaks down ASL’s differences to spoken English, the shortfalls of Signed Exact English (SEE) and explains why lip reading is not an effective alternative to communicating with hearing people.
Alexander Graham Bell’s crusade against Deafness: Bell spent his life advocating for teaching Deaf children to speak, pushing for oral education (versus sign language) and holding the eugenicist belief that Deaf people should not procreate or marry. Basically, he was garbage.
Well-intentioned but highly problematic perceptions: As mentioned above, lip-reading is not an effective communication method for Deaf people, with DiMarco saying he can usually only understand about 20 percent of what is stated. Additionally, Bell’s influence leads many hearing people to believe that all Deaf people can — and like to — speak, which DiMarco called “humiliating and dehumanizing.”
Continued biases and discrimination: Like many minority groups, the Deaf community have faced centuries of oppression. From the idea of “deaf and dumb” to Socrates referring to the Deaf as “being devoid of a soul,” and the push for oral education, there is a long history of misunderstanding, perceived infantilism and fetishization. Rather than talk about these things at a macro level, DiMarco shared personal experiences from his family, including challenges with health care (facilities not making interpreters available) and education (banning sign language, not hiring Deaf teachers) and “ignorant and patronizing” questions that assume Deaf people are not intelligent or emotionally mature.
DiMarco’s family: Nyle and his brothers, were the fourth generation born Deaf in his family. He explains how this provided them a solid foundation for education and opportunity that many in the Deaf community don’t receive. He said more than 90 percent of Deaf children are born to hearing parents — including his own estranged father — which often leads to misguided views on education and opportunity. DiMarco states that opening eyes to all the possibilities and beauty in Deafness is why he pursued a life in the spotlight versus his initial goal of being a math teacher.
If you want behind the scenes drama and gossip from ANTM and DWTS, you’ll get that, too, but these elements — outside of how DiMarco had to navigate these spaces populated exclusively by hearing people — were the least interesting parts of the memoir for me, and thankfully, received a small fraction of page time.
This book gave me a lot to think about, and I’m grateful to DiMarco for using his platform (and patience) for educating the hearing masses. Even if you aren’t interested in reading his memoir, the included resources section can provide a good place to start, or further, your Deaf education.
On a personal note, my father suffered complete hearing loss in his left ear at six-years-old. While I’ve known and accepted this about him my entire life, I’ve never considered him to be Deaf, nor asked him the ways in which living with partial deafness has impacted his life.
I now understand the stigma and bias my father may have felt by having that label assigned to him during the 1950s, and why he may have purposely rejected resources that could’ve made his life a little easier. It’s prompted me to want to have a discussion with him about this facet of his life, and I need to thank Nyle DiMarco for that.
Rating (story): 4/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Formats: eBook (library loan)
Dates read: June 2 – June 11, 2022
Multi-tasking: N/A
