Indian Boarding Schools and Cochlear Implants

It's clear that the motivations for the Indian Boarding Schools were based on prejudice. The people that ran and supported the schools wanted to eliminate any sign of Native American culture. Heather's parents in Sound and Fury were afraid that the cochlear implant was an endeavor to eliminate deaf culture, like the boarding schools strived to eliminate Native American culture. I can see many similarities here. Many boarding school attendees weren't allowed to go home, or to participate in their culture at all. This was seen in the cochlear implant schools that focused solely on speech, as well as the children with implants of hearing parents, who choose not to make them aware of their deafness and deaf culture. By sometimes not even being aware that they are--or were--deaf, they lose a part of themselves just as the Native American children did when they were forced into these boarding schools.



I think that the major difference between the Indian Boarding Schools and the cochlear implant controversy is that most of the people behind the boarding schools were doing what they were doing out of prejudice. While Heather's parents thought that the hearing people supporting the cochlear implants were out to eliminate deafness and deaf culture out of prejudice, most of them just wanted to help deaf children have an easier life. Therefore, most didn't have discriminatory motives.



I do think that assimilation is important to some extent, but not in the sense that we should strive to eliminate all cultures except one. The goal should be to bring all of the cultures together; never to make one forget where they came from. Everyone should have pride in their culture.