A Memoir About Deafness

Deaf Utopia: A Memoir—and a Love Letter to a Way of Life is a New York Times best seller by Nyle DiMarco, a model, actor, and Deaf activist. His 331-page memoir is an eye-opener for people unfamiliar with the Deaf experience and Deaf culture. Unlike most deaf children born to hearing parents, the author and his two brothers, Neal and Nico, are the fifth generation in their family to be born deaf with American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language.

Throughout the memoir DiMarco let’s readers know how proud he is being a Deaf man. Hearing people may think, “What’s there to be proud of?  You can’t hear the news, can’t understand a movie without captions, and music is out of your reach. What’s the source of pride?” 

The source of pride is self, the culture, and the language. As the author explains, born deaf in an aural world has many challenges. For example, getting a good education when educators falsely believed teaching a deaf person to speak is the most important educational goal for deaf children. WRONG! As readers will learn, eight-year-old Nyle, with the support of his mother, Donna, rejected the tedious and boring speech therapist sessions for subjects he had a shot at actually learning—Math, science, history, and English Literature. Overcoming deafness isn’t a problem. The source of pride is overcoming the bigotry and ignorance of the hearing. 

From my own experiences and that of my Deaf friends, too many hearing people have pity on the deaf and believe they are stupid. Actually, the opposite is true. Through his life story, DiMarco shows us that a Deaf man can do anything a hearing person can do, except hear. In 2015 he turned his interest in modeling to a win as America’s Next Top Model 2015. The following year, with intense dancing lessons from his dance partner, Peta Murgatroyd, the two went on to win Dancing with the Stars. With the use of as translator and a HUGE amount of patience, DiMarco was able to win over his audience, the producers, and judges to win two contests that most hearing people would have thought impossible for a deaf person to win. 

Throughout Deaf Utopia DiMarco shows his personal history and how it was influenced by deaf historical events that affected him. However, most importantly, little Nyle had an amazing mother. College educated; Donna DiMarco wanted the best for her boys. When Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens, New York insisted her boys wear hearing aids to school, Nyle revolted. Educators wanted the boy to hear what they were saying, but to Nyle, the aids were a distraction. Eventually, Donna pulled her boys out of the school and found a better one in Texas. She moved the family to Austin and the Texas School for the Deaf where ASL was the language of instruction, not English. After she uncovered the abuse her husband was unleashing against her sons, she divorced him and moved the family to Maryland where the DiMarco boys attended the Maryland School for the Deaf in Frederick, Maryland. 

Deaf Utopia is an inspiring memoir that celebrates Deaf culture and its unique language, ASL. If you have an interest in learning more about this culture, its history and language, this memoir should be on the top of your reading list. 

Michael Thal is the author of Goodbye Tchaikovsky and The Lip Reader, two books about deafness.