Inside a Deaf World

Leah Hager Cohen grows up at the Lexington School for the Deaf, in Queens, New York, even though she has perfect hearing. Her father, Oscar, also hearing, is the director of child care and resides with his family in an apartment on the third floor of the southern wing of the building. Being one of the few hearing individuals at the school, Leah is surrounded by Deaf Culture and has a feeling, at a young age, she is “missing the boat”—a phrase translated into ASL as “Train go sorry.”

Eventually, Leah and her family move to Nyack, New York along the Hudson River, but Oscar continues working at Lexington as its superintendent. In her 322-page memoir, a unique mix of journalistic reporting and personal experience, the author provides deep insight into the Lexington School for the Deaf and its students, teachers, and administrators. She also puts a spotlight on two deaf students—Sofia, a Russian immigrant, and James, a poor African-American boy from the Bronx—to show the school’s diverse population.

Through Cohen’s experience growing up hearing at a school for the deaf, we get a unique perspective of Deaf Culture. Issues handled are the isolation problems deaf students have with their hearing families and how Deaf Culture is transmitted not by the family but by institutes for the deaf. It also discusses deaf history, Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the only college in the world designed exclusively for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, and the Deaf President Now movement. Cohen discusses educational pedagogy on teaching the deaf such as oralism vs instruction in American Sign Language (ASL). 

I highly recommend Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World to any Deaf person, ASL student, or individual who has a deaf friend or family member. The book is an eye-opener. 

About the Author

Leah Hager Cohen is an American author who writes both fiction and nonfiction. Cohen’s father was superintendent of the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens, New York, and she became fluent in sign language there. Cohen is the author of five works of nonfiction, including I Don’t Know: In Praise of Admitting Ignorance (Except When You Shouldn’t), and five novels, including The Grief of Others, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her newest novel is Strangers and Cousins.