Switched at Birth

I'm thrilled to announce Guest Blogger, Sarika D. Mehta! Her first post, on Switched at Birth, explores the portrayal of the Deaf Community and Deaf Culture. Sarika obtained her Master's in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focused on the education rights of Deaf children as English Language Learners. She currently resides in Portland, Oregaon, and is a producer for KBOO Community Radio. Welcome, Sarika!
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Special thanks to Dr. Casey George-Jackson for inviting me to throw some thoughts on her great blog!

I’ve come to have a new appreciation for ABC Family (really, we should call it ABC Unfortunate Teenager). Now, before you write me off completely (and I couldn’t blame you), you should know that I’m a gigantic fan of the Harry Potter series and they tend to show these movie marathons say, every weekend. You should also know that I’ve been involved with the Deaf* Community for a long time and I’m about to return to school to take on a Sign Language Interpreting Certification program. That being said, I was very curious about the new teen drama, Switched at Birth. You can view the pilot here:





So first off, oh my god - a Hard of Hearing girl plays the lead!! How awesome! And furthermore, an awesome Deaf actor plays her bff!! But more on that later....

This show is about two teenage girls who were, well, switched at birth. The two families involved took home each others’ babies and never knew until a high school science class lesson talking about hereditary traits. As if the prospect of two daughters being raised by not their biological parents was not enough, they also threw in the fact that one family is ridiculously wealthy (including Lea Thompson playing the mother!) and raising the “rebellious, artistic teenager”, Bay Kennish (played by Vanessa Marano). The wealthy family also has a younger son, Toby, and both children attend what appears to be a rather snooty, over-privileged private school. The father was a baseball star and now owns a chain of car washes, while the mother is a stay-at-home mom who seems preoccupied with organizing charity events and the opinions of other people.

Meanwhile the other family is a single mother who lives with her own mother, raising her (not) daughter, Daphne Vasquez, in a presumably rough neighborhood. The single mother character (portrayed by Constance Marie) is half Puerto Rican, works as a hairdresser, and apparently had a drinking problem in the past. Her (not) daughter was deafened as a toddler due to meningitis and I won’t give more plot away. Her mother signs while she speaks English and there’s been reference to her knowledge of Spanish as well. Daphne/Bay’s father is not in the picture - which is another story arc that led to some craziness. As I excitedly mentioned before, the actress who plays Daphne, Katie Leclerc, is Hard of Hearing and appears to be an up and coming star in the world of Deaf performers!

So now that you’re caught up to speed (i.e. everything that happened in the pilot episode), I should give some commentary. One disclaimer: I’m only going to focus my opinions on the issue of Deafness in this show - I know there are several issues and plot lines, but I’m only going to focus on this one.

I’m surprisingly impressed by this show! Now admittedly, I kept my standards rather low given it is ABC Family, especially after Outsourced came out on NBC (check out our podcast discussing the role of Asian and Pacific Americans in pop culture!). However, this show has done a decent job of exploring the complex life of most teens in America and especially a Deaf teen: Her mother, Regina, is hearing, but chose to raise and empower her Daphne with Deaf Culture, American Sign Language and Deaf Education. Regina’s best friend, Melody (played by Oscar-winning, Marlee Matlin), is Deaf, as is her son, Emmett (played by Deaf actor, Sean Berdy), who happens to also be Daphne’s best friend. When Daphne and Emmett communicate, they communicate in American Sign Language. She’ll “interpret” for Hearing people as necessary. It’s very exciting to see Daphne’s character as the lead, with a complex identity and difficulty in forming a relationship with Bay, the other switched daughter.

In only the first several episodes of the show, they’ve already talked about issues concerning Deaf and Hearing people dating, Deaf musicians, hearing aids, cochlear implants versus Deaf Culture and American Sign Language, the dependence of lipreading, and the role of interpreters and the act of interpreting. They’ve also managed to weave issues of ethnic identity in a classist society. They subtitle portions of signing, even if the signing is on top of the speech. Of course they have to thrown in a fair share of teen drama so that everyone else will like it, too.

I will say that the miraculous ability for the Deaf characters to understand 100% of the lipreading is a bit ridiculous and feeding into an unfortunate myth that Hearing people have. Lipreading is an art, not a skill, and oftentimes involves a lot of gap-filling and assumptions, so there is much room for error.

Yes, the show could do a lot better, but considering it’s ABC Family and only the first season, I’m actually pretty pleased with it. I am curious what the Deaf Community thinks as well as the Hearing Community. Check out the clips and weigh in with your own thoughts!

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* Deaf (capital D) refers to a cultural perspective, appreciating "Deaf" as a cultural-linguistic minority, whereas deaf (lower-case d) refers to pathology, the inability to hear.