DO NOT HOLD BACK!

by Carl Schroeder,
Deaf/ASL Essayist

David Rothenberg: Doesn’t ecology

involve a certain amount of holding back?

Arne Naess: Not at all, according to Spinoza.

Because holding back means coercing ourselves,

whereas a particular freedom is connected

internally with direct intuition (the third kind

of knowledge), and that is loving. Spinoza’s

intuition cannot be separated from loving.

I remembered when I was in school in Holland, my hands were tied in the back because I signed too much. I must learn to speak with my mouth, not my gestures. I tried very hard but my Gebarentaal (Dutch Sign Language) was held back. It was not natural for me.

I also remembered pulling out of the classroom because I used too much facial and body expressions. I was not allowed to even shake or nod my head. It was wrong, and I was taught that hearing people find facial or body expressions to be very rude.

When my parents announced we were to move to the United States, I remembered my teacher telling me not to tell America about Gebarentaal and to inform America that I learned to speak, period. She did not want to be embarrassed and I must hold back Gebarentaal.

After my family came to live in Maryland, I went to a Deaf school in Frederic, Maryland School for the Deaf. I had Miss Sarah Edith Quinn, a CODA (this label was not created till much later), as my first American teacher. She was a native signer, and she played a very important role in my acquisition of not only ASL but also the English language. She was also my speech therapist (well, it was early 1960’s) who taught me not only the English sounds which are different from the Dutch language, but also rhymes and alliteration because she noticed my love for books.

Miss Quinn also taught me not to hold back anything I had put my mind on what I wanted to learn, not to hold back the interdependence between ASL and English, and, above all, not to hold back my intellectual independence. I did not realize that I was a Spinozist yet to be born. Today I am a Spinozist yet to be known.