Tales from a Teacher-Mama

I find it offensive that Ms. See, whose biography states that she is from California, dismisses Myron’s description of his Brooklyn neighborhood in the ‘40s as oversimplified and falsely quaint. As a child, Myron may not have been aware of the depth of the difficulties in his community during that era. His father belonged to the union and earned an honest and decent living. He provided well for his family, even managing to buy his son an elaborate train set and Dodgers tickets. Myron developed friendships with the boys in his neighborhood; why wouldn’t they engage in typical children’s games such as stickball? What cynicism to presume that Myron’s Brooklyn was in actuality “hell on earth” rather than the peaceful community that he remembers! What insolence to assume that Myron became “the neighborhood scamp” in order to cope with the perception that his parents were “freaks.” Why couldn’t Myron have been a typical, if mischievous, young boy trying to keep himself entertained?

It also disturbs me that Ms. See attributes the insults hurled at Myron’s deaf parents to poorly educated immigrants. This insults deaf people and their history—their cultural heritage—by making it seem as though only those new to the country and/or without sufficient education would be so cruel as to mock the disabled. That was not, in fact, the case. Both in Myron’s story and countless others, those who are deaf have experienced discrimination in and from all walks of life. From the butcher shop to Macy’s department store, Myron’s father had to face being called a “dummy.” He fought daily against the prejudice and ignorance of nearly everyone he encountered. To dismiss these affronts as coming only from poor, bad-mannered immigrants is to diminish the lifelong struggle of deaf people like Myron’s father to gain respect and be treated as equals among the hearing majority.

However, to say that Myron “grew up in a sea of shame” seems to me a gross overstatement. Myron admits to feeling ashamed of his parents’ differences—their deafness. Yes, he resented the burden of being his father’s ears and voice in the hearing world, of being forced to participate in adult interactions as a child of 6 or 7 (though not, as Ms. See implies, as a toddler who had just learned to talk). But in my reading, I found Myron’s overwhelming feelings toward his parents and brother to be pride and love. I suspect that, as an adult, Myron felt that pride more deeply and love more intensely in order to write with such passion about the life he lived some sixty years ago.

The final outrage is Ms. See’s allegation that Myron did not know his father very well, that he “portrayed him as a string of good deeds, painting over his complexities with the pastel strokes of children’s lit.” The reviewer seems almost to insinute that Louis Uhlberg may have had some seedy past; perhaps she was looking for a confession that Lou had been an alcoholic or a womanizer, suspecting that Myron covered these sins with tales of his father’s kindnesses or that he was childishly unaware of his father’s foibles. What an atrocious implication! I concede that I, too, wish I had known Myron’s father better but not because of any shortcoming in Myron’s depiction of him. Rather, through Myron’s accounts I grew to admire Lou’s courage and determination. I was fascinated by the very complexities that Ms. See claims Myron painted over: Lou’s dedication to his work and his tender love for his family, his courage to face adversity and his fears of failure, his confidence in his own abilities and his doubt that he would be treated fairly, and mostly his fierce pride in his ability to care for his family contrasted by the deep humility of depending on his young son to communicate with the world.