Mishka Zena

Last year some Deaf people went to the Wisconsin state legislature to express their opposition to this bill. This bill that would force all health insurance companies to cover the expenses of cochlear implants and hearing aids for Deaf children living in Wisconsin, wasn’t passed during that session.
This bill recently passed both the Senate and the Assembly easily [...]

Several months ago while I was researching the deaf schools facing budget cuts and planned school closings, an alumnus alerted me of a Deaf school where the deaf kids in an oral program are segregated from the Deaf students using ASL in the same building. These groups reportedly are not allowed to socialize or even speak to each other. 
Two weeks [...]

I’ve been watching Carl’s vlog at DVTV ‘Hidden Agendas Behind Cochlear Implants’.  http://www.deafvideo.tv/video/watch/45321/  The room temperature there is getting hot.
A question for certain members of the Deaf Community who reject cochlear implants. Do you feel oppressed by the presence of cochlear implants? Do you feel oppressed when you see Deaf people, children, and toddlers wearing cochlear [...]

Some of the Deaf children don’t do well in mainstreamed programs.  Often the regular teachers  don’t have any formal training to educate the Deaf students. An increasing shortage of qualified interpreters impedes with the public education system’s ability to provide accessible education to these students.  For mainstreamed Deaf solitaire, a lack of social opportunities due to communication barriers adds to their sense of [...]

After the victory of Unity For Gallaudet, naysayers claimed that Gallaudet would become more exclusive, insisting that Fernandes was ousted for ‘Not Deaf Enough’ based on the stakeholders’ ’intolerance to deaf diversity’. They predicted with culturally Deaf people overtaking Gallaudet,  it’ll be a place where deaf people using other communication methods won’t be welcome.
 
Yet Gallaudet continues to promote more diversity among its stakeholders than ever before. The [...]

For some time, discussions about parental rights vs Deaf children’s right were held on the Deaf Cyberspace. Most of the discourses were illuminating and meaningful. We are actually starting to understand each other out better with less cyberbullying. 
Some people insist that all Deaf babies and children have a right to ASL.  Actually, no.  According to [...]

“This is not about tweaking the genes of a hearing embryo, a technical impossibility. It’s about laying two potential children in embryonic form side by side and affording more right to life to the hearing one by making it illegal to issue preference to the deaf one … this is not about creating a hearing [...]

I read with amusement about how Jay Leno commited a faux pas when he mocked the headline of an article titled Barbershop Singers Bring Joy to Deaf School (by lip-synching the words of the songs). Apparently his joke outraged some people, demanding an apology from Leno to the oral deaf educational program, which he wisely did.  However, [...]

I stood back, struck with amazement and sadness at the furor, hurt, and anger within the Deaf Community. Are we so different from each other that we truly cannot understand each other and come to full acceptance of everybody?
First of all, I do not want to see anyone hurt, nor do I want anyone fired from [...]

I’ve thought long and hard about this. I have encouraged DBC twice to become more transparent. I’ve asked two DBC leaders to vp with me, so we can discuss this further, but they both weren’t ‘available’. In e-mails, I asked them why they don’t want to acknowledge to the Deaf Community that they practice Deafhood [...]