I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1950s and early ’60s, where many of the new immigrants who came to New York City from Eastern Europe settled in the late 1940s.  My parents, Holocaust survivors, rented a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a five-floor walk-up tenement building for a monthly rent of $5.

My parents entered this country penniless and uneducated but determined to make a new life for their immediate family, even after losing all their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts and many cousins and friends to early death or the ovens in Germany.

Life certainly was not easy for them, each having only had a third-grade education and living with the horrific experiences they had gone through.  But they were and are survivors.  They learned the English language on the streets, buying the daily newspaper and just plain ole listening and wanting to assimilate without losing their Jewish identity. They were now in a country where freedom to practice your religion was allowed and wearing your religion in public was not to be feared.

My parents insisted on our being educated. My brothers more so than myself.  My brothers were left no choices in whether they wanted a college education or not.  It was expected and required.  My father did whatever he had to do to make a dollar. He never owned a credit card until around the mid 1970s, but even then, he always paid his bill in full and only charged large purchases such as furniture.

My father and mother certainly knew how to hold on to a dollar. My father saved his money by doing anything and my mother worked in a bakery.  Eventually, they saved enough money to buy and own their own, what we called back in the '50s, a stationery-candy store, the type of store where they sold comic books, magazines, candies and had a counter to serve ice cream. The type of store where they made real lime rickies and real New York egg creams and you sat up at a counter and actually spoke to the person behind the counter.  When owning a candy store became too emotionally stressful for my father, he became a New York City taxi driver (talk about stress) and owned his own medallion cab.  I guess that's how I learned to navigate the Streets of New York and speak with a great Brooklyn accent.

So where am I going with all of this? Today, the U.S. government is attempting to pass new laws concerning immigration and how to keep immigrants out of the United States.  Today as they always have, immigrants settle across the United States, some anxiously wanting to learn the English language, some not.  But all have the same desired goal, a better life.  How do we say No? Or should we say No?

Are we really the land of opportunity? And if so, why are we the mecca?  At work, I am faced weekly with newly arrived immigrants from all over the world.  Immigrants who bring their deaf and hearing-impaired children to the U.S. with the hope of obtaining better medical treatment, better medical technology. Immigrants who bring their blind and multiply handicapped children to our country so that they won’t be stigmatized and left to grow up uneducated and isolated. How do we turn them away? How do we turn away families wanting a better life for their hearing-impaired children or deaf child? Knowing they may never have that opportunity in their own country. 

The tougher question is how do we differentiate between those who are here to help their children from those who want to eventually see our downfall?  The 21st Century is a very different place than the previous century. 

Tough questions need answers. After surfing the web to learn about hearing technology around the world and the problems faced, I find myself, very concerned.  Some countries offer socialized medicine to their citizens which will allow a hearing impaired person to have access to hearing aids.  Other countries claim to have the most modern technology but only the wealthy will see the likes of a hearing aid or an implant. 

I realize there are those in the U.S. who cannot afford hearing aids. However, we do have the resources to help those who can't afford it.  The problem is, and this is a discussion for another day, the middle-class individual gets flipped off.

Another area of concern is, several U.S. companies do provide aids and technology to Third World countries, but not the education needed to assist the families and culture in deciphering what it all means.  Just as the hearing impaired in the U.S. suffer situations where we feel alienated and isolated, so we share this common ground with all our hearing impaired friends around the world.

So, after surfing the web and reading the articles our members have submitted, we can conclude that we need to focus on Education. Not Educating the deaf or Educating the hard of hearing individual, but Educating the hearing population.  Educating them to be patient, tolerant and accepting when confronted with a person who wears a hearing aid. Understanding that wearing hearing aids or being implanted does not mean we now have 20/20 hearing.   And lastly, we need to Educate hearing people on the importance of not alienating us as well as not being afraid to communicate with us.

This edition of SWC Online Voices is dedicated to our international members around the globe. We are privileged to have several individuals share their personal life experiences while others shared their countries accessibility to technology.     

After you read the articles presented in this issue, I believe you will find as I did, that whatever accessibility there is or is not; whatever personal trauma we experience because of our loss of hearing, we stand on common ground.  Whether you live in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, Rajasthan State of India or in Monticello, New York, the same issues arise worldwide.