Call me by my name.

I generally love my class. I think I've made that pretty clear. But today something happened that just bugged me. Today we were working on this exercise matching the beginning and ends of Italian idioms together when my professor stopped to make a point about the language used in some of them. She explained to us that some words were not politically correct and were not used often. One of her examples was, of course, being Deaf. She explained that instead of saying someone is "sordo," you say "non udente," or "not hearing."

Now, it's not often I get up the courage to say much in class, but I just couldn't let this slide. I mustered up the courage, rose my hand, and putting as much confidence into my voice as possible, said in Italian, "I think that Deaf prefer that term to non hearing since it's not just a disability, it's a culture." She looked at me, acknowledging what I said, and responded that although she didn't know what people want to be called, it's not gentile to write or say that.

As a psychology student I learned that people who sign and are proud of being Deaf don't like the term hard of hearing. Not being entirely sure of if that was universal or just an American preference, I talked to my friend and former professor Rita who is a major player in the Italian Deaf community and found out that I was spot on. But she also said that while there are signing classes at the University for Foreigners, my professor was probably not a part of the community and didn't know that she was wrong.

I think that's pretty fair, but it brings up a topic that is wildly interesting to me: identity. In fact, that's the reason why I'm back in Italy. I'm working on a Fulbright application (fingers crossed) in order to work on interactions that migrants have with Italians and their identity. But getting back to my point, I often wonder who decides the identity of a person or people and the process of how it's formed. I know, thanks to Rita and our Sociology class, that it's a community interaction. People refer to each other on their similarities, but more frequently on their differences. But who gets to decide what he or she is called?

Not everyone wishes to be called Deaf if they don't associate with the community. Same with other abilities, ethnicities, occupations, etc. My Italian professor herself said that you no longer call one who collects garbage a "garbage man," but the correct term is "ecological operator." Just thinking about how an individual is named is an interesting thought experience. In most Western cultures, parents give children a name. At some point that usually becomes a soprannome, or nickname, and people have the power to ask individuals to call them something specifically.

Now I've got A LOT of nicknames, but have made more of a conscious decision to introduce myself as Samantha in professional circles, while I don't care very much what friends call me. My family has their own set of nicknames for me (some of which cannot be repeated...just kidding!). And the living-in-Italy thing I've been doing the last couple of years put me into existential crisis over how I would pronounce my last name. But beyond my own nominal issues (pun intended), I think it's important that we recognize that others have preferences when they express them. Most people love their names. Don't individuals have an implicit freedom to request how they're recalled or categorized?

Now, Rita may be right. My professor may not know about the Deaf community and her fault ends at her ignorance. But tell me then, where does ignorance end? I have opinions, but I'll save those for another time. :)