Deafness, Patriotism and Core Values

As a patriotic, I wanted to soften my overwhelming power through communicating with the public about core values and disability issues. After attending the Truman’s Intern Security Springboard’s first luncheon meeting last week, I had the moment to think about the core values that are part of the National Security community, although, they are not related to disability issues, I still wanted to “compare” the core values with the core values which the Deaf community has. Learning about these values help to make a person a strong patriotic leader in the United States of America. I will explain about these core values later in this blog entry. But, first, please allow me to explain about this message that is related to one of the core values. The Truman’s project program supports a persuasive security message based on America’s history, and this message emphasizes one of the core values in one idea.

The message is ---“we want America to be secure and powerful. To achieve this [goal], we increase our friends and isolate our enemies. We built stability by spreading opportunity”--- After hearing this message, I realized that to make America powerful, we need to strongly embrace this core value---keeping America secure and powerful; I strongly believe in this value. In order to honor this core value of keeping America secure and powerful, we need to interact with the right persons who share this core value. Sometimes, I think that to interact with the right persons who share my values is a great way to remind each other of how important it is to honor this value. Suppose, a Deaf community has the same values as mine, I may even trust them to conjure up policies because they share my values. So, this is what happens in the political campaign process, you get the right persons to campaign for a specific political cause which supports this core value--- keeping America secure and powerful, and then we can keep our country safe.

Are you wondering what core values does a Deaf community embraces? The Deaf community has core values of loyalty and honor. In our Deaf community, we have leaders serving for many Deaf-owned and operated non-profit organizations. These Deaf leaders share these core values of embracing loyalty and honor in serving for their organizations in America. What is interesting is that these values are the same values that the U.S. Military embraces, too. These values are what you live or die on. Moreover, the Deaf community embraces other values such as duty, respect, selfless service, integrity, personal courage. And, these values are also the same values that the official U.S. Army embraces as well. Additionally, the U.S. Military’s Honor Code is almost similar to the “honor code” that a Deaf community embraces, also. When each individual in the Deaf community abides his or her “honor code”, this individual live accordingly to this “honor code” as he or she serves as an "ambassador” for the Deaf community worldwide since, America is, increasingly, merging in this interdependent world where the issues of security and prosperity are being tied to other countries. With this in mind, the Deaf ambassadors should, therefore, be encouraged to fully embrace these values in order to make America more secure and powerful, because when we do fulfill this “obligation”, we will, then, become a valuable asset and an exemplary example to the international community as a whole, protecting our country against potential threats.

Despite the obstacles we face as Deaf persons living in a world of hatreds, prejudices, discriminations, it has become increasingly important that we redefine our Deaf identifies and reexamine these values, especially, in this time where defense and security issues are occurring in war-torn nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The Deaf ambassadors should be, greatly, encouraged to set a perfect example for this international community. When we show others that we embrace our core values and demonstrate our leadership abilities, we, then, impact the world. For instance, if I act as diplomatic, righteous and civilized individual, I can encourage other people to develop open transparency and diplomatic negotiation in globalization because these tools are necessary and important. Additionally, we the Deaf community, however, embraces the concept of patriotism. When we are being loyal to our country and fostering positive and supportive attitude toward this country, especially in periods of national turmoil such as a war, we help to keep America secure and powerful.

We the Deaf are overwhelming supportive towards our own country because of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This specific Act gives us the right to receive reasonable disability accommodations such as interpreting services. With this law being established, we can have access to ALL communication facilities and participation opportunities in the congressional hearings, election voting processes, and national security think tanks, and, educational and professional opportunities. Although, we embrace the concept of patriotism, we still always strive to keep our culture, traditions, languages (American Sign Language) together even when the America’s political and social influences have already impacted us. Since the American people have defined us, we refuse to let the hearing population of people with heavily social and political influences to convince us more into losing our values or to recede us further into political stigmatization. By embracing our values and sticking to them, we then, can set a perfect example for the people in Iraq and Afghanistan countries that the very intention which lies in our mission is to confront these existing power institutions in U.S. and overseas.

Best,
Toronja-