From the mouth of a Hard-of-Hearing student

Its a Friday night and 9pm and I'm home transcribing interviews.  I just finished this quote.  It gave me chills and I wanted to share it with you all.

When asked about being a Hard-of-Hearing student at Gallaudet my participant responded:

"You’re a stranger in a strange land. You’re either Deaf or Hearing, and when you’re in the middle ground it’s like either being black or white, or mixed, you don’t really have an identity.  There is no point in coming here [Gallaudet] when you’re kind of an unwanted here. Like all the hearing kids, "Oh you’re hearing, you’re an interpreting major; or you're Deaf, you’re a legacy. Oh you’re Hard-of-Hearing? Well why are you here?"  "Well, I play football."  "Oh of course you’re here to play football, you’re here to play basketball, you’re here to do something." Its just like you kind of....just [SHRUGS SHOULDERS].  We’re the labor force. Like you have X amount of Deaf people, and you have X amount of Hearing people, you got to have something that fills the void.  You have to put Hard-of-Hearing kids in the middle, and when you do that it gives you someone to hate, I guess. I don’t know.  You know what I mean? Everyone needs a scapegoat, every community has a scapegoat."

These stories...like whoa.