The View from Within and Without: Conducting Research on Deaf Asian Americans

This paper is a reflection on the process of researching and writing about Deaf Asian Americans (Akamatsu, 1993; Fischgrund & Akamatsu,1993). As a hearing person, I have used both quantitative and qualitative methods to study issues of bilingual language development primarily in deaf populations. However, it was not until recently that I realized that much of what I knew about deafness was in relationship to white Deaf Americans, and that much of what I knew about Asian Americans was about hearing Asian Americans. Two questions are considered in this text 1. In what way does looking at a problem from the inside contribute to one\u27s thinking in terms of formulating questions and interpreting the data? 2. What social, institutional, or cultural barriers (if any) exist that prevent insider knowledge from becoming general knowledge? The text that is to follow is rather a story of research and writing rather than an academic treatise addressing the questions in any formalized way. My thinking about the questions will be interwoven throughout rather than addressed directly