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When I was little, my mother used to say,
當我很小的時候，母親曾經說過，
The love you have for your children is like no other feeling in the world.
父母對子女的愛是世界上其它一切感情都無法比擬的，
And until you have children, you don't know what it's like.
只有當你擁有自己的孩子時，你才能體會到。
And when I was little, I took it as the greatest compliment in the world that she would say that about parenting my brother and me.
我小的時候，把母親講的關于撫育我和弟弟的這段話當成是世界上最高稱贊。
And when I was an adolescent, I thought that I'm gay, and so I probably can't have a family.
當我成為一個青少年的時候，我想我是同性戀，所以我可能不會有自己的家庭。
And when she said it, it made me anxious.
當母親說那些話的時候，我就會感到很焦慮。
And after I came out of the closet,
當我的事公之于眾后,
when she continued to say it, it made me furious.
母親還重提此事,我感到很惱火。
I said, I'm gay. That's not the direction that I'm headed in.
我說：我是同性戀。我不會走那條路。
And I want you to stop saying that.
我希望你不要再說那些話了。
About 20 years ago, I was asked by my editors at The New York Times Magazine to write a piece about deaf culture.
大約二十年前，《紐約時報》主編讓我寫一篇關于聾人文化的文章。
And I was rather taken aback.
我感到很驚訝。
I had thought of deafness entirely as an illness.
我原以為耳聾就是一種疾病。
Those poor people, they couldn't hear.
那些可憐的人呀，他們什么都聽不見。
They lacked hearing, and what could we do for them?
如果他們聽不見，我們能為他們做什么呢？
And then I went out into the deaf world.
接下來，我走進了聾人世界。
I went to deaf clubs.
我去了聾人俱樂部。
I saw performances of deaf theater and of deaf poetry.
觀看了聾人的表演。
I even went to the Miss Deaf America contest in Nashville, Tennessee where people complained about that slurry Southern signing.
我甚至去了田納西州納什維爾的美國聾人小姐選秀賽，居然有人抱怨她們甜膩的南方手語口音。
And as I plunged deeper and deeper into the deaf world,
隨著越來越融入聾人世界，
I become convinced that deafness was a culture and that the people in the deaf world who said,
我開始相信耳聾是一種文化，并且聾人世界中的人也說，
We don't lack hearing, we have membership in a culture,
我們不是聽力不健全，我們是一種文化，
were saying something that was viable.
這是可行的。
It wasn't my culture,
這不是我的文化，
and I didn't particularly want to rush off and join it,
我也沒想沖過去加入這種文化，
but I appreciated that it was a culture and that for the people who were members of it,
但我欣賞它是一種文化，對其中的成員而言，
it felt as valuable as Latino culture or gay culture or Jewish culture.
它的價值就如同拉美文化，同性戀文化或猶太文化。
