Chapter 8: An American Mother Raising a Deaf Daughter in Small-Town Japan by Suzanne Kamata
Abstract
In this chapter, I describe my struggle, as an American mother in Japan, to understand and adapt to the policies of the local school for the deaf, and the possible effects of being bicultural on my deaf daughter’s educational development. As Sikes and Goodson (2017) posit, we make sense of our lives through the telling and retelling of stories of our lived experiences. As such, “personal narratives have a status as personal, as well as research, data” (2017, p. 64). In the case of parents of children with disabilities, such as myself, “the potentialities or limits of a narrative plotline are contested; the available narratives are considered inadequate, and narrators turn to counter-narratives with alternative plotlines” (Shuman, 2017, p. 244). Here, I will employ personal narrative, incorporating personal memory data and self-observational and self-reflection data to explore some of the differences regarding attitudes toward and practices of education for deaf children from a bicultural background (specifically Hispanic/Latino) in the United States and my own experiences in Japan, and to suggest areas for further study.
About the Contributor
Suzanne Kamata is an Associate Professor at Naruto University of Education in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. She has been teaching and writing in Japan since 1988. Her books include the anthologies Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering, as well as the memoir Squeaky Wheels: Travels with My Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia.
Citation
Kamata, S. (2020). An American mother raising a deaf daughter in small-town Japan. In M. L. Cook & L. G. Kittaka (Eds.), Intercultural families and schooling in Japan: Experiences, issues, and challenges (pp. 197-217). Candlin & Mynard. https://doi.org/10.47908/12/8
In this chapter, I describe my struggle, as an American mother in Japan, to understand and adapt to the policies of the local school for the deaf, and the possible effects of being bicultural on my deaf daughter’s educational development. As Sikes and Goodson (2017) posit, we make sense of our lives through the telling and retelling of stories of our lived experiences. As such, “personal narratives have a status as personal, as well as research, data” (2017, p. 64). In the case of parents of children with disabilities, such as myself, “the potentialities or limits of a narrative plotline are contested; the available narratives are considered inadequate, and narrators turn to counter-narratives with alternative plotlines” (Shuman, 2017, p. 244). Here, I will employ personal narrative, incorporating personal memory data and self-observational and self-reflection data to explore some of the differences regarding attitudes toward and practices of education for deaf children from a bicultural background (specifically Hispanic/Latino) in the United States and my own experiences in Japan, and to suggest areas for further study.
About the Contributor
Suzanne Kamata is an Associate Professor at Naruto University of Education in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. She has been teaching and writing in Japan since 1988. Her books include the anthologies Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering, as well as the memoir Squeaky Wheels: Travels with My Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia.
Citation
Kamata, S. (2020). An American mother raising a deaf daughter in small-town Japan. In M. L. Cook & L. G. Kittaka (Eds.), Intercultural families and schooling in Japan: Experiences, issues, and challenges (pp. 197-217). Candlin & Mynard. https://doi.org/10.47908/12/8
Information About the Book
Title: Intercultural Families and Schooling in Japan: Experiences, Issues, and Challenges
Editors: Melodie Lorie Cook and Louise George Kittaka
Publication date: 24 September 2020
Read more...
Title: Intercultural Families and Schooling in Japan: Experiences, Issues, and Challenges
Editors: Melodie Lorie Cook and Louise George Kittaka
Publication date: 24 September 2020
Read more...