This dissertation explores how individuals, living in the Pacific Northwest, who are both African American and Deaf navigate their many cultural identities. Because both the mainstream Deaf community and the hearing African American community use language as a way to transmit cultural identity how does someone who potentially belongs to both communities negotiate their identity? How does their language choice inform their identity? To which community do they have more of an affinity to or do they create a unique African American Deaf community?

By employing different anthropological methods, including participant observation at various sites and interviewing, I was able to witness first hand how language was used to construct and maintain identity. Formal and informal interviews gave me the opportunity to hear the life narratives of Deaf African Americans that addressed the many questions language choice raises. Through videotaped interviews and events I was able to analyze the discourses about how individuals perceived and changed their language choice as a way to belong to a community.

Many participants shared how they felt similar yet different in both communities. On the one hand while participating in hearing African American cultural rituals like church and family gatherings, they felt connected because they had race/ethnicity in common. However, because the majority of them were raised in families where no one used sign language communication was hindered. While in the mainstream white Deaf community though sign language was used as a way to communicate, their unique African American style of ASL was either not understood or not accepted so they felt they had to conform to the standard style of ASL, in essence downplaying their racial/ethnic background.

This dissertation challenges the pervasive notion in the mainstream Deaf community that deafness and ASL are the only factors that unite the community. It also highlights the need to broaden the definition of who is a member of the mainstream African American community.