Gloria Rosen, CODA, Playwright

Gloria Rosen  lives in New York City and  has a story that is very compelling. She grew up with mother father deaf,  but was forbidden to sign.  Read/listen to her story of her mother's attempt to protect her children and how she proved she was a capable deaf mother and was able to teach her children to function in the  hearing world.  Gloria has a one woman show that depicts her life, please see the links below.   Thank you for listening/reading..please share.

Show link:
https://www.listenshow.com

Email Gloria at :
gloriacodarosen@gmail.com
(917) 690-0490

Transcript

Tina: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Tina's Corner podcast. We are a group of like minded sign language interpreters set out to improve the field of sign language interpreting. We have deaf, hearing, DeafBlind consumers, and both hearing and deaf interpreters. And the focus of this podcast is to strengthen the bond between those groups of individuals. All persons, regardless of years of experience will benefit from this podcast. I am Tina Perry, and I welcome you. Today I have invited Gloria Rosen to share her insights and experiences so that others can see that interpreters travel different roads on their journey, only to arrive at the same destination equality of information for all consumers. Welcome, Gloria. I'm glad you're here.

Gloria: 0:48

Oh, thank you so much for inviting me, Tina. I'm really excited to do this. And I'm really appreciate your asking me to be to be just a part of this. Wonderful.

Tina: 0:56

Well, Gloria Isn't what we would consider a typical interpreter as we know it, but she is a CODA and has a story that will probably keep you on the edge of your seat. Gloria Rosen is a very unique individual. She is a CODA, an actor, and an unexpected playwright that I'm sure we're going to get into later. Gloria comes to us from Hell's Kitchen, New York City, right in the heart of Times Square. Yep. Right where they drop that ball every January 1. Now glory is on a journey, exploring herself and her identity as a CODA. Her experiences are not the typical CODA responsibilities that many CODA share, But she is very unique. And I'm going to let Gloria tell us about that. But for now, let's welcome Gloria. Gloria, welcome, again.

Gloria: 1:46

Thank you so much for inviting me, I really, really appreciate this. And I'm happy to just tell you whatever story that we can, we can cover today. And let's go do it.

Tina: 1:57

We'll try to cover everything we could possibly get to. But first of all, what I would like for you to do, tell me a little bit about your family dynamics.

Gloria: 2:05

Well, this is again, this is this is a little different. And it begins quite a long time ago. You know, it's actually it's actually more than a century is when this when this all started, because my parents were born 1911, 1912. And my father the story about my father is that he was born hearing and became deaf when he was when he was when he was four years old. I kind of doubt that, because by four years old, he should have had some language and he never did. And I think that his Russian immigrant parents did not really know that he couldn't hear until he became very, very ill or four years old. And the doctor told them that the fact that he couldn't hear. So it was very clear. And he when he started school, the teachers, he was very charming. He was always very charming. He was gorgeous. And he was charming. teachers loved him, and they said, we can't teach him, please send him to a school for the deaf. So they sent me to the Lexington School for the Deaf. And he had a wonderful time there. I mean that the other little boys taught him you know how to sign and hiding in the bathroom, learning how to sign. And he told me he snuck in banana sandwiches, he had a great time. My mother, on the other hand, was born really hard of hearing. And her parents, but she was also, oddly enough, this is somehow a natural lip reader. So if her parents told her to do something, you know, it was looking at her, she would do it. But if she had her back to them, or she was in her room, and they called her, they got mad at her. She didn't come they would hit her they never really understood until a neighbor came in and said, "Excuse me, why are you hitting that child? Don't you know she's deaf"? And they didn't. So they took her to the doctors. And they said, "Well, you know, she can't hear". She was tests, and they found out that she really couldn't hear and to them. And of course, again, these these are people who never had encountered anything like this. They just thought oh, well, well, she's not bad. She just stupid. That was not true. And the doctor said, "Look, send her to PS 47 School for the Deaf". That was a very prominent school, you know, at that time, and she went there for two years. She told me later, those are the really were the best two years of her childhood. Because the teachers were kind. They were understanding she met other deaf children. But the point the thing about that school and at that time in the 20s they did not teach sign language. Absolutely not. They would talk speech. They were taught lip reading. That's how you fit into the hearing world. That was the whole message fit into the hearing world you're not fine. And I read an interview of my mother of course given many many years later and she was talking about the school and she said well they didn't sign in the school. But after five o'clock out on the sidewalk, the fingers were going all over the place. They were, of course, they were, of course they were signing. So when they were skipping a lot of years here, when my parents got engaged, my mother's family and his family did not like, did not like that combination, especially my mother's family because my father didn't speak, he really just signed it very hard to understand him. And my grandmother said to my mother,"why do you want to marry with that deaf boy, you know, you fingers in the air, what kind of thing are these children going to go like that it's really not going to talk". So my mother was determined that number one, she was going to get married, and she was going to have children. But what was going to happen was that they were going to be perfect. So because when, when my brother was born, like, part of the reason that my mother wanted to meet my father was because his, all of his family were hearing, he was the only deaf person in a hearing family. My mother was the only deaf person in her family. And she figured, knowing genetics, how she knew that at the time, I don't know that the odds were, he might have hearing children if she married a man without deaf background. So they got married, they had a hearing son. And my father at that time said, he shouldn't be alone, we should have one more. And the reason he said that was because my mother was determined that the children were not going to learn sign language they were going to speak. And my father knew that. And so they really took a chance. You know, they took a chance the second time, you know, that I would be able to hear. And of course, I did. So it was, you know, me and my brother on one side, my parents on the other side, totally different worlds. And what my mother did was to read to us and she, she spoke very well, she could hear a little bit, you know, growing up, and her brother helped her. And her speech was beautiful. She taught us literature, she read to read to us constantly. And it wasn't like, you know, baby stuff, you know, run Spot Run, I don't think she knew about those books. (inaudible) And it was Shakespeare, and it was Robert Louis Stevenson. I still have some of those books. And I remember the lines that that she taught us, and they were beautiful. And that's what she gave us. She gave us grammar she gave us to give us readings, she gave us a love of books. What we didn't get was communication with my father. She got that was

Tina: 7:28

She gave you communication with the hearing world. But you just said she did not give you communication with your father. And that's kind of come around at the end here. But that's very interesting.

Gloria: 7:42

Yeah, that's Yeah, exactly. You know, that's exactly right. The way you were you put it in even I've never put it that way. He gave us communication, we were going to be part of the hearing world. That is exactly right. Not the Deaf, the hearing world. So tell me even if that meant she was going to be the interpreter between us and our father.

Tina: 8:02

So what did communication look like for you and your family?

Gloria: 8:07

Well, if you came to our, you know, came to our house for dinner, what you would see is my brother and I, you know, talking to my mother, and she would in turn, sign, you know, to my father, he knew that we were taught to lip read. I mean, we were read that so that we could communicate at least you know, with her. So with when she spoke to my father in front of us, she, she made she first of all, she talks, she signs really, really fast. And she never moved her lips when she spoke to my father in front of us. And we had no idea what she was what she was saying to him. You know, she kept her communication with him very private. So it kind of kept us a little bit separate, you know, a lot separate, you know, from from him.

Tina: 8:54

Oh, I would guess that would be yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you weren't able to communicate with him, but it had to go through the interpreter, which is your mother, but it kind of sounds like a role reversal. Where as you know, the same thing happened to us. But we were the interpreters for our parents in that respect. So that's very interesting that and sad, on the other hand, that you could not openly communicate with your father. Did you ever encounter other deaf people or CODAs? What was that like? What was your interaction like?

Gloria: 9:28

Well, not really not CODAs they were two kids. Of my mother had a friend or their son was sort of my was my age. The daughter was was much younger. I saw them a couple of times, but really not not very much. And then her deaf friends would come, my mother, my mother was the editor of The Club Newspaper, and once a month everybody would come over you know and help you know put the put the newspaper together. They also had a card club and they can all came over once a month. You know, to the my parents apartment, and, and I would just say hello. And that was it. It was very little, you know, a conversation, I couldn't really have a conversation with sound. And I would just go up there and read a book. That was that really was. My life was very it was very, I loved it because I love to read. And that's what I did. I just said hello and read a book. So I really didn't even I didn't really even have hearing children to play with because my parents did not communicate with the neighbors. They all their communication was with their deaf friends and their deaf club in New York. There was really nothing in the neighborhood. So I had maybe one one friend in the neighborhood that I you know, played with a little bit, but it was never a group. I never a group of children, and certainly not CODAs, and certainly not deaf not deaf children.

Tina: 10:55

So your parents did they graduate?

Gloria: 11:00

My father went, as I said, went to Lexington School. I think I don't know what the grades were. I don't know how how long he went. My mother went to PS-47. But that only went to the eighth grade for two years. And then she went to Jamaica High School where actually where I went to school. So okay, once you sat in the front row, and she could understand she would get an A. I have a suitcase a good old suitcase full of my father's letters, that the only time they ever wrote to each other. Well, let's talk about that a little bit. But I have her school papers. I have an A in her Spanish paper. I have an A and an essay that she wrote Jamaica High in the year 2000. And what she thought it would look like and some of that stuff, actually was very correct. She talked about airplanes, she talked about, about people talking on screen. It's a wonderful little essay. And she saved that stuff. Very, very proud of that stuff. Because her her parents treated her like she was stupid. They had no appreciation of her at all.

Tina: 12:05

So what did your school did you ever communicate to your school that you had deaf parents? And how did that play out for you?

Gloria: 12:13

No, I never I never did. I never once mentioned anything, anything like that. I think my mother, my mother came to school. Once. One of the teachers I think wanted to talk to her my art teacher because I was thought there was something off. And he asked her I don't think either my father was out parking, or he never spoke while he was there. Because the teachers never caught on that they were deaf. My mother spoke very well. And she came home and she said he asked her if there's something wrong at home. And she came back and said to me is there you know, your teacher asked me is anything wrong at home? And I said no. And that was the end of that. It was there was no there was no discussion. No discussion after that. That was the only connection that anything on what might have happened but it but it didn't.

Tina: 13:06

Wow. So when you say you do consider do you do do some interpreting. But if it didn't look like a sign language interpreter, my correct. And, and I love the your show that you have that we're going to talk about a little later. But you referred to yourself as the original lip lip-syncher. And it was all Yeah, hilarious. And so tell us about that.

Gloria: 13:30

Well, you know, my Show of Shows and The Hit Parade and Ed Sullivan and you know, all that stuff. We watch all that What's my Line, all that stuff. I was the interpreter. I was they read lips. And that's what I did. It was lip-syncing. You know, I just repeated to them everything that was you know, that was that was going on. And that's how that's how they that's how they watched. That's how they watch tv. So yeah, I was deaf. I was on The Show of Shows and the songs and Dinah Shore. Yeah, I lip-synched all that stuff. Yeah.

Tina: 14:01

That had to be a lot. That had to be taxing.

Gloria: 14:05

It's, it's, it's a little tiring. It's a little tiring. But the other thing that gets that what got tired was actually my mother. Because, and again, this is something that I've learned being around the CODAs and being around all of this and doing the show and, you know, kind of really learning about this, you know myself about what my background, you know, brought up because I remember talking, trying to talk to my mother and having a conversation with her. And I could tell by the look on her face. She's looking right at me. And I can even tell now when somebody, it's kind of like you're saying words, and they're leaving your mouth and they're turning around and they're coming back in your ear, but they're not quite reaching the person that you're actually talking to. And I would stop talking and I would say to her,"You know what I said"? She would say? "Yes". "Good. Good. What did I say"? "I don't know". Got it got, I just thought I must be really boring, or really stupid and nothing I say really, you know, it's just not just not important. Except that one day, years and years and years later, I am watching this stupid show called Dancing with the Stars. And I'm watching it because Marlee Matlin is on. And they asked her, you know, you speak so well and you read lips. "Why are you traveling with an interpreter"? And I said yeah, I'd like to know that too. And she said," I get tired". And that, to me was a revelation. I thought of all those times as my mother and I thought my poor mother, she got tired. You couldn't, you know, stare. Yeah. How can you stare at a mouth? And half the words you're not getting anyway, right? You know, lip reading is like this, you know, real, It's like, it's a guessing game at best. And luckily, sorry, (Tina) no, go ahead. (Gloria) Much, much, much later on she colud here a little bit on the phone. And, and this really was in person as well as on the phone. You know, when you say a word that a deaf person doesn't get, stop repeating the word. Think of another word. And I think that's the other thing that she gave us was vocabulary. Because you got to have more than one word to say something. Because they might not get that word. And it became like a little, you know, be a little game on the phone. It's like, okay, that word doesn't work. What what is, what other word means that word? Let's try that. I remember my cousin once saying something. And my mother over over and over again. I said, stop. Use another word. She said..."OHH that worked".

Tina: 16:45

You know, it's funny. When you said to your mom, what did I say? As a CODA going to the deaf club. I would remember deaf people would do that to me. They would be signing and I'd be nodding my head. Yes. Like I understand. And then they'd say, What did I say? I'd like and they'd be like, you shouldn't do that. You should stop me and ask me again. And again. It's like I know, but I was just a role of shaking my head. Yes.

Gloria: 17:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 17:12

That's really funny .So your mother was very impacting upon your life. She sounds it sounds like she was a little maybe. I don't know if I want to use the word domineering or controlling. But it sound like she made all the decisions, especially when it came to communication. I kind of get a sense that she had such a negative view of the hearing world. And she just did not want to be a product or a failure to the hearing world. Do you think that had? Is that on the right track?

Gloria: 17:45

Oh, very much, so very much so. But she was also very angry that she was deaf because she was saying like, "Oh, when I die, I have something to say to God". Oh, she was mad. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if she's up there. He's getting an earful. She was. She was, pissed she was pissed I'm sure she's still yelling. But that that was what I said to her years later, when the cochlear implant came out. I said, What do you think of that? I thought she would say, Oh, I'd like to do that I did. Really well. It's very tricky. It's very tricky. She said at first, and I just, I just dropped it. I just, I knew she couldn't use it anyway, because there there definitely was from my nerve. You can't fix that, that that is not fixable. But I was surprised that she said that. I was surprised that she said that. But yes, she was just, yeah, she was. She was in control. And, you know, I, I asked her, this is God, you could not sign her in public. She basically wanted to pass as hearing. And because of the way she was treated growing up, you know that to her parents, deaf meant stupid. But she was very, very aware of that. So I once to try to, you know, by the time I understood that, that we were, we were they were afraid that we were going to be taken away from her. If we you know, if we signed and we didn't speak. So she did all of that, you know, with the language and everything. But you know, by the time she was 90, you'd think that, you know, the (inaudible) with God, and like try to find something to her in a store and she had a tantrum. She got so angry, I walked out. I just let her let her calm down. And then I'll talk to her. I think it was the same day that I said to her for the first time. "Why didn't we learn to sign"? And she did one of those mother pauses, and I thought, Oh, this is gonna be good. And she said, "was your father's idea". Noooo it was not my father's idea. I just let that go. No, that's that's he'd already passed. I couldn't I couldn't ask him what that was absolutely not right. It was her. And I know and I now understand why, why she why she had to do that. But you could, but later on, once you got much older, and her eyesight started to go, she had macular degeneration. I did start(inaudible) rehab to facility, I started signing to her a little bit because she just could not get what I was saying at all. And she just looked at me, as if I had just tracked mud on the floor and said, "I bet you know, a lot of signs". Like, I didn't, you know, a lot of bad words. Yeah. Both of those. Yes, I know, a lot. But she. So I continued that until until her death, I continue to get more and more signing to her, basically, so that we could at the least, you know, communicate. She never signed back to me.

Tina: 20:49

Is that right? interesting. Did your parents sign in public?

Gloria: 20:55

Yes, they did. I think they did. They will when they went out with their deaf friends. They were all signing in public. And I think when we went out to dinner, there was certainly signing because otherwise my mother would never speak to my father when we went out. So it wasn't like that, it was just supposed to be with us. With me in public, she would never do that. She she needed. I had a friend once who said your mother, your mother wanted to pass. I had two very dear black friends who both said the same thing to me. Your mother wanted to pass (Tina) your mother wanted to pass? (Gloria)to to pass to pass as hearing. (Tina) Oh, wow. Wow, (Gloria) that was very important to her. That's why she had that's why she got angry with me. And that's why she didn't want me to sign to her and would never sign back. But then all the people around wouldn't treat her well. They would just ignore her like her parents did.

Tina: 21:55

Do you think well before she died that she gained some peace by knowing that you really could sign somewhat? (Gloria) Nah, (Tina) no. No, I was trying to get a little closure there. But no, no,

Gloria: 22:12

No. In fact, I, at one point, inadvertently, the words fell out of my mouth before they hit my brain and I could stop it. Yeah, I had been working on the show. I've been writing the show. And I said what actually was 94. What would you think if I wrote a show about the way we grew up? And within a milli second, It was barely out of my mouth. She said after I'm gone.

Tina: 22:37

Well, it sounds like she gave her blessing for it though.

Gloria: 22:40

Kind of Yeah, she did.(Tina) Yeah, she did. Of course, I had already done it. But I showed us some of the reviews. And she was happy about that. She was always happy when her kids did something that she could show people. And it was kind of like, Look at this. I'm deaf and I have an I have good kids. You know, I have this is what my kids do. She liked I knew I knew that would make her happy.

Tina: 23:03

Or that I am deaf and I succeeded at raising good children. Yeah. Hearing children. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me why and how are you exploring your CODA identity?

Gloria: 23:22

That that really never, never would have happened. But I was I was at a cabaret show, of my music teacher and I saw this man. It was like, you know, one of these. Some enchanted evening are across a crowded room, I saw this man. I just like the way he looked. I said to the guy next to me. I said, "Who was that"? He said "Peter Flint". I said,"What does he do"? "He teaches acting". I said, "I'm going to work with him". And I worked with him for 13 years. While I was working with him, when I started my father and my brother had already gone. So it was just me and my mother. Mothers and daughters, great combinations, hearing, deaf, whatever the combination is my mother, you know, I would go visit her and you know, after our 900 fight, she finally said to me, you know, I was I was raised at home I I never had a roommate. I always lived at home. I lived at home so she got married. I never I never had a roommate. Your father always did whatever I wanted. He never said no. Even if I was wrong. (Tina) Wow.(Gloria) So when I said no she didn't like it, you know, so that's why we had a little we had a little problem. So I would tell Peter all the you know, stories. He had never met anyone deaf and ever anyone that you know, a child as if he never heard any of these stories. And if you have to write this, I said no I don't, absolutely not. This is not going to happen. But I really adored this man. And he said he would mentor the show, he said, all you have to do. And I said, Look, I told you a couple of funny stories. I don't remember anything else. He says, Just come here once a week, it wasn't gonna, you know, charge me just come once a week, and I'm gonna ask questions, and we'll talk and I just thought, you know, you know, really, I love my brother and I loved my father. He was a very, he was very sweet. He was funny, he was gorgeous. We just couldn't have a conversation with him. And, and just before that my brother had actually said to me about a colleague of his, you know,"Bill was a father I never had". And I was really shocked to hear him say that, Well, Peter was the father I never had. And I don't even mean that if being mean to my father, and just we couldn't talk to him. And I could say anything, you know, you know, to Peter. And there was some reasons why I didn't want to do the show. And there were I know, wait, you know, you know, talking about kind of going back a little bit doing interpreting, you know, from my, from my, from my parents. My mother was in the hospital when I was about 14. And I had to make these phone calls, I did all the interpreting in the house, you know, for the doctors. And so the phone calls and everything I was I was the one on the phone. And at one point, I had to call a doctor who would actually abused with me when I was 10 years old. It was it was very, very difficult encounter. And this guy lived across the street. And my, father, this is like two weeks my mother's in the hospital every night, "call up doctor, call him up doctor, call my doctor, how mama, how's your mother"? I do not want to do it was a nightmare. That probably was the worst encounter I've ever had, you know, that kind of interpreting. I had done that since I was a little kid. I mean, I'd be like, seven years old. And my father was in the building trade and the plumbers and the plasterist, and everybody would call. And they would be yelling at me and my father would be yelling at them and I'm in the middle I'm in the middle. Okay, no, I don't I don't know where the sheetrock is. They're always going back and forth. And he says, he says, I want to talk. I want to talk to David, and I want to talk to you. I want to talk to Dave and I say, Dave, you can't talk to David. David, is deaf. And I get the classic line. "What? He's dead"? No, he's not dead. He's deaf" . I mean, how many of us have you know, gone through that? So I have gotten so far off the path always this year. This is the kind of stuff I was talking to Peter, I was telling Peter so, we finally got I finally said "yes", you know that I would do it. And when I you know, safety was a father, I never had these incidents that happen. I never told my father anything. (Tina) Wow,(Gloria) I there was nothing. I know language. I couldn't couldn't talk to him. And part of the reason I didn't want to write the show is because I knew that some of this stuff had to be in there. As circumspect as I could be about it without turning people off. And I wrote the whole thing out, I wrote stuff that I would never do in the show. I just wrote the whole thing. And I read it to Peter. And all he said was, "I'm sorry, that happened to you". That's all I needed. That was what I needed from my father. That was what Peter did for me. (Tina) Wow. (Gloria) So I finally did you know, I finally did at what and what happened was we did not do this for the deaf community. We didn't do it. I didn't know about the CODA community. I had one encounter, you know what the CODAs and we can talk about that. But when I did the show, I did it for a few years. And then I did it in New York. And the people that I was doing it with who were handling it producing it, came to me and said, "What do we do if a deaf person asks us why the show isn't being interpreted"? I said excuse me, what what did you do? Well, they had written to Lydia callous? Who runs an interpreting agency, who was the only hearing person in 10 generations of deaf, they just invited her to a show that isn't being interpreted. Oh, then they then they invited somebody who is deaf. And they didn't know that. And I said,"All right, all right. All right. Don't do anything. I'm going to fix this". I wrote to both of them. What I said was, I just made up a story. I said, look, it's a fringe. It's it's it's there's no Spotlight, the interpreters not going to be the next time I do this. I will have an interpreter and I did and that changed everything.

Tina: 29:52

So it is sign it has a sign language interpreter while while you do the act yourself so there is an interpreter there as well.

Gloria: 30:00

is always, when I do it online, it is captioned and interpreted. When I do it in a theater You bet it is. Boy, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about what kind of interpreter I needed. You know, first of all, it's autobiographical. It has to be a guy, it has to be a woman, it has to be a woman, because the person I wanted was somebody who has been talking to on the phone, I thought he was hilarious. Well, I met him years later, he's six foot two, and he has a beard, and it's not going to work. You know, it's the sight line I didn't even understand about sight line. You know, I didn't understand what a platform interpreter was. And it's very few of them. And I got very, very lucky. I had, I had the premier, the premier platform interpreter in New York during my first show. Nice. And that

Tina: 30:49

Take us down your CODA experience. I know you had an experience with CODA, the CODA organization. Tell us a little bit about that.

Gloria: 30:58

I think my mother told me about it, because I can't remember anybody ever there was nobody in my life or whatever even mentioned the word CODA. And in my mother's date book Millie Brother, and the word CODA. And she must have told me about it. And I got in touch with him. And I thought, Oh, this is going to be great. You know, Just like me, no sign, you know? Well, you know what happened when I walked into a room full of, you know, CODAs? I said shit, this is not going to work. This is really bad. This is This is No, no, this ain't working for me. And I just thought it was a retreat. And it was an overnight and I saw them signing behind my back. And this is a nightmare. And I said, okay, okay. And then we're really being very nice, actually. But the whole signing thing was absolutely threw me. Because I normally not only didn't sign I was forbidden to sign your sooner pee on the rug than sign in front of my mother, you just didn't do that. And the next day, I thought, alright, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna see what happens. You know, tomorrow, maybe there's something here for me. And they're in this big circle. And the leader says, "Well, listen everybody, it's Johnny's birthday. Let's all sing Happy Birthday. In our best deaf voices". Well, if I was horrified the day before, that just threw me right over whatever edge on Mount Everest I was on, because there was no coming back from that. I mean, to me, it was making fun of deaf people. I just, I just was appalled by the whole thing. So years late, this is way before the show. This is way before the show. And then I did it. And then I was invited to New Jersey to do it and at that by that time. Tom Bull I don't know if you know, Tom. (Tina) I'm not sure. (Gloria) Tom Tom Tom's other name is Mr. CODA. He has been to every single CODA conference. He wrote a book called he has an anthology called "On The Edge of Deaf Culture". And it's all of the CODAs are in that book who do anything about writing or books or anything. He found out about me, he contacted me. And that was my first contact with with a CODA. It couldn't have been anybody better.(Tina) Wow.(Gloria) And I mentioned to him, I said, "Tom, I've been invited, you know, to New Jersey", and he said, "oh, you should contact" and he gave me a name. He gave me a name. And I said, "Tom, there's a little bit of a problem here. These are the ones that I walked away from all those years ago, wow. And I just disappeared". So I think he, I think he sent an introduction because I wrote that woman, a note it's Mariann Jacobson. I just adore Tom, I adore her. And I wrote an apology all those years later, I said, this is what happened. And to Rose Morba but I wrote to those two people. I got a beautiful note back from Marianne that said, "Come to Jersey, do the show. We were all we were at any given time. We were all in whatever place we're in". And they all came and that was really like absolutely wonderful for connection again, with a CODA. They were wonderful. They were absolutely wonderful. And then I decided to go to Rhode Island to the conference in Rhode Island.

Tina: 34:42

Wow. Now you really were stepping into it werent you?

Gloria: 34:45

Oh, I was freaking terrified. I hate to travel. Absolutely. But this is a train. You can take a train. I love trains, train Rhode Island. And then I thought, "Oh, what the hell"? You know, I'm terrified. I'm totally terrified. Why don't I just throw in the show just so that, you know, just like any really terrified, like eight minutes. And I did. And when I, when I do the check for my show, it's like a three hour check. For Rhode Island, it was zero, there was no check. And they gave me the mic at the last second threw me up on the stage and said, you know, just try it out, try it out. Try it out with 250 people here to try it out. I did something that I had seen them do. Because they you know, they have that hospital room when you go to conferences, and they've all tell stories. And a lot of them start off with"Mother Father deaf". And everybody says, Ah, (inaudible) people. I was dying to do that. And because I had to try out the mic, I couldn't just start the show. So I said, "Well, this is my first conference", you all applauded. And I said, "mother" and I signed "mother father deaf", 250 People said, "Ahhhh", I had a wonderful time. An absolutely wonderful time. So that they really, they really took me in, you know, and I just, you know,

Tina: 36:06

And you were welcomed to the family.

Gloria: 36:08

I was welcomed. Yeah, my little bit of sign goes a long way. Whatever I can do, I can do doesn't have to be perfect.

Tina: 36:16

You had the heart. And that's what they were. (Gloria) Yeah. (Tina) And that's what we're looking at. And you know, I want to I want to go back to Peter. You know, you refer to Peter as being your father figure, because you communicate with him. And I think that's the the thing we've heard all the way through today is communication. (Gloria) Yeah,(Tina) communication is key. Your mother was concerned about how you were going to communicate with the hearing world, she took care of how you would communicate in the home, you didn't get to communicate with your father. But Peter took care of how you could communicate. And you had so many things bottled up inside of you, that you couldn't tell your parents that you finally were able to tell. And I think that kind of let that little bird out of there to where it's like, you know what, now I can relate to this world that we call CODAs. And I think that's just awesome. So tell me, what will we walk away with when we watch your show? Which I've already watched your show? And it's awesome. I think everybody should watch it. What are we going to walk away with?

Gloria: 37:25

It is going back to communication. It comes back to communication. You know, we talk a lot about and I read a lot about you know, hearing people that have that have deaf children sticking the stick and the cochlear implant think you got a hearing child? You don't. You don't. And, and they try to mainstream. You have, everybody has said the same thing. Please. If you have deaf children, teach them to sign teach, you know, have you learned to sign for the hearing parents should learn to sign, so that you have a family. And I would say the same thing to Deaf parents. And it's not said enough. As far as I'm concerned. It's not said enough. If you have hearing children, okay, you don't need them as much as you used to. They got captions, you got the phone, you got the video, it's not as crucial. It is crucial. That's the all of that. That's not important. If you really want to have a family, and you want to have grandchildren and you want to talk to them, you all have to sign, you have to have a common language, it is crucial for that. And this isn't just about hearing and deaf. This is any, any family that has a person that's a little not like the rest of the family, you find a way to communicate, doesn't have to be deaf can be gay can be anything. It's a little different. Communicate, where you don't have a family, I ran into somebody at a very, very nice boy in a clothing store. And I was trying to ask him something and he told me he signed to me that he was deaf. And I started we started talking a little bit. And I said what about your family? And he gave me one of those signs like, you know, he brushed it off. Totally brushed and no come in no contact. I said they don't sign he said no. (Tina) Yeah,(Gloria) and the head of the Sign Language Center, and they keep my teacher at the Sign Language Center. I I took level One Three times just to get over myself so that I could oh my god, it was so difficult. And he's going around in a circle. He had taught them mother father's hearing, mother father deaf, taught them basic words that go around this circle. Tell me about your mother father, and I just thought oh what till you come to me because I'm halfway around this circle. You're not going to wait till you hear this one. And I signed mother father deaf not allowed to no sign and he was the look on his face. He was horrified. Takes his chalk this is they're all teachers they're all deaf They're all the teachers the sign language kind of goes running over to the chalkboard and he writes on it in big letters. Never too late.

Tina: 39:59

Yes.

Gloria: 40:03

And what Alan Roth told me, this is the head of the Sign Language Center. When I first came to him, and I signed a little bit, he looked at me and he said, "You sign like a deaf person". (Tina) Wow. (Gloria) Yeah. You know, you, I'm sorry, you try to teach hearing people with no connection to the deaf to sign. They have no expression on their faces. They're like, they're like, just this, like, there's nobody there hands are waving. But there's nobody home and that. I think that's the hardest thing to teach. So just going from kind of going far(inaudible) here, but the point is, is communication. It's all about communication. That's what I'm trying to say in the show. This is, and I'm not saying that overtly. But I'm saying, This is what happens. If you don't, I didn't have my father at a time when I really needed him. So I found other people who could help later on in life.

Tina: 40:56

I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I'm sure you have Helen Keller said" blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people", now I don't know if I want to go with it does, I think I would like to add to that deafness without communication, or the hearing, without, without communication, cut you off from people and it sounds like that just what happened to you. You got cut off from the ability to communicate with people, especially deaf people.

Gloria: 41:30

When she was asked about it. What would she choose if she could choose one or the other she'd say, you know, she'd stay blind but she put to deaf as a deafness was what cut her off.

Tina: 41:40

You know what, thank you so much. Can you give us your contact information so that if we would like to see the show, what contact information and I will also include this on the on the podcast.

Gloria: 41:53

Okay. I'd like to say one other very small thing about Peter before I do that. One of the one of the reasons, that I that I finally did the show was that Peter promised me something. He said, If you do this, if you do this, you will find community. And I think we always thought that really meant to theater community, you know, I always was, you know, that really the theater community. I never, and he never and I wish he was here to know this thought that it would be the CODA and the deaf community. (Tina) Nice(Gloria) that that has made this whole thing worthwhile.(Tina) That's awesome. (Gloria) Yeah, that was that was that was that was my award for doing it.(Tina)And he was right. (Gloria) He was right. He was absolutely right.

Tina: 42:37

And could we get that contact information from you

Gloria: 42:41

Yeah, yeah. My website is listen. Simple. Listen show. please? Might the name of my show was Listen, can you hear me now? That's the name of the show. The website is Listen show.com

Tina: 42:58

Listenshow.com Okay.

Gloria: 43:00

And my email, and anybody can email me to put on the on the list or if anybody has any questions at all. My email is Gloriacodarosen@gmail.com

Tina: 43:15

And I will include those on the podcast as well. (Gloria) Okay. (Tina) Gloria, thank you so, so much. This has been so enlightening. And your story is just very heartwarming. And, and I'm, and some of it's just plain heartbreaking. But obviously your mother and your father did something right. Because as an adult, you're very successful woman. And I know that the deaf community is so appreciative of the fact that you're you found your worth within the Deaf community. And, and I know they appreciate that and you're so welcome into the CODA community. And I just hope that you keep searching and keep having fun.

Gloria: 43:57

Thank you. Thank you so much for this really appreciate

Tina: 44:01

And to our listening and reading audience. We appreciate you being here. And again, check out her show her show, find out her contact information, get a hold of her and and watch it I'm telling you, you will really really enjoy it. Thank you for watching and thank you for listening and reading. Thank you