Train go sorry: inside a deaf world by leah cohen

Little is known regarding the challenges faced by people who may not be deaf, but are part of both worlds, such as non-deaf teachers who teach in deaf community schools. These challenges are portrayed in this book “ Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World”, through the application of the New York City School Lexington School for the Deaf as the case study, by Leah Cohen, who grew in a deaf people’s environment and states, “ our family’s home was a school for the deaf” (Cohen, 1).

The plight of deaf persons is shared through the analysis of Sofia’s life. When she takes her journey to join Gallaudet University, there is much doubt even amongst her family members, regarding the possible chances of Sofia surviving independently at the institution (Cohen, 172). Nevertheless, through the determination to partake the journey of improving her life, Sofia later realizes the vast opportunities that exist for the hearing-impaired persons in society. Through Sofia’s journey, the book by Leah Hager Cohen demonstrates how being a deaf person in a new environment can be challenging, considering that Sofia is a deaf Russian immigrant, who is trying to settle in the new university environment.

Thus, Cohen uses the American Sign Language idiom ‘ Train Go Sorry’, which is interpreted to mean the ‘ missing the boat’, as an indication that there is a great deal of miscommunication between the deaf and the hearing people, both at the individual and at the societal level (Cohen, 127). Nevertheless, the challenges faced by the deaf can be overcome, where there is a sense of independence and desire to live a normal and fulfilling life. This was demonstrated by Faye Cohen’s, who is Leah Cohen’s grandmother. Despite her challenges as a deaf person, coupled with the tragedy of the loss of her mother, she married another deaf person and went ahead to live a fulfilling and respectable life, as a wife and a mother (Cohen, 77).

However, there is a real threat to the deaf people’s world by the world of the hearing, where the advancement in technology has come to undermine any assistance that the deaf could have obtained in communicating with the hearing. In this respect, there is less technological advancement in hearing-impaired devices. The effect has been the discrimination of the deaf people and those who struggle to fight and secure the interests of the deaf, thus creating the ‘ missing boat’ (Cohen, 6).

The challenges facing the deaf persons are not only making their lives hard but also threatening their existence, considering that Leah Cohen’s grandfather died as a result of the miscommunication between him and the doctor who could not fully understand him.