The deaf community does not view their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture that includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to the PBS home video “Through Deaf Eyes,” there are thirty-five million Americans with hearing impairments (Hott, Garey & et al., 2007). It is estimated that out of 35 million people, 300,000 are completely deaf. Over ninety percent of deaf people have hearing parents. Furthermore, most deaf parents have hearing children. This being the example, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and meaningful level with hearing people throughout their lives. “Deaf people are found in every ethnic group, in every region and in every economic class.” Deaf and hard of hearing culture has many arguments and divisions with respect to living in a hearing world without sound, however, that absence will be the starting point of an identity within their culture as well as the hearing culture . In today's times, it is possible for a deaf family to characterize itself as an all-American family. For many centuries hearing people have classified deafness as a horrendous misfortune. As reported by University of Iowa historian Doug Baynton, in the early 1800s most deaf people in America lived in rural areas segregated from each other and with little communication with the people around them. “They also had a limited understanding of what they could do and what their possibilities were. People with deaf children really had no idea what their children could achieve. In 1817, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (a Connecticut clergyman) opened… mid-paper… fness in disguise: A Chronology of Hearing Aids and the Early Education of the Deaf [Fact Sheet]. Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO: Author Gallaudet University. (1997). Gallaudet University Public Relations: The Beginnings. Gallaudet University, 1-17. Retrieved from http://pr.gallaudet.edu/Hott, L.A. (producer), Garey, D. (director) et al. (2007). PBS Home Video: Through Deaf Eyes [DVD]. United States: PBS Television.Nakamura, K. (2008). Resource Library for the Deaf: On American Sign Language. Resource Library for the Deaf, 6-6. Retrieved from http://www.deaflibrary.org/National Institute of Health. (2011). National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders: Improving the lives of people with communication disorders. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders,2-2. Retrieved from http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/