With her blunt, no-nonsense, but humorous persona, Christina Curry made her presence felt at the Building Bridges conference. The delivery of her speech was so energetic and forceful it was almost difficult to imagine that she could ever be invisible. But according to Curry, she frequently is. In fact, she is triply invisible. "In my experience, when people talk about disabilities, you forget about me," she told conference participants. "I'm black and Puerto Rican, so I'm used to being ignored. But now that I can't hear, I'm really being ignored!"

Curry, director of the Harlem Independent Living Center in New York City, works as a psychoanalyst with deaf and hard of hearing women who have been victims of domestic violence. In other words, she quipped, "I'm a shrink."

Rewriting Webster's Dictionary

"Let me give you three words: disability, minority, obstacle," said Curry. The Webster dictionary definition of the word "disability" made her unhappy, said Curry, because "I don't think of myself as disabled." In regard to "minority" groups, Curry indicated that "We need to register to vote," and objected to the treatment that they can experience from the public. "When I go to the store, people follow me and say I'm not supposed to be there," she said.

Curry informed the audience that the Webster dictionary defined an "obstacle" as a "barrier to achieving a goal." "If you're labeled disabled or a minority, that's an obstacle," said Curry. "When I work with clients, I tell them, 'The only way you fail is if you don't try.'"

Becoming Deaf

Curry lost her hearing in her right ear while working at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York. One day, while cleaning her ear with a Q-tip, she felt a sudden, sharp pain. For several days, she simply ignored the recurring pain and bleeding from her ear. "I was young," Curry explains. She did not get medical attention for herself until after she had a high fever and a fully ruptured ear drum, and had lost all her hearing in her right ear.

"You know how your mother told you never to put anything bigger than your elbow in your ear? That's why," Curry said. Later, she lost part of her hearing in her left ear from an unrelated medical condition called Meniere's Disease which can affect hearing and sense of balance. Curry pointed to her right ear and joked, "This ear is a pretty decoration for me. This is a place to put earrings." She then pointed to her left ear. "This ear-it depends on the day. It's like when you're in the pool at the bottom and someone outside the pool is talking to you."

"I face discrimination because of my color," said Curry. "If I can do it, you can, too. No one should tell you what your limitations are."

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