Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon’s brilliant nonfiction book about parenting children different from oneself, offers the useful distinction between vertical and horizontal identities. Vertical identities are inherited – a family name, an ethnicity, or a nationality; horizontal identities are qualities that define us which parents may have nothing to do with, such as the kinship people with autism feel with one another, or being gay or deaf.
Deaf, a Spanish-language film directed by Eva Libertad that stars Libertad’s own deaf sister Miriam Garlo, offers a near-perfect fictional illustration of the tension between vertical and horizontal identities within a newly minted nuclear family. Professional potter Angela (Garlo) is deaf, and married to farmer Hector, a hearing man, and the two mostly communicate through sign language. Almost as soon as they find out Angela is pregnant, little fissures appear in the foundations of their happiness. Angela’s deaf friends all sign their delight ecstatically and talk about their own pregnancy and birth difficulties with warmth. But minutes before Angela reveals she’s with child, Angela’s hearing mother (Elena Irureta) casually mentions she thinks things are better for the young couple without kids, indicating that she believes deafness is too much of an affliction. Talk about awkward.
