Jodee Mundy: I was in K-mart, and I was in my school uniform, and I was with mum. And we were – well, I was looking at the Barbie dolls, (laughs) and I remember mum going “Come on, let's go.” And I was like “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming,” and then looked back at the dolls and was, you know, Barbie, Barbie, Barbie.

Miyuki Jokiranta: This is Jodee Mundy. She was about 5 when this happened. Picture a freckly kid with curly, dark blonde, hair.

Jodee Mundy: And then I looked up, and mum had gone. So I the searched aisle, and then I searched the next aisle, and started to panic. So I kind of ran to the front desk and there was a lady, and I said “Excuse me, I've lost my mum.” And she picked me up and she sat me up, high on the bench, and I remember looking down and seeing my school uniform, and my red socks and my new shiny school shoes. She asked me my name, and then she leaned into the microphone, and she said “Gillian Mundy, your daughter Jodee is lost, and she's waiting for you here at the front desk.”

Miyuki Jokiranta: Jodee waited, and waited, and waited.

Jodee: And then she leaned into the microphone again, and she said “Gillian Mundy, your daughter Jodee is lost, she's waiting for you here at the front desk.”

And then I saw mum, and I remember vividly, all these people around the red light special, for the bargains, and mum kind of battling her way through, and shouting “Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you!” And I said “But the lady made an announcement in the microphone!” And my mum looked at me and just went, “I’m deaf. You know that!”

[slow electronic music]

It kind of hit me. It was like, “Oh”…. I knew that my mum was deaf, but I didn't know what that meant. And then I realised my dad was deaf, and my two brothers were deaf too, and that I wasn't.

Miyuki Jokiranta: Years later, Jodee would find out that kids like her had a name. She’s what’s known as a CODA - a child of Deaf adults.

Jodee: Suddenly I realised that there were two camps (laughs). My family were in one, people who hear were in another, and my feet were in both. And I think ever since then I've been trying to bring those two worlds together, and kind of find that sense of peace.

Miyuki Jokiranta: I’m Miyuki Jokiranta, and today on Earshot, one woman’s story about what it’s like to be a CODA - a hearing kid in a Deaf family. What it’s like to grow up being the constant interpreter, the fodder of people’s curiosity, and what happens when you finally snap. Here’s Georgia Moodie.

Georgia Moodie: For as long as she can remember, Jodee has had to answer people’s questions about her Deaf family. About a year after that day in Kmart, Jodee’s Grade 1 teacher videotaped this interview with her.

Miss Cohen: Ladies and Gentlemen, we're very lucky this afternoon to have with us Miss Jodee Mundy, who is an expert at sign language.

Georgia: They’re sitting in the sun in the school playground. It’s 1984. Jodee’s teacher, Miss Cohen, is wearing a long floral skirt and triangular earrings. Jodee’s in her school uniform again, with knee-high red socks and black Mary Janes. But by now, her two front teeth are missing.

Miss Cohen: Jodee’s going to answer a few questions about special things that she might have at her home, and then she's going to very easily show us some of the words that you need to know if you are an infants person, and you have Deaf parents.

Georgia: The camerawork is shaky as it zooms in on Jodee’s face. She’s wriggling around in her chair – she’d clearly prefer to be sitting in the shade with the rest of her class.

Miss Cohen: Ah, could you tell me, how do you help your mum and dad, for instance, when people come to the door?

Jodee: Instead of knocking, but they have um, um, a light just shows up, and then um, then they can see it.

Miss Cohen: Ah ha. And what about when the telephone rings, how do your parents know that there that there is somebody on the telephone?

Jodee: There’s a light.

Miss Cohen: Ah, a light. So either for knocking at the door or for telephoning there’s a light, so they have to always keep their eyes open. Ahhh, I see.

Georgia: Jodee’s just six in this video, and already, she’s fielding the kinds of questions that people will always ask her about her family. And yet, apart from the lights that flashed when the telephone or the doorbell rang, the Mundys were a pretty normal family. They lived in Sydney’s western suburbs, in a house big enough for all five of them – Jodee’s mum Gillian, her dad Peter, and her two older brothers, Shane and Gavin.

[Neighbours theme music]

Each night, they ate ice cream as they watched Neighbours, it was just that, on their TV screen, there were captions.

Georgia: Do you know how your parents reacted when they found out that you could hear?

[Marimba music]

Jodee: Yeah, mum has a story. So she obviously had two boys who were deaf and that was all great. But she really, really wanted a little girl, and she really hoped that this little girl could hear. It was just her thing, she wanted to have the opposite of what she had, which I think is pretty normal for a lot of parents. My parents are religious, um, they’re Christian, so I think like they prayed a lot! (laughs) And um, when I was born, Jodee actually means – I feel so dumb telling you this – but it actually means gift from God. From the name Judith, the Hebrew name, so that is pretty much the status that I got in. So I think my brothers were like that spoilt sister, she's a girl and she can hear and she's a gift from god, blah, blah, blah, blah!

Georgia: And her brothers found their baby sister annoying for other reason.

Jodee: When I was born, suddenly they had to be quiet. You know, it was all about “Shhh, keep it down, because your sister’s asleep.” Whereas before I came along, (laughs) there was none of that.

Georgia: Jodee’s first language wasn’t English. Her parents didn’t speak to her, they signed to her in Auslan, Australian sign language.

Georgia: How did you learn to speak?

Jodee: I learned to speak probably from the television, and story time tapes, mum and dad would play story time tapes every night. It didn't take long for me to get on track with my English.

Miss Cohen: I was wondering if you might like to run quickly through the alphabet for us, with finger spelling please. Could you show us an A? B. C. Oh, that’s beautiful. Could you turn and face our camera a little more please Jodee? D. E. F. G.

Georgia: Are you more comfortable signing or speaking English?

Jodee: I know that if I haven't signed for at least a couple of weeks, I start to feel a bit agitated. I think I’m more comfortable signing, because that’s my home language. But I'm pretty good at talking too (laughs!) You can't shut me up, I’ve got years of catching up on!

Miss Cohen: W. X. Y. Z. Excellent, well that's rather interesting. Could you tell me whether there’s any special equipment in your home that your family needs?

Jodee: Mummy said that we’ll be getting a typewriter like telephone…

Georgia: What Jodee’s talking about here is a TTY, a teletypewriter. Jodee’s mum would type out her message, and then an operator would make the phone call for her and type back the answer. But it was really slow. So instead, Jodee started making telephone calls for her mum.

Jodee: My brother remembers, I started making phone calls at about four years old. Really simple things, like making appointments. But then as I got older, like seven, eight, nine, pretty much all the family business I was interpreting.

[electronic/marimba music, sound effects of phone calls, phones ringing and a little girl answering the phone]

I had to make sure I got home from school, before business hours so we had to make all the calls. I’d wanna like play with friends, but I’d come home. Going to the bank, going to the doctors, the work calls… Oh it's just a blur, like I must have made thousands of calls over that time.

Georgia: Did you understand what you were interpreting?

Jodee: No, not really, no. Especially things like lawyers appointments, and banks, mortgage, when they bought a timeshare. Dad's work, he’s a carpenter, so it’s all like fix outs and eaves, I had no idea what they were. Things like “Tell your father there's no work for two months.” Or you know, “Your great aunty has died,” and seeing dad deal with that. You know like bigger things, bigger things that a child tells an adult.

Georgia: Do you think that made you grow up quicker?

Jodee: You know, my family, it was easy, very easy. It was more the reactions of people who hear, that were more challenging. You know, the bank teller, the school teacher, the doctor, the guy at the pool chlorine shop, the lawyer, the lady at the donut shop, the greengrocer, you know. (laughs) And they've all got their own reactions and prejudices. I had to witness my parents being disempowered. Even though they took it in their stride and are exceptionally graceful, elegant people. It was me who would lose it and implode.

Georgia: And remember, it was the 1980s – services for Deaf people were really limited.

Jodee: You could only get an interpreter for a funeral or a wedding. There wasn't any other service really. But now, you can get free interpreters through the hospital, if you go to university, you can, it's free. My brother, he was the first Deaf person along with his friend David Parker to get their high school certificate. And my brother’s forty nine, he was the first Deaf person in New South Wales to get his HSC. So there's a context there. You know, my mum went through labour three times without an interpreter in hospital, you know, like, can you imagine giving birth and not knowing what the doctors are saying? They're pretty incredible people, my parents.

[electric guitar music]

As I became a teenager, I became more angry, and yeah I didn't want to interpret any more. I'd had enough. I just wanted to be free like, I think most teenagers just wanna hang out and listen to music and flirt. I used to fight a lot with mum, I used to scream “I'm not a robot”, “I’m not your secretary,” “Find someone else to do it.” But there wasn't anyone else to do it.

When I look back, it was pretty hard and you know, I feel bad for that time. But, you know, I think I’ve forgiven myself for being such a terrible daughter. But actually, I was a good kid, I think I just didn't understand the system. I didn't understand the macro, I only knew the micro, which was our family, and I just had enough.

[cassette player sound effects]

For me music was my saving grace. Like Video hits and Rage… I used to get my tape deck out and record it from the TV. And then the Top forty charts. Music for me was, yeah my link to the hearing world and pop culture. And, um, I could turn it up and play it as loud as I wanted no one ever told me to be quiet, ever. Except once when the music was really loud, full blast, it was 4am, I was a teenager, I had come home late. And the neighbour walked from his house to mine, pressed the doorbell.

[doorbell sound effects and George Michael’s song, Freedom! '90]

The flash lit, which woke up mum, mum then opened the door. I was in the bath singing at the top of my voice and she went “Turn it down!” And I was like, “How does she know?” She went “The neighbour just woke us up!” So that's the only time mum ever, ever told me to be quiet, was when I kept half the neighbourhood awake.

[Fax machine sound effects and electric guitar music]

I have to say the day that mum brought home a fax machine was revolutionary. Because suddenly mum could write on a piece of paper and magically just send it away to the doctors and magically a fax would appear. I remember her showing me, and me just going, “This is amazing, this is amazing! (laughs) And how happy she was, you know, she was independent.

As soon as I finished school, I did move out at eighteen, and I remember telling dad, “I’ve found a place, it’s fifty bucks a week, in Surry Hills. It’s a share house and I want to move out,” and my dad said, “Who's gonna interpret me for my work?” And I think I said, “Can’t you just be happy for me that I’m moving out? You’ve got a fax machine!” (laughs) And stormed off.

[door slam]

But dad – you know, they helped me move and yeah, they used their fax machine. They survived before I was born, and yeah, I think I just helped make things really easy for a while.

[fax machine]

Georgia: Jodee went to art school, and worked as an Auslan interpreter on the side. Then she lived overseas for 8 years, studying theatre in the UK. But wherever she goes, people still ask her questions about her Deaf family.

[marimba music]

Jodee: You know I’ll just mention it casually and then everyone is like, “Woah! Woah, woah, woah. What?” And I've already moved on and I’m like, “Yeah everyone in my family's deaf so blah, blah, blah, blah.”

“What? Woah, Woah? Who?”

And I went, “Oh my mum, and my dad and my two brothers,” and they’re like, “Is it genetic?” And I hate that question because it's really private.

Or, you know, “That must have been hard,” “Oh you're so special!” “It's a language isn't it?” Or, “What's it like to be deaf?” It’s like, I don’t know! God, go put some bloody ear muffs on and knock yourself out! (laughs)

It wasn't that I didn't like talking about it, it was more managing people's reactions and questions and just feeling like sometimes it cut the core of who I was.

Georgia: So for years, it was something that Jodee avoided bringing up. But that changed a few years ago. Jodee went to an artist retreat that made her think about her childhood.

Jodee: I just started drawing pictures of memories, just like cartoon comic. And after drawing 200 of them (laughs) over 3 or 4 years, I thought, wow, there’s some really interesting material here.

[sound of pages turning]

They’re a little bit out of order. I think that one goes there. That's me as a little girl, struggling with, I guess, with sound waves. And you can see this is all sketched in like a minute, of just a memory. And I wrote like a story, “She had a mum, dad and two brothers who were deaf. They would sign at home.” And you know, there’s very childlike drawings, of me and the family. Look it's all falling apart, blue tack and sticky tape.

“After dinner sometimes she'd interpret the news for her family.” And this… I remember the Berlin Wall coming down and interpreting that for mum and dad. And mum and dad being really excited, and me just going what is all of this? I don't even understand. And you can see me sitting next to the television, and my parents watching me telling them what the newsreader was saying.

[sound of pages turning]

Georgia: Families like the Mundys are pretty rare. In the most recent census, just over 10 thousand Australians said that Auslan is the language they use at home. While it’s small, the Deaf community is very tight-knit, and Jodee’s family is involved in a big way. They’re what’s known as culturally Deaf, capital D Deaf. Instead of thinking of deafness as a disability, being Deaf is seen as a difference, something to be proud of.

Jodee: So like an Italian is with a capital I, Deaf person sees themselves as Deaf culture, and that's a capital d Deaf. A little D is implies more of a medical term. So for Deaf people who claim capital D, it's about culture. It's not that I'm just a deaf person, that's medically deaf, it's I’m Deaf. I sign, I'm proud, I roar, I am not ashamed of my language.

Georgia: Did you ever wish you were deaf?

[string and marimba music]

Jodee: I think it wasn't about wishing to be deaf, I think it was more about wishing that I wasn't the odd one out in the family. Because, you know, from my family are very culturally Deaf. So they go to Deaf church, they go to the Deaf sports, everything's Deaf, Deaf, Deaf, Deaf. When we get together, they talk about the Deaf news or the deaf cat. Like I'm not kidding, like it's proper culturally Deaf. And so sometimes it’s like if we have to talk about one more Deaf thing, I'm gonna die! Sometimes I’m like, oh you hearing people I need to go and sign, shut up with all your talking!
Georgia: So there were deaf cats....
Jodee: Yes, we had two deaf cats. Unfortunately they both didn't have very long lives, they were both hit by cars pretty quickly. Probably because they didn’t hear them, like that's sort of the gag, because a lot of deaf cats don't have very long lives. And it was a thing! Like a lot of Deaf people get them. It's a thing! (laughs)
Georgia: So it wasn't that the cat turned deaf, it was born deaf?
Jodee: Yeah, so white short haired cats with blue eyes are usually deaf. Huh? Amazing! (laughs)
Georgia: Do you have a cat?
Jodee: I do. Her name is Sahara, she's a tabby cat, she's not deaf. Nup, she's hearing. (laughs)
[sound of pages turning]
Jodee: And then, talking about going to Deaf church… “Every Sunday morning, they’d go to Deaf church. After they'd finished signing the hymns, the little girl and her friends who could hear and sign like her would chatter and giggle out loud up the back, through the entire service and none of the parents knew! (laughs) We’re so naughty, always yelling and screaming and no one had any idea!
Georgia: Hearing kids like Jodee were accepted in the Deaf community, but they were different.
Jodee: Hearing, in sign, can mean an oppressor, it can mean people of power, it can mean people who don't understand. So when you were growing up and you see the sign “You're hearing, you’re hearing,” can also mean you’re one of them. But we're not one of them. We’re not deaf but we're not that either.
[slow electronic music]
Deaf people will meet me and because I sign fluently, a lot of them will think I'm deaf. And then when they find out I'm not, I can see sometimes a little twitch in their eye. Like “Oh.” And then I have to quickly say “My family are all deaf”. And then they go “Oh!” And I’m accepted again.
Georgia: Jodee was about 15 when she first heard about the term used to describe kids like her, CODA, Child of Deaf Adults.
Jodee: When I heard of that term, I suddenly had an identity like, I wasn't just this kid that was in this Deaf family. When I met other kids like me, who also signed and talked, and we knew the nuances of the cultures of both worlds that we live in. I had a home, I had a name.
When you sign Deaf, you have your index finger and your middle finger. And you put it over your ear and you put it over your mouth. Deaf. And with CODA, there’s a sign which is Deaf, but you put the Deaf finger onto your heart. So when I introduce myself, I say I'm a CODA, I have Deaf heart.
Rhian Hinkley: Yeah, can you move around a bit, just a little bit Jodee, in there?
Merophie Carr: Can you sign “Do you need me?”
Jodee: Yep
Rhian: But we’ll have to work out where that happens…
Georgia: I’m at Arts House in North Melbourne, and right now, Jodee’s in rehearsals for her latest work of theatre. The hundreds and hundreds of drawings that Jodee made about her childhood fed into this work, which is called Personal. Jodee’s here with the rest of the creative team running through a new scene…
Merophie: Ok, so the last part of the Skype scene is Gavin saying, “Well it made you a better interpreter.” And then...
Rhian: Should I just go?
Jodee and Merophie: Yep.
Rhian: Made you a better interpreter, bang.
Jodee (overlapping recordings): “Tell your father that his aunty passed away two days ago,” “Your mother needs to take two tablets daily,” “The green ones, or the red ones?,” “Tell your dad I’m sorry, there’s just no work for the next month.”
Georgia: It’s just Jodee up on stage, but her family’s been involved since the very beginning. They also appear in show, in old family videos, and via video interviews she recorded with her family, who live interstate. That’s something that’s changed dramatically over Jodee’s lifetime. Technology has transformed the way Deaf people communicate.
Jodee: The TTY, the relay service, then the fax machine, then pagers, then text messaging, to emails to videophone, to Skype to facetime to Skype video relay interpreters. So that's in forty years. Pretty extraordinary. Like I can remember the first time I Facetimed mum, that was four years ago. And I wept. I could call her on my own phone. Not through a service, not through pen and paper. It was like my mum and dad, in real time, on my phone. That’s really special.
Georgia: In fact, things have changed so much that when I meet Jodee’s nephew Oskar, who’s also a CODA, he says one of the only things he does to help his mum is to call and find her phone when she misplaces it. But there’s still a long way to go.
Jodee: My sister in law wants to go do yoga classes, she can't because the yoga school can’t afford the interpreter. My niece wanted to do ballet classes and so she ended up getting one on one lessons. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. People say it's never enough money, access is expensive. But at what cost?
[slow electronic music]
Being a CODA has taught me what it is to be from a minority community. Like it's a strange position that I’m in, because I'm not deaf. But I witness the daily effects of what that is. And then I have the privilege to tell people about it, I have the privilege to talk to you in the microphone right now.
So it's always being very aware of my position and always acknowledging the information I’m giving you comes from Deaf people. Generations of people who’ve been discriminated against, been stigmatised, put down, forgotten. People who are determined to have self-determination to realise their dreams. But can only do that with the support of people who hear.
It's been an asset for me to have my family as Deaf people. And we’re just a regular family, doing our thing, we sign at home like people would speak Greek at home, or French, or Vietnamese. And that it's not special if you sign or aren't you clever or, it's just that this is part of our Australian landscape.
Miyuki Jokiranta: Jodee Mundy. For all the details about her performance, called Personal, head to the Earshot website, abc.net.au/rn/Earshot. Deaf heart was produced by Georgia Moodie and on the buttons and dials, Tim Symonds. That’s it for Earshot. I’m Miyuki Jokiranta. Catch you next time. Now back to Jodee Mundy in the bathtub.

[Jodee singing George Michael’s song, Freedom! '90]