Learning to Hear, Learning to See: Eli Steele On Deafness, Documentaries, and the American Dream

About this episode

Filmmaker Eli Steele has built a career on the conversations most people would rather avoid: race, identity, culture, and opportunity. Born profoundly deaf into a family whose heritage spans Black, Jewish, white, and Native American traditions, Eli grew up outside the categories America uses to sort people. In this wide-ranging conversation with host Dr. Chris Meek, he opens a window into a world few listeners have ever considered: how a deaf child learns that objects have names, how reading happens without sound, and how someone comprehends the very concept of sound having never heard one. He also revisits his decision at twenty-five to undergo cochlear implant surgery, chronicled in the…