My first college class I took while I was a high school senior – actually, my first two college classes as I took one fall semester and the next one spring semester. It was an ASL class. ASL. American Sign Language. This was something I’d always wanted to learn. Looking back, I really wasn’t mature enough for college (although, back then, I thought I was, cracking jokes and being the only one to find me amusing). I also had (and have) a plethora of interests so after those first two semesters of ASL, I did not find myself revisiting that area of study for several years.
I’d always been fascinated with ASL, American Sign Language – since I’d heard of it. How cool, I’d think, to be able to converse with individuals all over the world with sign language. I held a not-uncommon belief that sign languages are universal. Thankfully, I never voiced that belief, and I learned upon taking my first ASL class that ASL is a language signed in the US and that there are many other signed languages for other countries, just as there are many other spoken languages. Today, ASL is widely recognized and accepted as fulfilling the language requirement for college but, back in the 80s, that battle was still being fought. I had a high school English teacher that same year who said, “They want it to be considered a language, but it’s not. They are not a community.” “They” being Deaf individuals. I had capitalized the “d” for Deaf when writing of the Deaf community, and my instructor was insisting that was incorrect. That was the first time I realized not everything an instructor said was to be taken as gospel. This is a woman who insisted all paragraphs consist of six sentences – no more, no less. All essays consisted of five paragraphs. She did quite a bit of damage as a high school English teacher. Fortunately, I learned to do what she wanted in order to pass the class and move on.
Anyway, back on topic – it was 6-7 years later when I would resume participation in the ASL program. I had the bright idea that I could take two years to become an ASL interpreter then work as an ASL interpreter in college while I got my degree (because I’d be able to schedule working around my classes).
Well, I came to realize that my style of multi-tasking in class (by listening to the instructors and taking notes as I heard something important but otherwise be working on homework for other classes) was not possible at all in a class where one’s learning a visual language. I also found that I am not a visual learner (I still am not; I lose interest fairly quickly if I have to learn something by watching a video).
I also found that become fluent in a language enough to be competent as an interpreter was also a lot of work. I ceased to continue participation in the program by the 2nd semester of the four-semester core of classes.
Still, it was fun and pretty enlightening along the way. One of the classes I took was on Deaf culture. Part of our class assignments was to attend different Deaf events of our choice and report on them. Since my class load was pretty heavy that semester (18 units while also working 40 hours a week and living on my own), I determined that it was most efficient to combine socializing with completing various assignments that required me to go out into the world. Yeah, the only thing is that I really knew how to sign very little so I was really a bump-on-a-log when I attended these events. Not coincidentally, that’s really not different for me when attending non-Deaf events. I’m just not a very social person.
One of my favorite things to learn, though, was about core Deaf individuals. These are individuals fiercely proud of their heritage; they are deaf of deaf (the deafness is genetic, which, at the time, was only around 10% of the deaf population). We, the hearing, in our quest to be so “politically correct” frequently don’t realize that, at least among the Deaf, being deaf isn’t a disability (upper-case “d” refers to being culturally Deaf; lower-case “d” refers to being physiologically deaf). Deaf individuals often don’t consider themselves “hearing impaired” as that posits there is something wrong with them, for not being hearing (and, therefore, Hearing); being called “deaf” isn’t a slur.
So, imagine, 20+ years ago, that the language of your community isn’t being recognized as a language since, anthropologically, one requirement of being considered a language is to have a community. My English teacher was among those who didn’t feel a Deaf community exists. It was rare to find a four-year college that recognized ASL as a language back then.
A lot of progress has been made in the Deaf community since I first walked into that classroom back in 1987. I, on the other hand, am still very much learning. A couple of years ago while on a committee at work to select the following year’s book project title, I was strongly advocating for books on being Deaf as I wanted to bring more awareness among the Hearing about the Deaf community and, as I recall, kept trying to contact my former ASL instructors for assistance. I never heard back from anyone and, looking back, I came to realize at one point that my do-gooder self was likely overstepping some boundaries and gave up. Well-meaning I was; welcome I was not.
Next week – Part III: Always a dresser; never the dressed.
LNR
Moments in Our Lives 