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We live in a world that is bounded by cultural norms and stereotypes that affect anyone who looks, acts, or is even born different. Our society narrowed scope views Deaf people as less, uneducated, and unworthy for the opportunities abled people are innately handed. There is a lack of opportunities that Deaf people received based on their disability in terms of jobs and acceptance. The feeling of acceptance is one thing the hearing community has felt at least once, if not their entire life, however it is a feeling that may be unknown to the Deaf community.

Nyle DiMarco plays a positive role within the Deaf community. He has proven with time and dedication dreams do come true if you put your mind into succeeding. According to the article, Why Nyle DiMarco’s Work is Crucial for the Deaf Community (2016), states, “Nyle considers his Deafness as an asset rather than a limitation.” He wants to show the world that being Deaf only makes him unique and inspires people within the Deaf community to follow their dreams. Not only that, but he also encourages the use of American Sign Language. When communicating to his family, friends, or at work, he uses American Sign

The book “A Journey into the Deaf-World”, by Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, and Ben Bahan, is about the different people who are considered deaf: hard-of-hearing, deaf, and CODA. People who are hard-of-hearing are people who don 't hear well; people who are deaf lack the power of hearing since birth; you can be born hearing and throughout time lose some or all of your hearing sense. People who are CODA (children of deaf adults) are often signing because their parents are deaf and CODA’s often are helpful by being interpreters. CODAs become a great link between their parents and the hearing world. This book explains about deaf culture and how sign is a visual and manual way of conversing. The benefits of sign language are many and the ASL “foreign language” is growing among hearing as well. About more than 500,000 people sign in America alone. ASL is dated from 1779, but probably even earlier. Sign language promotes cultural awareness; deaf culture uses sign language as their main form of communicating.

There are numerous facts concerning the Deaf culture that I am not aware of, and a few of those elements have been made known. One of the new facts that surprised me was that approximately 90 percent of Deaf people are married to other Deaf people. This goes along with them being a tight-knit community. Another interesting piece of information I have learned is that I am to focus on a signer’s face, instead of their hands, while they are signing. Once I began to consider the expressions he or she would be showing while signing, and how one should pay attention while talking to another, it made perfect sense.

Deaf children are entitled to know that they are heirs to an amazing culture, not a pitiful defect. In order to follow through on that obligation, one of the best things I feel we can do is try to educate other hearing people about the realities of American Sign Language and Deaf culture. Language is one of the most critical aspects of most cultures, and one which sets deafness aside from other defects such as blindness, physical disability, or illness. Sign language is not universal, nor does it always correspond to the spoken language in the same country. For example American Sign Language is native to the United States and Canada. Deaf Canadians might use English, French, or both as a written language. But deaf people in Great Britain, while they may write in English, use a completely different sign language. (nad.org)

The Deaf community is comprised of people of a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds, as Deafness prevails around the world; discriminating against none. The Deaf community grows continually. As a hearing person learning about the community, it’s distinctive culture and how to communicate in ASL, I am developing myself and discovering my fairly new position within the Deaf community.

For my Deaf event, I attended Deaf Coffee Night at Starbucks. When I walked in, I was happy to be able to look around and see people communicate through the use of only their hands, body and faces. I was also encouraged by the fact that I understood a majority of the signs I saw. After I ordered my drink, I approached a table of two people who were using ASL and I introduced myself. One person at the table was hearing while the other was Deaf, but both were happy to include me in their conversation. We talked for quite awhile about each of our lives. It was interesting to notice that throughout our conversation, the three of us were equally engaged in the conversation at hand about the lives of these strangers. This is a lot different then most conversations in the hearing world since most of the time we do not talk about our lives for that long and when listening to the lives of other people we do not actually care to pay close attention.

Famous poet and activist Bryant H. McGill, once wrote, “One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” In a rather perverse case of irony, there is no culture that this speaks to more than the deaf community. The unsettling reality of oppression is that if you are not exposed or affected by it, you are not aware of its existence. This is the category that I have found myself a part of while learning ASL and by extension about the deaf community. In learning about the diverse and multi-sided culture that is the deaf community I can say with certainty that the prejudice they experience is not only horrifying but also unfounded.

In late 2016, I was granted the opportunity to attend an American Sign Language class, at my local community college. Prior to this, I had only one experience meeting a deaf person. I was seventeen at the time, working my first job. I felt like a deer caught in headlights,

I immediately became aware upon entering the building and taking seat at a round, conference-style table arrangement that there was no sign language interpreter available. I asked the authority figure as to whether or not one could be provided and she was unable to accommodate. If I required a translator, it would be my responsibility to access a person to provide that service and bring them along with me to the meeting. This information immediately got me thinking about what course of action I would have to take if I were not only deaf but experiencing a socioeconomic crisis.

Thanks for pointing out that sign language is not universal. Sign language is just as diverse as spoken languages with its own regional dialects for different countries (NAD, n.d.). Wow! For some reason I thought deaf people spoke the same standard sign language. I’ve been enlightened. With that in mind, I see how easy it is for people and sometimes frontline medical professionals to assume that hearing impaired individuals use one language. I think it also speaks to my own cultural challenge. Since I do not have any hearing impaired individuals in my family or close friendships, I am not familiar with the way hearing impaired individuals communicate other than through sign language, which I assumed was universal. I think this is valuable because

Communication has always been taken for granted, and unfortunately, it can leave many Deaf people to be taken advantage of. With evidence of this, interpreters became popular because they could translate the source language that was spoken in the home to the target language, American Sign Language. Not to be confused with translators or transliterators, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters are a vital part of the tangled web of communication, and yet, their history is not as long as their worth. ASL interpreters have only been around since 1964, which left many Deaf and Hard of Hearing people feeling managed, but after interpreting became a profession, many developments

Recently I attended a seminar for work, on childcare and development, where they discussed how to work with children with hearing disabilities. At this event there was a population of predominantly people who used American Sign Language as their primary language as opposed to hearing people speaking. I have had interactions with deaf people before but only on an informal level, because most of the deaf people I have

Growing up I had a very typical American family with one brother and two loving parents. One thing that stood out about our family was my grandma's multiple sclerosis that put her in a wheelchair at a young age. People outside my family sometimes saw this as an inconvenience, but this was surely not the case. In reality it made me appreciate her even more. Her positivity was contagious and this disease never stopped her from family vacations or gatherings. She never complained and it sometime seemed like she had forgotten that she was handicapped. She was my biggest role model. After she passed away I started high school and chose to take American Sign Language as my language. I chose this language because people also see deafness as an inconvenience.

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