I thought I wore it on my face that I was 120% Deaf Pride, but the other day someone said to me, “Wow, you’re really into it, like capital D and everything!”  I was surprised, but I suppose I don’t go around announcing it… I wish I had. I am taking a Deaf Culture class and I am having a great time with this class! We had to team up and then pick two chapters out of our book (Journey into the Deaf-World) and do a presentation on them. My partner, Lil’ Teddi G. and I picked chapter 5 “Deaf Culture” to start off with. I hated the idea of having to get up in front of the entire class and speak! *yuck* Sure we can make a poster and whatnot – because the information was so powerful and there was so much of it that I felt we’d put people to sleep with our nervous babble.  Then the light bulb went off above my head and I thought, “Why not make a DVD?” This way there is not getting up in front of the class trying to speak and it was an awesome visual aid as well… So we did make the DVD, but we didn’t stop there, we made a music video as well! It was awesome – we pat ourselves on the back because for two gals from the middle of nowhere, we did not do a bad job!

Capital D comes from the Deaf freedom of their own culture. Hearing people still have a hard time seeing the Deaf as a culture and not as broken members of English speaking society. ASL (American Sign Language) is still viewed as an awful thing to teach any child – Deaf or hearing. We still live in an unknown world afraid to accept anything different as normal. I am Deaf Pride, I totally support Deaf-World ways and I respect their wants and desires. My uncle is Deaf and even though I did not spend a lot of time around him, he taught me one important thing – Deaf Pride! Just watching him and his friends together – he made me love it as a hearing person standing on the outside looking in. I wanted to be part of that world so badly, but I couldn’t. Of course as a young child I didn’t understand, but as a young adult I understood the unspoken words “This is not your world.” I was forever watching from the outside as amazing things happened when my uncle and his friends got together. They were nice to me, and talked to me, but there was an element – a bond I knew I would never have the chance to experience. I grew up, learned more sign language and stupidly assumed that everyone who could sign was Deaf Pride… I was terribly wrong! I went to work as an interpreter in a school district and I have seen things I never want to see or feel again as the stupidity of a hearing majority schooled children who should have been sent Deaf schools. I watched and heard as teachers, educated people, looked down on and degraded these kids. I stood back and allowed “hearing impaired” used as a description for the people I had so much respect and passion for. Then I stopped and I watched as my student struggled with the signs (supposed to be his natural language) to tell me how much he hated being Deaf. What?! I thought all Deaf people were proud of who they are… My heart shattered and I knew that I had four years left with these kids and I made it my personal goal to empower them with who they are before they graduate! I was also going to instill ASL into them – their natural language – because they were using other forms of signed language. I started educating teachers and anyone my student came in contact with about Deaf with a capital D! I will never forget the passion my uncle beamed with when he was with his friends, and I needed to make sure that these kids got a taste of that awesomeness that is the Deaf-World. This year my guys are seniors and they have become really good friends of mine – words cannot explain how proud I am of them! They have come a long way and they have accepted who they are as Deaf people! I thought I lost the harsh battle with the hearing world earlier this year when one of my students told me he was not leaving this area to find the Deaf-World and his people. I sat him down and I signed, “Here is not where you belong. You deserve happiness and a place where you belong and people all around who sign. I promise you, when you leave this place, this world and you enter the Deaf-World you will be at peace. You will look around, smile and know in your heart that you are finally home with the family you have searched so long for.” Here they have total commutation with Teddi and me – two people is not enough! After they graduate I hope to move away from here and Teddi is headed to university in southern California, that will leave them with no one. I have got to do as much as I can to free these guys from the hell they are living, from the controlling hearing people without language or cultural understand of Deaf-World. Today my student found out that a Deaf friend has been calling himself “hearing impaired” and he told his friend’s sister how wrong that was. He then topped my cake when he told her that he learned Deaf Pride through me… Wow, I did it. I, a hearing person, was able to give my Deaf student a sense of pride. I realize the Deaf-World will do the best job of showing them who they are as Deaf people, but I feel like the ball is rolling in the right direction! I want them to be who they were born to be and not who the hearing people in their life want them to be.  This morning I told them that they need to make a choice after graduation. They need to make the choice themselves, not their parents, not the hearing people at school and not not me, but themselves. They need to look into their hearts and decide if they want to go find Deaf-World or stay here in the hearing world. I truly have faith that they now love and respect themselves and they will make the right choice…

I cannot stay and save all the Deaf and Hard of Hearing students from the stupid hearing small town, but I can hope that I have touched lives and changed the way most of them think. Although, the best thing to do if you have a Deaf child is to love them for who they are, give them their natural language right away and send them to a school for the Deaf!

Please enjoy the music video – representing the Deaf world waiting for the hearing world to accept them…

“Waiting For the World to Change”

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