Greetings from the City of Brotherly Love! (aka, the HOTTEST CITY IN AMERICA! It was 102 when I landed at 6:00 p.m. yesterday, beating the all-time record by several degrees!)
My ears tolerated the plane fairly well (meaning they hurt really bad but I didn’t cry or start to pass out, which sometimes happens), and I found the baggage claim with minimal difficulty. So my first solo flight was a success! When my taxi reached the corner next to the hotel, I saw a group of about 6 people signing to each other. My face lit up and I got really excited (and nervous!) and knew that I was in the right place. In the lobby, there were small groups of at least 25 people total deep in signed conversation. At the front desk, two interpreters were waiting to sign for the Deaf attendees. I thought about requesting one, since I could barely understand the soft little voice of the man helping me, but I didn’t want to take them away from someone who definitely needed them.
I was nervous about going to registration, since it would be the first time I’d be interacting with Deaf people at the conference. The man I talked to didn’t have any trouble getting my name—and he looked me in the eye while I signed, instead of my hands where I always look; I still don’t know he can read fingerspelling off to my side while looking at my face. Then he asked me something, or told me something… I couldn’t get it. I said “SORRY?” and he repeated it, but I didn’t have a clue. After several repeats he gave up. I got pretty shaken up by it, and then I realized that this is what Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people go through EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES. Miscommunication, and the frustrations that result from it, are a part of life with hearing loss. I’ve always known that in theory, but experiencing it is something quite different.
The Opening Ceremony was a lot of fun. It was fully accessible to all, by offering 3 ways of understanding what was said: signing, oral English, and captioning. So when someone was signing in ASL, there was an interpreter voicing a translation into English, and then that was captioned. It’s amazing how fast this information can be transmitted, in 3 different forms! “Betsy Ross,” in full costume, signed her welcome to the 50th biennial National Association of the Deaf conference, and the 130th birthday of the NAD itself. The outgoing Miss Deaf America, and the contestants who will compete on Friday night, signed the Star Spangled Banner. It was quite compelling, and I ‘clapped’ (the Deaf ‘clap’ by raising up their hands and shaking them back and forth) along with everyone else in the audience.
The President of the NAD, Dr. Bobbie Beth Scoggins, opened by saying that regardless of hearing status and language used to communicate, “We are all Deaf and we all have inherent rights.” The first keynote speaker, Dr. M.J. Bienvenu, is the Chair of and Associate Professor in ASL and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University (the only liberal arts university for the Deaf in the world). She spoke about the notion of “Deaf Gain,” which I had not heard of before. She declared that the term “Hearing Loss” connotes something negative, stating that Deaf people have a deficit. Instead, she wants to promote the idea of “Deaf Gain,” which recognizes that Deaf people are a “variety of the human race” who “can make great contributions to mankind.” She detailed examples of how Deaf people have made such contributions, including studies on language, literacy, international sign, and architecture.
Deaf actress Marlee Matlin received the NAD’s Media Advocacy Award, for her work in lobbying for internet captioning and other important Deaf issues. She didn’t attend the conference, but did send a video acceptance. Next to speak was Claudia Gordon, who is a Deaf, Black, female attorney. Talk about having to overcome obstacles and discrimination! Formerly an attorney for NAD, she now works for the Department of Homeland Security as the Senior Policy Advisor of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. She spoke about the need to branch out from our comfort zone, to take risks and challenge ourselves. Gordon encouraged everyone in the room to identify one Deaf issue and advocate for it.
The NAD awarded 3 companies with their Accessibility Award. Google received the award for voluntarily starting to caption their videos. The NFL and CBS have also worked hard on voluntarily offering more captioning on their Super Bowl commercials and promos. In just 2 years, the NFL has gone from 10% captioning to 80% captioning, even though they are only required to have their actual programs captioned. And the Director of Captioning for CBS, Mark Turits, announced that by the end of this year, ALL of their online content will be captioned! (Josie, I know you will be thrilled by this news!)
I went to Starbucks for lunch, and the couple in front of me was Deaf. The man wrote down his order on his Blackberry and handed it to the employee; the lady wrote hers down on the notepad from our totebags. I got into the elevator to go eat in my room, and wasn’t paying attention that it stopped on the 3rd floor instead of the 7th, so I stepped off and quickly realized it was the wrong floor. A man pushing his daughter in a stroller got on the elevator, laughed, and signed “WRONG.” I laughed too and repeated the sign “WRONG.” I got back into the elevator and signed “STUPID,” laughing. He looked at my nametag and signed “FIRST TIME” (I have a pink flag that shows this is my first NAD conference); then he started signing rapidly, and I couldn’t catch a single word. I forced a smile and said “SORRY, I’M STILL LEARNING…” He smiled, nodded, and waved goodbye as he got off the elevator. I was sad that I didn’t know what he said.
My first workshop was entitled “We Will Not be Ignored!: Working with the Deaf Community in Public Health Research.” I have a Graduate Certificate in Public Health, and a Master’s in the closely-related field of Medical Anthropology, so I was very excited about this workshop. The presenter, Matthew Starr, is Deaf and has a Master’s in Public Health. He works for the National Center for Deaf Health Research at the University of Rochester, and talked about the importance of Community-Based Participatory Research. Now, I could write pages and pages about CBPR, since it is a main tenant of Medical Anthropology, but I will summarize it by saying that it focuses on involving the minority community that is being researched (such as African-American, Hispanic, Deaf, etc.) in every aspect of research and interventions. This gives the research and interventions a much higher chance of success, because ‘rich white men’ are not going to understand the community nearly as well as the people who actually live in the community and belong to the minority group. Starr shared data that was collected in Rochester on health issues in the Deaf community, including higher rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide attempts.
The second workshop I attended was “Interacting with Law Enforcement for Positive Outcomes.” It was presented by Glenna Cooper, the Director of Communication Services for the Deaf in Oklahoma, Neil McDevitt, Program Director of the Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network at the Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., and a local police officer. Through role-playing, the police officer demonstrated how he would interact with a Deaf person in a routine traffic stop, a nighttime DUI/DWI stop, and a domestic violence call. He emphasized the importance of keeping your hands on the steering wheel, and trying to remain compliant. He communicated with the Deaf participants by writing on a notepad. The presenters pointed out that during an interaction with law enforcement, Deaf people “prioritize communication” (such as why they are being pulled over, how they will communicate, what is going to happen, etc.), but the police “prioritize life safety.” They encouraged the audience to be careful in these interactions, because their concern and distress in worrying about communication can be misconstrued as aggression and resistance.
Tomorrow I have 4 workshops (and still haven’t decided between some of them!) and the College Bowl Tournament. And I’m sure I have more communication failures ahead of me, as well!
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