The city of Rochester has one of the highest Deaf and hard-of-hearing populations in the country. According to statistics provided by RIT, 3.7 percent of the Rochester population is Deaf or hard-of-hearing, greater than the 3.5 percent national average.
Both RIT and UR have a large Deaf and hard-of-hearing presence on their campuses, making American Sign Language (ASL) more prominent.
Within the Deaf community there is a special Deaf culture, a vibrant collection of different perspectives on life.
Deaf Awareness Week, hosted by ASL Club, ran between April 20 and April 25, and sought to bring Deaf culture to campus and let those who might not normally interact with Deaf and hard-of-hearing people learn about different aspects of Deaf culture.
ASL Club aims to “create a welcoming atmosphere for the development of signing skills as well as to promote and enrich cultural awareness of the Deaf community through the collaboration of University of Rochester students and the Rochester Deaf community,” according to their CCC page.
The “Music & ASL with Jason Listman” event brought RIT/NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) professor Jason Listman to campus to discuss his experiences with translating music into ASL, including transcribing lyrics to ASL and creating ASL music videos.
Incoming ASL Club Vice President and sophomore Kelsey McKeon found this event out of all the week’s events most interesting.
“As a club, we have many events where we translate music and perform. It was cool to have a Deaf perspective on these events,” she said. ASL Club has put on concerts in which they perform popular songs by signing the lyrics.
Another event put on during the week was “Feminism in the Deaf World.” Assistant Professor Deirdre Schlehofer from RIT/NTID talked about her perspective as a woman in the Deaf community. Senior Nahoma Presberg notes that this was the most successful event during the week, as it “was a fascinating lecture that was relevant to many.”
Senior Clint Cantwell notes that “it’s key for the Deaf community to come together as the Deaf community to fight for women’s equality, since going to mainstream organizations poses communication barriers, as well as missing Deaf-specific issues.”
The week ended with an ASL Poetry and Storytelling event and workshop with Patrick Graybill and Vicki Nordquist, during which they discussed their experiences and influences in ASL poetry and read some of their stories and poems, as well as leading a workshop during which students tried out ASL poetry and storytelling themselves. Cantwell noted that “[Graybill is] one of the most prominent Deaf poets. It’s an honor to have him at our university.”
Deaf Awareness Week is important for campuses with a prominent Deaf population because it sheds light on a culture that many students might not even be aware of. ASL Club is important in making this perspective accessible for any student.
“We are a cultural awareness group [that brings] people to understand being Deaf is not a disability; rather, [it] is one part of a person that does not hinder them at all,” says Cantwell. “Rather, it has created a community and spurred the development of many naturally-developed sign languages.”
McKeon adds that “ASL plays a big part in bringing the campus closer together with the Deaf community, because it can be hard to find transportation to Deaf events off-campus.”
The club is also essential for ASL students because it helps them bridge the gap between the language they are learning and the culture that it is spoken in, giving them context to help understand what they are doing in class.
“Overall, the events were successful and brought a great amount of awareness for only our second year having this week of events,” Cantwell says.
The events allowed more students to immerse themselves in Deaf culture and explore a different perspective in something that they have only looked at only one way for all their life.
Understanding the Deaf culture, especially in the Rochester community, is important to be able to properly communicate with those who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing.
Kanakam is a member of the class of 2017.
