Class: Cross-Cultural Perspectives
Prof. Gregory “Duff” Morton
Assignment: Ethnography – Opal’s Free Community ASL Class
Scope
This project is a peek into a novel piece of uptown life, a free community ASL course. This brief ethnography includes my revised field notes from two of the classes I have attended within this course, reflections upon the experience, and some additional context regarding the class, ASL, and “Deaf culture” within NYC.
Motivation
American Sign Language is the standardized sign language of the United States, widely used by d/Deaf (see footnote) and hard of hearing (HOH) people of all ages. For many deaf people living in the US, ASL serves as a primary language of their communities, however for many it is not their first language. In fact, only 10% of deaf people are born into deaf families, whose sense of community and culture develops alongside the use of the language and structure of spaces built for deaf people. (Quick statistics about hearing 2021) For the other 90%, for whom deafness may come later in life or at birth, they may not have exposure to ASL or other sign languages. My fiancé is a hearing ASL interpreter who works in a K-12 public school setting with deaf and HoH children, most of whom have grown up only having access to ASL in formal school settings through interpretation or in Deaf-specific spaces. In many of their households their hearing family struggles to communicate with them. Often to the extent of experiencing forms of language deprivation before reaching school-age where a sign language can supplement an oral and written language they would have been exposed to. This serves as a motivation for my own study of ASL, as I hope to foster children with my partner, who wants to be able to welcome d/Deaf children into our home. As such, it is imperative that I begin developing my ASL skills to one day help model language and communicate effectively with any d/Deaf or HOH child within my care.
This ASL course is well-suited to beginners and is created with the aim of promoting awareness of the language and improving communication between HOH and d/Deaf communities and people. The course has attracted a diversity of participants, all of whom are not reflected in my notes, as attendance fluctuates dramatically. However, there is a regular rotation of about 12 students, me included. Each student has their own motivation for participation, such as the young medical student who is learning for future patients and the elderly woman, whose primary language is Spanish, who is learning ASL to support her deaf granddaughter. Additionally, fluency in ASL is also widely variable with some students who struggle to fingerspell (spell words out using the ASL alphabet, which is analog to the English/Roman one) to those who possess a functional fluency and even interpret and attend un-interpreted ASL events. While the class is participatory, there are few built-in pathways to sharing personal details between students; these details are learned piecemeal through conversations throughout the course.
Also, I would like to note the teacher, Opal, a Black Deaf performing artist who has lived in NY for over 40 years. This is of note because it is widely recognized that teaching ASL is one of the few jobs uniquely suited to a Deaf teacher. Calls for the recognition of that fact have been heeded insufficiently by hearing people who persist in teaching ASL, often poorly, both for free and for monetary compensation. While this course does not contain many hallmarks of a traditional language learning course (homework, handouts, assessments, etc.), Opal’s instruction illustrates fluent storytelling and conversation, while remaining accessible through her style of communication: “SimComming”. SimComming is short for simultaneously communicating in two languages, often in two modalities, in this case ASL and English. She voices in English, often grounding new vocabulary in the nuanced differences between signs and their English counterparts. Her English carries a Deaf accent, which she sometimes remarks upon. Throughout her primary and secondary education, she was in speech therapy in order to pronounce sounds that are difficult to distinguish from lip reading and produce on one’s own as a d/Deaf person. While she acknowledges that she is technically hard of hearing, she considers herself part of the Deaf community and the experiences she went through in Deaf schools cemented this for her.
Field Notes: Opal’s ASL Class (11/22)
The entrance to Holyrood Episcopal Church sits at the corner of 179th and Fort Washington, just across the street from the behemoth George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal. The steps up to the entrance always seem to have someone sat outside them. This day, a brisk and windy day, its ornate doors were closed. However, they open easily into the area where services are held. There are large sheets of sticky paper stuck against the walls at either side of the pews. Each reads a prompt from a community discussion. The questions go like this: “What makes you feel safe?”, “What services would you like the church to expand?”, “What classes would you like the church to provide?”. Each written in both English and Spanish. Underneath them, post its and writing in both English and Spanish answer these questions. In past weeks, I followed the southern wall down to the corridor, reading these questions and answers idly before class. However, this time, I did not take my time to admire them as there was a man singing near the pulpit, practicing some operatic vocal techniques. Also, I was running a bit late.
The free ASL class I signed up for takes place in a small room at the back of the first floor. This same room hosts an afterschool program for kids, which ends at 6pm. For this reason, the class begins at 6:30pm. There’s a small flight of stairs that elevates and differentiates the suite of rooms at the back, including an administrative room and a bathroom.
Inside, class had already begun. Opal, the older Black Deaf teacher, is in front of the blank whiteboard. That day, she wore a navy-blue velour track suit. Her hair was slicked back, as it has been since it’s gotten cold. She had on some sleek glasses, one of many pairs, and she’d done her makeup with a lot of blush. I had caught her mid-story, talking about a friend from her musical performance group, Deaf Music Ensemble (DME). There are seats arranged in a semi-circle in front of her, as is typical for deaf spaces. However, many seats are empty today and I joined the other two students quickly. I hastily signed an apology and signed the class log. She also asked me to bring some darker markers, as the ones the church provided had faded. I handed those over to her and assumed my seat.
For most of the class we sat and listened to her stories. As she went along, she jotted vocabulary words on the board. I’d entered while she told the story of Greg, her groupmate, scheming to buy a TV on their next trip to Florida. She first finger spells DME, then signs out the words quickly for clarification. This is the second time her group is going to Florida for this festival, which features many d/Deaf artists. Opal lamented the fact that she had to drive again. She hates driving and wished they had money to fly out. However, Greg did not share this, as he was eager to get a large TV. She emphasized the sign for TV, drive, and Florida. Opal rolls her eyes as she described the large TV, puffing up her cheeks as she discusses the process of securing it on the van. She says he bought some supplies at Home Depot and planned to use a blanket to protect the TV from the car and vice versa. She said she doesn’t like TV that much.
She talked about how she was almost ready to go. Signing almost. Then she paused, writing on the board “almost” and “easy”. Then she took her time to share that these are nearly the same sign. It’s the same hand shape and general movement, but “almost” is signed faster and once, whereas the motion is repeated in short intervals to mean “easy”. She pauses also to communicate the difference in facial expressions. First she asks, “What is one of the most important parts of signing?” She points to one of the other students, who whispers facial expression, barely audible to me, a hearing person a few feet from the student. Then the student signs “facial expressions.” Facial expressions are a key grammatical feature of ASL. While there are signed, including native signers, who are not as expressive by their nature, the language itself relies upon facial expressions to lend specific and unique meaning to signs. This is emphasized for ASL students and often an aspect of the language lost with hearing ASL students.
After talking about her trepidation about her trip to Florida, she talks about an experience she had while in college. Opal had been educated in Deaf schools or programs her whole life. When she grew up, as she shared during a previous class, her mother and aunt (who lived in DC) would often say that she should go to Gallaudet University, the only Deaf university in the world. While she shared that she had a good time the last time she was there, she remembered it being too White. Instead, she went to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Rochester has a large Black Deaf population and she felt more welcome there. Whilst there she had this White hearing professor in the Deaf Studies department. She and other Deaf students were invited to discuss ways that the police can better work with the Deaf community in a meeting hosted by the professor and a police liaison. Opal expressed that she felt there was need for Deaf cops to interact with the Deaf community. She emphasized that there are “bad Deaf people”. She expressed that hearing cops don’t communicate well with Deaf people and don’t put enough effort into solving issues of sexual assault and domestic violence as a consequence. She also said that when police knocked on her door when she was raising her daughter, they tried to get her to answer questions, but were trying to write back and forth. She told them to get an interpreter and then shut the door on them. She’s very dismissive of such things and was sharing this with the professor at the time with the plain directness she had grown up with. In turn, the professor was whispering with one of the other people in the room, while other people were speaking. Opal screwed her face up at this memory. She said she told the professor to shush. To which the professor responded with anger, saying that Opal was the one being rude and to not shush her. Opal doubled down, telling the professor that she should be paying attention and not turned away while someone is signing or speaking at the same time. To Opal, this professor’s behavior let her know that she didn’t understand “Deaf culture”, in which communication is not secret, there is no whispering when around other people. Opal scoffed at the idea that this woman could be a Deaf Studies professor. She also suspected that the professor didn’t like her because she was a confident Black Deaf student who didn’t automatically respect the hearing teacher in the Deaf Studies department. This animosity continued throughout the semester.
While telling this story, Opal wrote “shsh” on the board. Then she demonstrated the manner in which she shushed the professor. She also wrote down “finish” on the board. Then explained the different contexts and ways in which both “shsh” and “finish” are used. “Shsh” is not seen as rude, but an accepted way of correcting the behavior of children and peers. I couldn’t help but think that shushing a peer or a professor is seen as very rude in hearing culture in the US. This professor’s contextually inappropriate response to Opal’s “shsh” points to her ignorance of Deaf American culture in general. After sharing how to say, “cut it out” to children running around with the sign for “finish” and how to say, “I’m done”, it was the students’ turn to use either “shsh” or “finish” and either “almost” or “easy” in a sentence. We each went around. One student who had been eating grapes earlier signed, “I’m done eating grapes.” We all laughed at that. Then I signed something akin to “I’m almost finished with college”. At first, the student who had eaten the grapes did not understand what I signed. I repeated myself more slowly, after which point she understood. Opal and the other students shook their hands in applause, and I signed thank you to them all. The student at the end, a medical student at the local hospital, signed something akin to “Cut it out,” after setting up a scenario in which she is talking to children playing in the hospital. We shared another laugh at that.
Then she went through the upcoming schedule again. She would be off the day before Thanksgiving. Shortly thereafter we were dismissed. She wished us each to have a good night and to get home safely.
Note: The lack of quotations here is the consequence of a twofold issue, ASL is a visual language. It is not as easily interpreted into English and my hands were expected to largely be free for the duration of the class. My notes were sparser than my prior field notes.
Field Notes: Opal’s ASL Class (12/6)
Today, I arrived and my partner, Ernie (they/them), was already in the room with Opal. They are huddled around her phone, trading signs I cannot discern. I quickly learned that they are attempting to upload a short video audition for a part in a staged reading that Opal is going for. I intercepted knowing enough about each party to recognize they would not soon figure things out. Failing to do so on their own network, I handed my phone over and Opal quickly recorded another short video on my phone, which I promised to upload later and send over to her. Once that finished, another student, an older gentleman, came in.
That class, she started with a question, “What do you think about cochlear implants?” The sign is an iconic sign, meaning it looks like the thing it means. In this case, it is two hooked fingers (index and middle), arching toward the area of the head behind the ears until it comes to a rest there. Opal’s face remained deceptively neutral on the topic. She first pointed to the older man, who requires clarification on the question. After clarifying, he responded with a generally affirmative response, finding it to be a positive thing for people to have access to. She signs, “OK”. She then turned to me. I froze, at first. I know that it is a controversial topic, one that holds a lot of personal meaning to many d/Deaf people. Deciding to tread lightly, I said that it is a mixed issue, while cochlear implants are helpful to some and they are grateful to have access, it is not the same as natural hearing, nor does it provide the same expression of agency for all users that hearing aids might. This I signed in clumsy ASL; Opal had to clarify my use of the sign for mixed, as it is similar to confusion. She signed a quick, “OK”. Then she pointed to my partner, who shares some their ideas, which I have been privy to over the years: that they are a tool, which means they are not inherently positive or negative and the most important thing is that people have access to language. Additionally, cochlear implants are not the same quality as hearing naturally and therefore speech is not 100% accessible to cochlear implant users.
Opal gave a thumbs up in affirmation, before responding to her own question: she hates it. At first, she tried to say that it’s okay for adults to have, but she thinks it’s terrible for children to wear. She shared four anecdotes as part of her explanation. The first begins with a story about a time when her daughter was in elementary school. Her daughter is hearing, however there was a child in her class that was deaf, a little boy. Opal saw that he had a cochlear implant and knew that the child’s parents were hearing and his little sister only signed a little bit. However, she chose not to intervene in anyway. The last day of the year, many of the children and the parents took their kids to the park. There, she noticed that the child’s implant was infected! She watched as the kid cried and the teacher failed to provide any real remedy and the parents were not receptive. It being the springtime, there were sprinklers and all of the kids rushed over to play in the water, and Opal watched idly as the boy cried, unable to join them as he sat to the side in pain. She shared that she didn’t say anything because cochlear implants are a touchy subject and she didn’t want to get involved with parents and the school.
At this point, she also said that it was sad that the children could not take them out. Here, Ernie interjected, sharing that while the children at the school where they interpret do not have access to the controls to adjust the volume (the school controls them and they are adjusted once a week), they often resort to removing them in the middle of the day. The piece external to their skull is easily removable, but it is an all or nothing scenario, which still restricts their autonomy, especially in the noisy “mainstream” environments (e.g. cafeteria at lunchtime) filled with hearing children. Opal conceded the point.
The next anecdote she shared was when she interned at an audiologist office and would watch essentially every deaf child of hearing parents be outfitted with cochlear implants to the cooing and excitement of the doctors and parents alike. Eventually she asked her supervisor, a hearing man that she respected, what he thought, and he shared that it was very sad and that many of these children go on to undergo language deprivation, as parents falsely see their children as “cured” and never develop their ASL skills adequately. She then said that she would watch the children parade in with their implants and think of them as robots, poorly responsive to their environments and inadequately served by their families. She lamented the lack of ASL for many of these children and the poor accommodations provided by the NYCDOE as they enter the school system.
At this, the conversation turns to the birth of her daughter. When Opal was pregnant, she had hoped her child would turn out to be hearing. This hope was keenly felt and expressed to doctors, who informed her that no in utero tests were available. At her daughter’s birth, Opal was most keen to find out if her child was hearing, but was told that many months would pass before such a test could be conducted. By the time the two returned to doctors to perform the test, Opal suspected that her child was hearing. Throughout those early months, Opal watched as her daughter moved her head about in ways that hearing babies do at odd noises. Her suspicions were confirmed at that test. Opal had been overjoyed, because she knew the hardship faced by many d/Deaf children, even those with Deaf parents, as the education system in NYC does not support deaf children well. She shared that ASL was not even listed as a language that the NYCDOE offers. Here, Ernie chimed in that ASL is officially listed as a learning tool/tool for accommodation, rather than a language. This classification helps perpetuate the poor services rendered for d/Deaf children and Opal is grateful her child did not have to endure that. She shared that if the world accepted Deaf people, she would be happy to have a Deaf child, but she did not want her kid to experience the same hardships she did. It was tough enough being a Deaf parent, without the added difficulty of providing quality education to her child in a system where deaf education is shifting more toward “mainstreaming”, where d/Deaf children are educated alongside hearing children in oral classrooms with interpreters or oral schools, where no ASL is used within the classroom.
Opal then stated that, while she does not like children receiving cochlear implants from infancy, she doesn’t mind when adults get them. This statement is immediately belied by her following anecdote. She lives in a building with many Deaf people and adjacent to her are an older straight, Deaf couple, both of whom had hearing aids, but sign fluently. One day, at a nearby café, Opal found herself standing behind the woman and noticed that she’s wearing a hearing aid. She was incredulous, but didn’t want to start making a scene in the middle of the line, so she waited until she caught her back at their building. She asked, “why did you get a cochlear implant? What do you think?” To which the other woman responded, “I wanted to be able to hear my grandchildren.” Here, Opal rolled her eyes and aspirated heavily, her body language reflecting a disdain and impatience for the statement.
Opal then signed to our small group that she hates that.
Back in Opal’s story, the other woman then shared that her husband had also gotten a cochlear implant!
Opal screwed her face up recalling this. “Why would two adults get a cochlear implant to hear their grandchildren?” At this, the older gentleman in the class laughed. Ernie then chimes in saying that after a certain point, there’s only so much a cochlear implant can do. While one is experiencing sound, the part of the brain that processes sound will have too great a difficulty in learning to distinguish them for much of that sound to have any meaning after a certain age. Opal signed “exactly”. Ernie also offered that they know many cochlear implant users who sign well and identify as Deaf, even while acknowledging that that is not the norm, especially among older generations.
Opal then shook out her visceral discomfort at the thought of a cochlear implant once more, before checking in with me about her video upload. Deep within the church building, I had poor service and the video had yet to upload. I attempted to promise to share it with her once I was on a bigger network, before realizing I did not know how to communicate the concept of internet service in ASL. Opal showed me the sign after I fingerspelled what I meant. Conversation then shifted to the topic of the stage reading, for which she was auditioning. At this she wrote a few key terms on the board: script, new years eve, host, read, stand, stage, free party. The audition for a reading at a New Year’s Eve party, where the host, Jade (for which Opal offered both her sign name and finger spelling). Opal shared that they’ve known each other for decades, since high school. Here, she shows the sign for high school, which is just “hs” fingerspelled quickly. While Opal and Jade did not go to school together, many Deaf people know each other from the high school sports circuit, as many Deaf schools’ teams compete against each other in a league. Here she signs volleyball and basketball, her sports of choice when in high school. She shared that she appeared in a short film Jade made back in the 80s, the name of which Opal can no longer remember. However, she’s hopeful for this next experience, because she wants to go to the party.
With that, she checked in with each of us regarding our availability moving into the remaining few weeks in the course prior to the New Year. We wished each other well before parting. Opal said goodbye in her signature manner, wishing us to get home safely.
Reflections
ASL is a rich language that is inextricably linked with the self-determination, dignity, and culture of Deaf people within the United States. Since most deaf children are born to hearing parents and nearly 70% experience a form of language deprivation due to hearing hegemony rejecting ASL access and poor educational and community services, there is extreme and basic inequality experienced by many deaf people. (National Association of the Deaf, 2023) As a hearing person whose first language is English, I sit with the distinct privilege of having fluent language access to the administrative language of my country and place of residence. This same access is not afforded to most d/Deaf people. My personal goal of learning ASL is prompted by a desire to foster Deaf children, in formative years during which language deprivation quickly causes differential physical and mental health outcomes, educational outcomes, and many other quality of life differences. Key to Opal’s teachings are that d/Deaf children deserve to learn ASL and to learn it from fluent Deaf adults, in the same way hearing children learn from fluent adults in whichever language. It is also important that hearing people join in the fight to Deaf improve education and all other aspects of society on the basis of equity and dignity, concepts which are often poorly realized for Deaf communities. Additionally, while “Deaf culture” is a term that is used widely, there are many avenues into this space, as some are born into it, others go through an acculturation process during schooling and others come to Deaf spaces later with fully formed identities outside of that community. However, much like in Limón’s “El meeting”, these spaces are affirmed by the shared experiences, languages, and political beliefs surrounding access held by members of the group. These identity-affirming experiences may bear the mark of inequality and the inaccessible infrastructure of the broader world, however the spaces also exist to indoctrinate people into the fight for autonomy and dignity for all.
Footnote: Excerpt from Hipple (2022) “While anyone who is unable to hear is deaf, not all deaf people are Deaf…When capitalized, the word Deaf refers to a specific group of people who share a distinct culture with its own set of beliefs and practices, as well as its own language, American Sign Language (ASL)…There are many reasons why a person who is deaf may not identify as Deaf. For example, not everyone who is deaf learns or communicates primarily through ASL, and people who lose their hearing as a result of age or illness may lack a cultural connection to the Deaf community.“
Works Cited
Hipple, A. S. (2022, October 28). Deaf with a capital D. UMass Magazine. https://www.umass.edu/magazine/fall-2022/deafstudies
Limón, José E. (1982). “El meeting: History, folk Spanish, and ethnic nationalism in a Chicano student community.” pp. 301-332 in Jon Amaste and Lucía Elías-Olivares, eds. Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic aspects. Cambridge: Cambridge.
National Association of the Deaf. (2023). Implications of language deprivation for young Deaf, Deafblind, deafdisabled, and Hard of Hearing Children202. https://www.nad.org/implications-of-language-deprivation-for-young-deaf-deafblind-deafdisabled-and-hard-of-hearing-children/
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2021, March 25). Quick statistics about hearing. National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/quick-statistics-hearing .
