It seems like ASL has been an important part of my life for such a long time. I am not Deaf. My parents are not Deaf. I have no deafness in my family (aside from late onset hearing loss due to age). Until recently, I had no Deaf friends. Yet I have ASL under my skin.
It has been over 20 years since the first time my high school friend showed me some signs she had learned for a song. I thought it was so cool. She began teaching me the alphabet and some very basic signs. A couple more friends learned the alphabet with us. It was like a fun “secret code” we had between us for talking in class. The more I learned, the more I was hooked. I even took a semester class in the Adult Ed department to learn more. Soon I knew more than my friend.
In 1988 I took my first official college ASL class at Las Positas College in Livermore. It was called “Audiology” then and taught by a hearing teacher, last name Slack. I had to go home and look it up, because until I saw it on my transcript, the name completely escaped me. It was taught in voice, and basically showed vocabulary only. Looking back, this class was happening at a hugely historic time for the Deaf Community (the DPN protest at Gallaudet), yet this hearing teacher never shared any of that. If memory serves, the instructor was normally a science teacher, but knew enough vocab signs to “pass” as a Sign teacher then. I say “Sign” because we were not taught ASL then. I finished Audiology 1 & 2, which basically gave me a year of Sign vocab, but no exposure to ASL grammar or Deaf Culture.
Yet it still stuck.
It would be 17 years until I went back to an ASL classroom…
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