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Tag: Deaf culture

  • This cafe takes orders in sign language. It’s cherished by the Deaf community

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon cafe that takes orders in sign language has become a cherished space for the Deaf community, providing a unique gathering place as well as employment for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

    American Sign Language, or ASL, is the primary language at Woodstock Cafe in Portland, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. Non-ASL speakers can use a microphone that transcribes their order onto a screen.

    People have moved from across the country to work at the cafe because it can be hard for people who are deaf or hard of hearing to find jobs, Andre Gray, who helped open the cafe, told the news outlet in sign language.

    “So the cafe becomes their stable place. It’s their rock,” he said.

    The cafe — owned by CymaSpace, a nonprofit that makes art accessible to the Deaf community — also hosts weekly ASL meetups and game nights. Sign Squad on Tuesdays is a popular event, drawing people like Zach Salisbury, who was born with a rare genetic disorder that causes gradual loss of hearing and sight and uses a cochlear implant, and Amy Wachspress, who started learning sign language nine years ago as she lost her hearing.

    The hearing spectrum among attendees is diverse, with deaf people signing with students taking introductory sign language classes and hard of hearing people reading lips and communicating with spoken word and hand signals.

    “What I just love about it is that there’s so many different people that come,” said Wachspress, who classifies herself as hard of hearing and primarily reads lips to communicate. “It’s so eclectic … just many different kinds of people from all different backgrounds. And the one thing we have in common is that we sign.”

    Wachspress loves to tell the story about a deaf toddler born to hearing parents who wanted him to be immersed in Deaf culture. When they brought him to the cafe, he was thrilled to see other people sign.

    “He was just so beside himself excited when he realized that you could communicate with people using sign,” she said. “We were all so touched. … That’s the kind of thing that happens here at the cafe.”

    Gray, who helped open the cafe, said there were plans to acquire adjacent vacant buildings for a Deaf Equity Center but that much of the funding was cut following the change of presidential administration. However, CymaSpace hopes to find funding from private organizations and a future crowdsourcing campaign.

    “It gives power to the community as opposed to a fear of signing. We, as a community, are so proud of who we are,” he said.

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  • Rosa Parks and Helen Keller statues will be unveiled at the Alabama Capitol

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    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Statues of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller, pivotal figures who fought for justice and inspired change across the world, will be unveiled Friday on the grounds of the Alabama Capitol.

    The monuments honoring the two famed native Alabamians — one who fought against racial segregation and one who fought for the rights of people with disabilities — will be the first statues of women on the lawn of the Alabama Capitol. The additions will reflect a broader history of the state as they are added to the grounds that also include several tributes to the Confederacy, which was formed at the site in 1861.

    While inside the Capitol there is a bust of former Gov. Lurleen Wallace, the state’s first female governor who died in office in 1968, there were no monuments to famous women on the Capitol grounds.

    Rep. Laura Hall, who sponsored the 2019 legislation that authorized the monuments, said it is important that visitors to the Capitol, “see the full picture, the history and the impact that women have played.”

    “Helen Keller and Rosa Parks just seemed to be the image that — whether you were Black or white, Democrat or Republican — you could identify with and realize the impact that they had on history,” Hall said.

    Known as the mother of the modern civil rights movement, Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955 when she refused to leave her bus seat for a white passenger. Her action ignited the yearlong boycott of the segregated city bus system by Black passengers and helped usher in the civil rights movement.

    Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She became deaf and blind after a serious illness shortly before her second birthday. With the help of tutor Anne Sullivan, Keller learned to communicate through sign language and Braille. Keller went on to become a well-known writer and lecturer. She championed the rights of workers, the poor, women, and people with disabilities around the world.

    The statue of Parks sits by the Alabama Capitol steps facing Dexter Avenue, the street where Parks boarded the bus and made history in 1955. The statue honoring the civil rights icon sits across from a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

    The statue of Keller sits facing the Alabama Statehouse.

    The statue presentation on Friday has been more than six years in the making.

    Alabama lawmakers in 2019 approved Hall’s legislation to place the monuments to Parks and Keller on the grounds of the state Capitol. The Alabama Women’s Tribute Statue Commission has been quietly at work, commissioning the statues and finalizing the displays.

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  • Kentucky sign language interpreter honored in program to give special weather radios to the deaf

    Kentucky sign language interpreter honored in program to give special weather radios to the deaf

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    Putting grant money into action is routine for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, but an effort to provide weather alerts to people who are deaf or hard of hearing is tugging at his heart.

    The grant-backed campaign to distribute 700 specially adapted weather alert radios to the deaf and hard of hearing is named in honor of his friend Virginia Moore, who died last year. She was the governor’s sidekick as the sign language interpreter for his briefings during the height of COVID-19. The updates became a staple for Kentuckians, and Moore gained celebrity status. She even got her own bobblehead of her likeness.

    Beshear tapped the bobblehead displayed on his podium as he announced the “Moore Safe Nights” program, which will distribute the radios at no cost to eligible Kentuckians who apply. It is an effort to ensure all Kentuckians have equal access to information that can keep them safe, he said Thursday.

    “I think Virginia would have loved this program,” Beshear said, his voice shaking with emotion. “Virginia has a legacy for service that is living on with new programs.”

    The weather radios were purchased with funding from an emergency preparedness grant and other funds, Beshear said. The state will seek additional funds with a goal of eventually providing the radios to every Kentuckian who needs one, he said.

    The radios are equipped with pillow-shaker and strobe-light attachments to alert people who are deaf and hard of hearing of severe weather warnings issued by the National Weather Service. The radios also have text displays that light up, so they know the type of weather warning issued.

    “As Kentuckians know all too well, severe weather can strike at any hour,” Beshear said. “And the most dangerous time is when people are sleeping.”

    No matter how vigilant deaf and hard-of-hearing people are in monitoring weather alerts, their vulnerability increases once they fall asleep because they are unable to hear alarms and sirens, said Anita Dowd, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

    “This equipment will allow users to rest easier knowing that they now have access to this important and often life-saving information,” Dowd said.

    Kentucky has more than 700,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing residents, the governor said.

    Moore, who died at age 61, was known as a tireless champion for the deaf and hard of hearing and served as executive director of the state commission that advocates for them.

    On Thursday, Beshear spoke about their bond. At the end of each long day of work during the height of the pandemic, he said, he would see her on his way home to his family at the governor’s mansion.

    “She’d look at me and say, ‘I hope you’re OK and take care of yourself,’ ” he recalled. “That’s pretty special. That’s who she was, looking out for everybody else, including me.”

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    Eligible Kentuckians can go to https://www.kcdhh.ky.gov/msn/ or call 800-372-2907 or 502-416-0607 to apply for a radio, Radios will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

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  • Autoworkers learn sign language hoping connection with deaf colleagues improves work and lives

    Autoworkers learn sign language hoping connection with deaf colleagues improves work and lives

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    LONDON (AP) — One doesn’t need to know sign language to understand what Michael Connolly feels about his colleagues’ efforts to break down the barriers posed by his deafness.

    When asked what he thought of his teammates’ decision to learn British Sign Language, the 45-year-old autoworker at the Nissan plant in Sunderland, England, grinned and flashed a universal symbol: Two thumbs up.

    Connolly loves having the chance to banter with his workmates, to talk about everyday things — the kids, vacation plans, a TV program. And now he can, because the entire 25-member bumper-paint team at Sunderland started learning BSL at the beginning of the year.

    “I’m glad they have all learned sign language for us because I can talk and I lipread the hearing person, but I have my limits,” Connolly signed in an interview with The Associated Press. “If you reverse the situation and the hearing person can sign and speak, they have no limits.’’

    The initiative grew out of a broader effort to improve efficiency at the Sunderland plant, which makes Qashqai and Juke sport utility vehicles. While Nissan took steps to overhaul training and increase the use of visual aids during briefings, the bumper-paint team decided to go a step further and learn sign language, said supervisor John Johnson.

    Connolly is one of four hearing-impaired people assigned to the team, which works in less bustling area of the plant where it is safer for workers who can’t hear the sound of an approaching vehicle.

    Johnson said the thought of mastering the combination of gestures, facial expressions and body language that comprise BSL was daunting. But it helped him understand what life was like for Connolly and the other deaf workers as they tried to learn their jobs and fit into a team without having the ability to share the personal tidbits that build friendships.

    “So as a team, we thought how can we knock that barrier down? And obviously sign language was the solution, or at least the start of an opportunity,’’ Johnson said.

    The team’s decision is very unusual, said Teri Devine, the associate director for inclusion and employment at The Royal National Institute for Deaf People. While many employers make an effort to reach out and engage with deaf workers, few go as far as learning sign language, she said.

    Research shows that many deaf people, particularly BSL users, feel isolated at work, Devine said.

    Having more hearing people who understand sign language is important because even the most proficient lip readers will only pick up 30% to 40% of a conversation, she added.

    “It’s absolutely crucial that deaf people are included in everyday conversations, and it’s very easy to include them in those conversations,’’ Devine said. “The fact that (workers at) Nissan have gone and learned some BSL to support their colleague is actually fantastic. I take my hat off to them.’’

    There are mountains of research showing that kindness in the workplace improves productivity as well as being good for the people with their noses to the grindstone, said Cary Cooper, a professor of organizational psychology and health at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester.

    You can see that at work on the bumper-paint team, where workers had limited ability to communicate before they learned sign language, Cooper said. But now they’ve created the opportunity for dialogue.

    “You can find out: What did you do this weekend? What about the football results,” he said. “In other words, you’re cementing the relationship — the team building. And that’s important. It goes far beyond, you know, ‘you haven’t painted that bit of the bumper.’”

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  • Maine’s close-knit deaf community is grieving in the wake of shootings that killed 4 beloved members

    Maine’s close-knit deaf community is grieving in the wake of shootings that killed 4 beloved members

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    FALMOUTH, Maine — Maine’s close-knit community of deaf and hard of hearing people is grieving in the wake of the Lewiston shootings that killed beloved members, many of whom were ardent advocates.

    The shootings, at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, killed at least four people in the deaf community, the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf said Friday. The shootings killed 18 people in total and injured 13 others.

    Joshua Seal, 36, was a sign language interpreter among those killed while he was playing in a cornhole tournament at Schemengees Bar with friends. In the past couple years, he became known as an interpreter during Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic briefings.

    His wife Elizabeth Seal said in a Facebook post that he was “a wonderful husband, my best friend, and my soulmate. He was also a wonderful boss, an incredible interpreter, a great friend, a loving son, brother, uncle, and grandson.”

    “It is with a heavy heart that I share with you all that Joshua Seal has passed away … no, he was murdered, in the 10/25 shooting in Lewiston. It still feels surreal,” she wrote.

    Billy Brackett, 48; Steve Vozzella, 45; and Bryan MacFarlane, 41, were also stalwart members of Maine’s community of deaf people who died in the shootings, the educational center said. The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf are located on Mackworth Island in Falmouth, near Portland.

    The school and center were closed on Friday due to the shooting, but the island became a gathering place for people to share stories and grieve, said Karen Hopkins, the executive director.

    “We have had some people come today to this island to be present and think about the loss in our community,” Hopkins said. “How is this affecting our community? It’s horrific. It’s unimaginable.”

    Police were still investigating the shootings and searching for suspect Robert Card on Friday afternoon. They have not speculated on a motivate for the shootings.

    The four slain members of the deaf community all have connections to the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf. Seal had four deaf children who were all connected to the institutions’ educational programs, Hopkins said.

    Brackett attended the school and had a daughter who was in early intervention, Hopkins said. MacFarlane also attended the school as a student and Vozzella’s wife Megan was an alumnus of the school, Hopkins said.

    “Our staff is struggling because they are our friends,” Hopkins said.

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    Associated Press writer Lisa Rathke in Marshfield, Vermont, contributed to this story.

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