Lydia Callis, signed language interpreter for New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg, is getting a lot of attention these days for her interpreting during Hurricane Sandy. She’s been spoofed on Chelsea Handler’s show, she has Tumblrs dedicated to her, , and she’s even been named  Hot Slut of the Day by Dlisted. Why all the attention? Is it because she’s an attractive woman doing something “exotic” with her hands? Or is it [...]

  Not too long ago I was backpacking in Central America, exploring the nomad’s life through three different countries. Having said this, I recall meeting a deaf dude at a cafe in Costa Rica. He expounded to me about a leadership program in Denmark infused with leaders. He said the leadership program consisted of an international group that would visit Ghana, Africa and would learn global deaf politics and so [...]

The coolest thing about the iPad, for me, is that it becomes basically this powerful walking library. Yeah, it has games. Forget that. BOOKS. MOVIES. COMICS. DICTIONARIES. AUGMENTED REALITY PLANETARIUMS. And all this is in your hand – or your backpack. Now, several countries are releasing SL apps and we have the benefit of becoming acquainted with their national signed languages. Here’s a list of some awesome ones (all seem [...]

There is a silent battle going on as I write this letter; a battle over a peoples’ voice, their right to be heard, and the ownership of their language, which may soon be wrested away from them. Most of the world does not think about sign language as a method of regular communication, much less place it on par with spoken and written language. But as research has shown time [...]

I was saddened by reading a post a while ago that someone made on her own blog. This person is an intelligent woman, and someone I care about deeply. She wrote about her frustration in creating song translations in ASL. While I do decry the lack of models out there, surely any intelligent person in the modern age knows that all languages are inherently musical and creative, stemming as they [...]

I’ve spent my whole life among people who use English as a second language. Most are Spanish speakers who learned English as a second language; others spoke Arabic or German first, then added English. Signing came later – I was 18 when I first met people who signed, and 19 when I started signing myself. I grew up where bilingualism was not rare.  In our world, the goal was communication.  [...]

Joshua Bennett performs a beautiful piece at the White House in which he apologizes to his sister for not learning sign language. I think this performance deserves attention, first for how beautiful his English poetry is, and second for how he combines it with occasional heartfelt ASL signs. There is currently a renaissance of ASL poetry and ASL performances on the Web, especially from new performers like Jason Listman. Joshua [...]

Communication is not just an exchange of ideas between two or more people. It is how we learn about each other. It is also a means of including people in or excluding people from a community. We are all aware of the difficulties we can face in communicating with hearing people. But what I want to talk about is the difficulties we encounter in the diverse Deaf community and how [...]

I don’t normally like audiologists and speech therapists. But my perspective on talking and speaking was forever changed by an audiologist, and I will always be grateful to her for that. Her name was Venita Gragg, and I was a 4th grade student at Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia Campus when I met her. I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen and [...]

Anyone remember that ASL music video from last year, “Waiting on the World to Change”? D-PAN has done it again with Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful.” According to their website, D-PAN (Deaf Performing Artists Network), based in Detroit, “exists to bridge the existing gaps between the deaf/hard of hearing community, the entertainment industry, and the public at large.” After watching “Beautiful,” it’s quite clear D-PAN keeps improving their idea of how to [...]