I am not deaf or even hard-of-hearing, but I feel a great deal of affinity towards deaf and hard-of-hearing people. There are several reasons that I can name for this.
When I first came to the United States for college, I could understand class lectures just fine, but not random dinner conversations, because the vocabulary is broader and tends to jump around more outside of class. Even today, I tend to talk less when chatting with groups I don't know very well. In other words, I had the experience of being cut off from information because of communication difficulties.
I have always been interested in languages, especially sign languages. I know a few signs in [Taiwanese Sign Language], and have been increasingly actively trying to learn American Sign Language since 1996. Some grammatical constructs in ASL are similar to parts of Mandarin grammar, for example topicalization.
Being gay makes me a minority in the world, and being Taiwanese makes me a minority in the States. M.J. Bienvenu is quoted in DefiantlyDeaf as saying: "If you are deaf, you know almost exactly what it is like to be gay, and vice versa." Obviously, I being hearing cannot make the comparison for myself, but at least it is another reason for me to be interested.
Finally, the first rally of the Deaf President Now movement at GallaudetUniversity took place on March 1, 1988, which is my tenth birthday. Coincidence or not? You decide.
--KenShan
[Branchburg bans sign language on school bus] because a student whose hearing was damaged in a school incident was mocked by other students.
HarvardUniversity's Deaf Studies and American Sign Language program is very weak, as in it doesn't exist. There is no ASL or Deaf Studies class listed in the course catalog, and Harvard does not accept ASL for its undergraduate foreign language requirement.
Although PBH (Phillips Brooks House, the primary public service organization on campus) offers informal ASL classes through its Committee on Deaf Awareness (CODA), the classes do not count for credit and meet only one hour per week. Imagine trying to learn French by spending one hour per week.
Compared to nearby institutions such as BostonUniversity and NortheasternUniversity, the situation is pathetic. Still, if you are a Harvard student interested in the subject, KenShan would be happy to get you started -- just send email.
If you are trying to find American Sign Language interpreters for an event, meeting or class at Harvard, some people you should contact are:
If you want to interact with deaf people, learn American Sign Language, or investigate Deaf culture, you should check out:
For starters:
Drilling in:
Online:
As with any other language, there is really no good way to learn American Sign Language without frequent contact with fluent, if not native, speakers, in either a classroom or a real-life setting. The intensive summer ASL classes at GallaudetUniversity is most famous, and is said to be pretty good. Your local deaf organization would have more information on ASL classes in your area. If you live in Massachusetts, check out [Selecting a Sign Language Class].
Respectable textbooks used in ASL classes that tend to be less dependent on a classroom setting include