Continued from page 6
Coming Home: A Journey of a Signer
family using her from a very young age, 3-4 years old, as an interpreter. I am still very close to my sisters to this day.
I started off truly believing I was the only deaf person in the entire world. Eventually, it dawned on me that I was not and that people had treated me badly because I was“ different”. I had rocked the proverbial boat and the Southern Code was in play and had been all along. My requests for American Sign Language( ASL) interpreters, beginning around the 8th grade, were denied time and time again. I then rebelled by skipping school so much that there was talk of sending me to reform school. In one meeting, my father, the gentle and stoic man, suddenly erupted in a fit of rage and screamed his head off telling them if I wanted an interpreter, they had better give me one. I had never seen him so mad and realized after all those those years, he still saw me and loved me for who I was and am. They still denied that request and then sent a letter stating I was to repeat junior year. I told mom that I was done and quitting school, period. Luckily, I had just found a deaf club and was now starting to get to know some deaf people. One of my new deaf friends Sharon, who is now like family, heard about this and came over to talk to my mother. Sharon stood outside of my home with an interpreter in the middle of summer for more than three hours, fighting off mosquitoes, absolutely soaked in sweat and trying her very best to convince my mother to let me go to Arkansas School for the Deaf. Mom finally said she would think about it. I owe Sharon a lifetime of gratitude because after that day, mom said okay.
At the deaf school, I felt it with every fiber of my being: I was truly and finally home. I had found my village. What I know now is that my father, my two sisters and Memaw( grandmother) were already _ members of that village as well.
I graduated from the deaf school with honors, and attended Gallaudet. I eventually met my now husband who comes from a deaf family with extended deaf members on both sides as well as hearing signers, codas, etc. It was there I finally understood what truly being part of a family actually looked like and to this day, I still absolutely love every moment of it. They call me their daughter and sister, and have been there countless times for situations that called for family support, just for me. I had to learn how to be part of this family because for the most part, I was not allowed to do so within my own. Any signing that ever took place were for one on one conversations only. I had always been left out most of the time. I never knew what dinner talk looked like. Family discussions. Any of what a family does, whether it is a
The Duvall Siblings at Stacy’ s Wedding Day – from left to right: Karen, Michael, Andrea, and Stacy
healthy or dysfunctional one. Now I do, thanks to my in-laws, and am now demanding it from my own family. They are to become a signing family. They just need more education, which my sisters are more than willing to learn.
Prior to my mother’ s death, she opened up to me. She had been deaf in her right ear all her life. Also admitted to other things, as well. I believe, in her own way, she was finally admitting the truth: that she had always known that I was born deaf. The deep shame, its roots intertwined within the Southern Code, had made it hard for her to accept this.( Continue on page 8)
The Power of ASL 7 Winter 2016 – Issue 4