November 13, 2024 • 50 mins
Siblings Kenneth & Chynna Arnold are children of Deaf Adults CODAs, born into the ASL interpreting lifestyle with both parents being Deaf & their mother being Deaf & Blind. He’s a freelance ASL Aide/Interpreter, founder of the Davis ASL club & works in an Adaptive Recreation program. She’s fluent in both ASL & Tactile ASL & has been interpreting for the Deaf & Deaf Blind communities since 2020 in a wide range of interpreting for Deaf children at school, to video relay, to Deaf inmates in prison.
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It's Your Voice is broadcast live Wednesdays at 8PM ET Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). It's Your Voice is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
It's Your Voice Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 3 (00:27):
Let's Let's Speak show in, Let's beach in lot, Let's
in lots and lot in a lot of.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hello, and welcome to It's Your Voice, the show that
hosts enriching conversations in diversity. My name is Bihia Yaxon.
I'm a diversity educator and a coreliment coach. I support
agencies and organizations and identifying patterns of bias that are
not serving them or others well, and more importantly, teach
(01:19):
practices to learn how to cultivate new habits, new attitudes,
new actions that align with our values to be more
inclusive for everyone and that genuinely brings greater healthier communities
about If you want to check out my samples of
retreats and workshops, you can go to my website at
(01:40):
know what you Want Coaching dot WordPress dot com. I'm
super excited about my guests tonight and our show tonight.
We have two guests and I'd love them to come
on out while I read their bios and feel free
to interrupt me. But I'm going to read your bios.
(02:02):
It's so impressive all the different things that each of
you does, and I'll share it first. The title of
this show as life through the minds and Hands of codas,
which I learned as Children of Death Adults. Kenneth Arnold
and China Arnold, welcome, Thank you so much for being here,
thank you for having us, and I would just want
(02:24):
to acknowledge to our listeners and viewers. I'm very sorry
we don't have an ASL interpreter for this show. We
tried many resources. Hasn't happened yet, but they taught me.
Kenneth and China taught me we can retroactively add sign
language for people who can view it in the future.
(02:45):
So Kenneth is the Child of Death Adults and freelance
ASL aid and interpreter and founder of the Davis ASL
American Sign Language Club, an organization that provides a free
ail resource twice a month. He also works part time
for the City of Davis at the Adaptive Recreation Program,
(03:07):
where he supports adults with intellectual disabilities in recreational activities
such as bowling, batchy ball, and day trips. In addition,
he volunteers with the Community Mercantile, a locally owned reuse
store focused on reducing consumer waste by rehoming donated goods.
Kenneth graduated from UC Santa Cruz in twenty twenty two
(03:30):
with a BA in Art and with a minor emphasis
in education. China Arnold also a child of deaf adults.
They are siblings. She's twenty three and was born in
the ASL interpreting lifestyle, with both her parents being deaf
and her mother being deaf and blind. She's both fluent
in ASL and tactile ASL, and she's been interpreting for
(03:54):
the deaf and deaf blind communities in the greater Southern
California area professionally since twenty twenty. Her work type includes
freelance interpreting, which is a very which is a very
wide range of interpreting for the for deaf children at
school to deaf inmates in prison, that's quite a range. Also,
(04:16):
she works at a call center for video relay interpreting.
China graduated from San Diego MESA Community College with her
AA and ASL interpreting. At the same time, she was
going to SDSU and graduated with her BA in women's studies.
China has known since she was three that she wanted
to be an interpreter for the deaf and deaf community,
(04:39):
deaf blind communities, and that they're both going to share
about life. As coda's talk about deaf culture and deaf marginalization.
There's a couple of case study studies that are tragic
that they might include in this conversation and deafline code
and what that means between hearing and deaf world. Gosh, guys,
(05:00):
you're so impressive. Is there any other good you could
serve in the world? You could cover so much territory
of like huge heart, extremely helpful services to so many people.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
We do our best, That's what we can say, is
we do our best.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
So impressive.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Yeah, I think for us, it's just like the normal.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
I guess we never look at it as a perspective
of reserving a greater purpose in the world.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
We're just like, oh no, that's our lives.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
We were born into it, and I think growing up
we were like, oh, other people, your parents aren't death Like,
this isn't the normal, Okay.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
We kind of learned that as we got older.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
And it's really quite honestly rare to encounter other codas.
It's a very uncommon thing. There's there's quite a few.
I mean statistically speaking, but practically like the only time
we really have everyone to know their kodas has been
at a death events.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Not in not in school, growing up, not in colleges.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
No, it wasn't until the job I have now where
I work at Swarnsen video relay service, or I've actually
like my two best friends are kodos and like me,
Kenny and my two best friends, we all went out
to dinner and we're all talking and Kenny's like, oh wow,
like a moment of realization, like you understand how I
was raised, Like you understand, like, oh, your parents did
that too. And it wasn't until really working or why
(06:36):
I've met a lot of kodas and I'm like, wow,
I've never had this kind of like sense of belonging
if that makes sense, like a relating to other people.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
Yeah, because a huge thing is like as Codas were,
kind of in between the hearing and the deaf world,
sort of as like a bridge.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Where we have at.
Speaker 7 (06:55):
Home experience with deaf parents, deaf culture, you know, in
the extended friends and family, but then when we go
to school or we go to work, we're in the
hearing world, which is you know, we're able to kind
of do our thing and get around, but there's always
a sort of disconnect, you know, between and when it
gets to a personal level, because people talk about when
(07:18):
they talk about their families there, it's a it's a
whole thing.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
It's it's a very different kind of life.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Can you can you expound on that more, either you
or China, because I think we're so ignorant we meaning
the hearing world too, grew up with hearing parents. There's
so much about the isolation and marginalization of deaf community
or children who are hearing who grew up in deaf
community that I think we need to recognize. Can you
(07:50):
just educate me more about that?
Speaker 6 (07:52):
I think what comes to mind. I remember, like growing up.
I don't know if this really answers your question, but
I think it does. I remember growing up and having
certain like they weren't allowed to come to my house.
Oh'll be like because like if there's an emergency, like
the parents' perspective, oh well, how's your mom going to
call nine one one? And I'm like, oh, well, she
has her TTI and she has her video phone, Like no,
we can call nine one one, like you know, and
(08:14):
then they're like, oh, well, you're not really as supervised
as you know, we would want you to be. And
like also just like I also remember like, oh, my
friends were able to like call their parents like on
the phone, like, hey, I'm going to like talk to
their parents, like especially because our mother's deaf and blind.
Like they do have the video relay service where like
tem you can call the deaf person, it goes through
an interpreter and then you call. But for us, because
(08:36):
our mom's deaf and blind, we never had direct communication
with our mother. So just things like that were kind
of I don't know, yeah.
Speaker 7 (08:44):
No, yeah, I remember exactly the kind of like, uh,
situations you're talking about China. We're growing up yeah, and
the layer of having our mom being deaf and blind
adds a whole other aspect because our parents are you know,
when we're pretty young, so there's times where our dad
he wasn't living with us, right, so just be our mom,
(09:07):
And that's what would create a lot of concern.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
And while I'm you know, we're not ignorant.
Speaker 7 (09:12):
To the fact that, yeah, if you can't see your
king here, you're probably not going to be able to
supervise your kids as much as one might be comfortable with.
But at the same time, like our mom was able
to do a lot of things that a lot of
people assume she just couldn't do, Like, like you want
to try to mention communication, like we use tactile as
(09:34):
mentioned in Child's bio, where you sign into the hand,
and this is something a bit more recently developed, Linter,
I want to get back to like general deaf kind
of a pressure.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
We call it autism.
Speaker 7 (09:47):
Right, So in the world, the world is generally geared
towards hearing people, right. And when we talk about American
culture asl became a language in the mid to late
nineteenth century, at heart, I think it's called Hartford. Are
some like that Connecticut School for the Deaf, and the
(10:07):
language is developed by Laurent, a Frenchman who came in
the United States with a man named Galadet.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
So if you know anything about deaf culture of deaf.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
Americans, you know the name Galadet because he is the
only deaf university in this country is named after him.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
He was him and Laurane came here and raised the
money with another guy.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
It's a whole story. But they developed asl at this school,
and so it's it's a relatively newer language, right which
it was created in combination with English or not English, French,
and various pigeon signs from across the eastern United States
and pigeon signs a whole pigeon language.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
It's a linguistic thing.
Speaker 7 (10:50):
But throughout the early twentieth century, the educational mindset of
auralism really too cold where kids were to be educated.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Deaf kids will be educated through forcing.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
Them to learn to lip read right, and a lot
of times that is forcing the deaf person to accommodate
for the hearing person rather than meeting everyone halfway right.
And so that's where a lot of death oppression right
or audism kind of partly originates from is uh the
(11:30):
fact that we live in a world that specifically is
not does not designed or society, I should say, with
deaf people in mind, when we think about I don't know, chinny,
really good examples come to your head.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Not at the moment, not at the moment.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
Yeah, say, I'm kind of blanket on really solid examples,
but you know, like like having a interpreter here tonight,
there's a great example at her feet.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
Right, closed captions and bars, you know, like and also
it's not even like you have the TV sound on
it of our most of the time, so like why
not have close captions so you can know what's going on,
just like things like that, like very like things people
want to think of.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
That's what comes in.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
My mind, Yeah, thinks.
Speaker 7 (12:12):
Yeah, unless you've been around deaf people, you don't really
think about Like I remember, I was watching like a
concert on TV with my dad and I want because
I wanted to see it and I wanted him to
like kind of like experience some of it. And it
is rap concert, so you know, rap and hip hop
lyrics are a.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Huge part of it.
Speaker 7 (12:33):
And the fact that we were watching this and I
was trying to find the close captioning and all the
captions were like music, just a music they didn't even
have And this is a multi is a this is
a multi million dollar artist. They couldn't even get one
person to transcribe already written lyrics and just have it go,
you know. And that's just one example, you know, But
(12:54):
that and you know most people too. We talk about
sign language people. For us, it's just like, let's just
our language, you know, like we we communicate and sign
very comfortably.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
It's a language. But people a lot of people still think.
Speaker 7 (13:07):
Of sign language, American sign language specifically what we're talking about,
as a simplified form of English or just English without speaking,
which is not true.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
It's more it's closer to French than English.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Right, And I don't speak French, and I know, I know,
like heck, Tina does not speak French either, But but.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
The grammar structure and the way a lot of the
words and meanings come from French.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
Like we mentioned Laurent earlier, he's he's brilliant by the way,
that guy who's a genius, a brilliant linguist and teacher
and educator all around. But there's a there's a beauty
to the language. Yes, but for us it's just it's
just the language, right, You don't really describe like so
it says, oh, I speak Russian and I speak Mandarin, right.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Oh, those are such beautiful. I mean, I've always wanted
to learn those languages. I always wanted to learn from.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
We always get this right, and I think part of
it is like one, it's like, Okay, it gets kind
of annoying honestly, just to be frank about it, like yeah,
we know, yeah, we hear all the time. Everyone always says, well,
I've been always been meaning to learn American's sign language.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
But I think it also goes to speak.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
On the other hand, how we as humans have a
natural inclination to speak nonverbally, communicate nonverbally because a lot
of communication, most of communication is nonverbal. Really, when you
when you think about it, the tone in my voice,
the way my eyebrows are moving right now, I've taken
on a tone.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
You could tell, Oh, he's being kind of self aware,
you know, something like that.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
We have a lot of assumptions implicitly, right, How it's
not in the words, it's how it's being said.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
So we have we already have.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
The inner mechanisms to communicate nonverbally, and people kind of
hunger for it and like, oh I should know it,
you know. And it's not just like oh, it's a
fun thing to do. It's a hard language to learn,
but there's a there's a need there because people like, oh, man,
I want to talk to deaf people, right, I want
to communicate with people.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I can really go on about that whole aspect.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
But I do want to say that American Sign language
is not universal.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
That is a common misconsumption misconception. People always like, oh.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
So like you can talk to anybody all around the world,
and I'm like, no, no, no, there's different languages for
sign language. Like I remember, like working at the prison,
there was a prisoner who used LSM, which is Mexican
Sign Language Spanish Sign language, and it's completely different. So
even though like Kenny saying, like, oh, everyone wants to
know it's gesture, like not gestures, that's not signlguage, but
(15:36):
that's the nonverbal. But like each country or like each
spoken language typically will have its own form of sign language.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
Yeah, Like, if I'm not mistaken, I believe it was
Venezuela recently, very recent I think it was believed that
in the nineteen seventies had their own form of sign language, Venezuelan.
You know, the English Venezuelan sign language, right, rise up
so early, in fact, that linguists are able to study
it as an emerging language, right, And.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
There's I think I'm pretty sure I'm my mistake, it's Venezuela.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
But globally, you have Australian sign language, you have British
sign language.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I'm sure there's Japanese.
Speaker 7 (16:16):
Even amongst Native Americans and native people in general, you
have various forms of sign language as well. Even dating
back to pre Columbus times, you know, a lot of
native people would communicate with various forms of sign language
and obviously spoken language too, of course, but usually they
go no, put intend in hand in hand with each other.
(16:37):
But now we live in a time where ASL and
sign languages, at least I could speak for America, ASL
is not really offered widespread in schools where we offer French, Spanish, Mandarin,
other languages. But it's funny how the only language that
(16:58):
has been organically created in the United States is not
taught in the United States.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And I think that's so interesting and that's part of the.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
Thing where it's like that's kind of like part of
the thing where meeting halfway where it's like, why do
we need to fully rely on interpreters on China.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Our kind of bias to the fact is that's our
job or interpreters, that's our livelihood.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
So yeah, we're kind of like we kind of benefit
from that need of needing interpreters, right, So I'm just
addressing that bias.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
But but that's that's like why do we why do
we need interpreters?
Speaker 7 (17:33):
Should we should have hearing people get their own interpreters
kind of things like sort of the death perspective.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
It'd be very handy to have a deaf person.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Here because I feel like they'd be able to speak
to those kind of like perspective shifts a lot better
than we could.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Well we can in the future, we should. Yeah, yeah,
some people have been invited. It would be wonderful to
add through our understanding and help break isolation.
Speaker 7 (18:01):
Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Once it's a
good idea.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
Yeah, it's a great idea. Yeah, I would love to have.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Well, China, I was going to ask you, like, do
you think that I know this is subjective, but because
of the the relative isolation and like hardly meeting any
other codis in your entire lives unless you're at deaf events.
(18:37):
Do you think that you guys formed a special well,
you must have a special understanding between each other, and
that doesn't mean you can't argue like all siblings or
have disagreements, for sure, no doubt you're human. But do
you feel like was it even I don't know, I'm
(18:57):
just imagining that you guys have a close a bond
in a way that no one else could understand for sure.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
I mean, Kenny is my best friend, like I always say,
like we have lived the same experiences, like we have
older brothers but like half brothers. But me and Kenny
were two peas in a pod, even though we fought
and we were sometimes horrible to each other, Like me
and Kenny have experiences and I don't think anyone could
(19:26):
ever really understand even codas, like because of our mom
being deaf and blind, like even like one time we
had therapy together, like he joined my therapy session at
my therapist was like you two like have such a
unique like relationship and like not saying like depend on
each other, but like you can really like learn from
each other from your experiences and like even recently I've
been like finding a bunch of old photos and me
(19:48):
and Kenny from our childhood. I found it on a
CD about a CD player to connect to my computer
and just seeing the photos of us, Like how close
we were. I'm like, Kenny was literally my best friend.
I obviously he still is, but yeah, we definitely only
us understand necessarily one hundred percent what we went through
and our upbringing, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, and I'm curious like you, when you were only
three years old, you knew that you wanted to be
a deaf and deaf and blind interpreter. Yeah, that's pretty amazing,
Like like what was what was the three year old
mind thinking? Like was it just like enthusiasm like this
is so cool, I want I want to share this
(20:30):
or was it like, well it was it? What was
behind that thinking?
Speaker 6 (20:36):
I think it was multiple things. So like, well as
CODA is naturally, I think all codas would say you
grow up interpreting for your parents, whether it's the grocery store,
like that starts.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
At a young age.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Maybe not even like if your brien's like, oh, like
what are they saying you naturally are going to hear
like a hearing person talking to your deaf parent, and
you're going to want to relay that.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Communication to them.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
And I think, I'm I'm very nosy. I want to
be in everybody's business. And even as a little girl,
I would always watch my mom's conversations with their friends.
She'd be like stop, like go away, like don't look
at our conversations, and I'm like I want to know,
and when she would use the video relay, which is
what I work for now.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
So it's like a full circle moment.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
I remember, just like sitting and it would be it's
a camera connected to your TV. An interpreter comes on
the screen, so you type like, for example, like.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Nine one one.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
I'm not saying that my mom called nine one one
in a specific moment and I was watching, like you
tie nine one one. Interpreter comes up on the screen
kind of like how you have They have a headset
and then they call nine one one and then they interpret.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
What my mom's saying.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
And I remember like calling her doctor's appointment, it's calling
whoever she's calling, and just sitting there and like watching
and be like wow, that's so cool, Like I want
to do that, Like I want to be an interpreter
in general, but also more specifically like work for Sorensen
video relay service, which now I do work for them.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
So it's it's definitely cool being on the other side.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
But yeah, I've always been when I want to to
be interpreter, Like three out of four of us in
our family, like out of my brothers, we're all interpreters.
But I always say I wanted to be an interpreter first.
That was my dream.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So it's true copycats, yeah, copy cats.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
China's always been particularly good at sign language too, just
just even even I think if she learned it with
we had hearing parents and China just happened to learn
at a young age, I think she would still have
that same knack for it. Nonetheless, and I think the
fact that she's a native signer just exemplifies her ability or.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Bolsters her ability.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Ever since, while we're growing up, I always looked at
China as like being like the better signer, right, she
just had the knack for it. Not to say I
was a bad signer, couldn't sign or anything, but I
just had a bit I'm a bit more of a
how you say, an abstract thinker, a bit of a
colectic person, kooky kind of person, strange, especially as a kid,
(23:03):
and so my mind was always kind of thinking up
in the clouds, always drawing or thinking about this, that
and the third. So ASL is a very kind of it,
it's very organic, right, So it's a very organic way
of speaking and communicating.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So for me, it's.
Speaker 7 (23:22):
Hard to like get into that, like very that rhythm,
that groove and be able to recall words.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
At a time, signs at a time.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
China's just bang boom boom, boom boom boom, sign and
sign and sign. So I remember even at we would
go we would call it deaf blind class growing up,
but it was really more so like a community meeting,
deaf community meeting in Seattle where we were growing up
in Seattle, which also has a huge death population by
the way, in Seattle and the West. In Seattle too,
(23:54):
they had it was the deathline. Lnehouse were tactile ASL's
we know now was primarily developed. So it was very
good that we were there and our mom was in
a basically in the community of people. There's even a
YouTube documentary about Helen Keller, Someone's like it's basically debunking
all the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And in that video they're.
Speaker 7 (24:13):
Talking about tactile sign language and there's people that we
knew growing up in that in that documentary. So that
was pretty cool anyway, So I totally anyway has always
been a great, great signer.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So it was only actual.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So when like meaning China can express like more subtleties and.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Complexity, complexity just just also just how like quickly she
was able and still I'm just gassed throught my sister
right now, but able to uh communicate Like for me,
I'm you know, as a kid especially, would speak ah
very you know, very kind of it's hard to explain,
(24:59):
but I would ask oftentimes like can you express this.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Idea for me?
Speaker 7 (25:03):
And as like can you sign this to mom? Can
you help me communicate this? I'm really trying to get
this if I can't get it in ASSL, but China could,
and China would oftentimes help me. Now that we're older,
I think we're I think we're definitely much closer in
terms of our skill. But I'm always going to see
China's just a little bit you know, just because she's
(25:24):
just got it.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
You know, she's just got that very natural talent for it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So that's cool. You're welcome, Tryna, I can't tell which
one of you is older. If you want to reveal,
you don't have to. I'm just I just I just wondered, like,
was she or like literally older and modeling for you?
Speaker 7 (25:48):
No, Okay, China's younger than me by a year and
a half, so it's not that much younger.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
But that's funny. All of our life, all of our life,
we've heard that we don't who's older.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
And I love it. I love it, like.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Even though it's not her, it's me.
Speaker 7 (26:04):
But like I said, I was very goofy and aloof
child and it kind of still as an adult.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
But but yeah, I'm sorry, can I can I ask
one of my questions from my ignorant do you think, oh, well,
this is it, this is the thing, we're all doing it.
I'm just curious how and how? And thank you for
letting me ask questions. How did you, like, who did
(26:35):
you emulate learning how to speak verbally? They both speak verbally?
Or like, how does that work?
Speaker 6 (26:46):
I think that's a great question. I'm like, these are
great questions. I would not even come to think of
these questions. I always tell people, Like even in college,
I would be like, oh, like if you're going to
read my paper, I didn't learn, Like English wasn't my
first liege. Like I didn't learn English until about probably
like preschool.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Or like kindergarten.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Maybe maybe like I learned it a little bit as
I was little. Our dad is deaf, very vocal, Like
I think half the people wondn't really know he was
deaf because he speaks very well, but he's deaf, like
he cannot hear. And then yeah, and then our mom,
Like I understand my mother. She to me, I understand
what she's saying, which a normal and not normal like
(27:25):
an average person walking down the road. They'd be like,
what is that sound? But like that's my mom and
I understand her. But I think we just learned from
like our surroundings. Maybe I definitely probably learned our brothers
our my our oldest brother. I think it's seventeen year,
eighteen years older than me, and then my other brother's
ten years older than me. So just like being around
(27:47):
like hearing siblings and then going to a hearing school
and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
TV.
Speaker 6 (27:52):
Yeah, TV, watching TV obviously, like our dad love watching
TV and just say, you know, like you're surrounding, and
our parents would talk to us but in their own
And also, like Kenny said, like Deaf Blind Classic, we
had a lot of exposure to interpreters growing up, and
also like doctor's appointments stuff like that, like there's an
interpreter there. And then obviously like the world is hearing.
(28:15):
So like even though in our little home, like our
little cocoon was deaf, once we walk out the door,
it's not so I don't have a pinpoint and moment
of oh this is when I learned English, but I
know that it wasn't our first language, and I learned
it as I got older.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean I was, I was
thrown in my two cents while child was talking.
Speaker 7 (28:35):
But so on that for me, I think I kind
of gravitated towards like really developing an advanced.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
English acquisition from a from a young age.
Speaker 7 (28:48):
So all China's getting this ASL, like you know, we're
both communicating these two languages. China's getting the ASL like
I'm getting and I'm gonna be the interpret I wanted
For me, I was kind of like I'm gonna explore
the hearing world, you know, like on my own time
and do my own thing, you know. And so I
learned to read and write accelerate a level in school
growing up, you know, and that's just.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
It, Like it's like trying, I said, just the world
around you. It's a hearing world. You're gonna hear, you're hearing,
You're going to hear English, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So so can you tell us more about like exploring
the healing hearing world. Did it did it feel like
stepping into I mean, for all of us, I guess
when we step out of our homes.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I grew up in a mixed heritage household, so we
already had different cultures in the house and different languages
and different religions. But in your house, did you did
you feel a difference, Like did it feel like you're
stepping to a different culture when you hear world.
Speaker 7 (29:47):
Yeah, it's kind of hard to say because I think
just just because we're so young, like.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
It was just normal that this was that way and
that was that way.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Kind Of Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
I think like we knew really early on, like yeah,
there's deaf people, But I think when we got older
fully realizing like how stark, Like how I guess more
how invisible deaf people are in greater society. Yeah, I
think a good way to think about it is like
we would often notice people looking at us when we're signing.
(30:18):
Always just people are trying to say choose nosy hearing
people are nosy Okay, you know yeah, Like like I
remember a story one time where so we would always
ride the bus growing up, city bus that was our jam.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
So we would ride the bus to get to downtown Seattle.
Speaker 7 (30:36):
To get to our deathbling community class meaning thing right,
And so one day we're on the bus and we're
always sitting in the front section because I get our
mom can't see can here? We get that front seat section,
so trying to my mom, are sitting here, I'm sitting
here alone.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Right, It's kind of a crowded bus there saying and
trying to my mom. Are signing and they're.
Speaker 7 (30:53):
Doing the tactile and I'm signed to trying to interpret
when I'm signing to mom, tell mom so and so.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
And the woman she's over.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
There, she's looking, she's staring, but I don't, I don't care,
worry ignore her.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Well, it's just we're used to.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
We don't really pay attention any at that point anymore
when people would stare.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
She says to me, hey, don't make fun of her.
You know. I'm like, I said, that's my mom my, mom,
I'm signing, you know, And so you know, she it
just goes. She's like she, first of all, she doesn't
know what sign looks like. She couldn't tell the difference
at all.
Speaker 7 (31:30):
She couldn't even see that China were doing the same
communicating the same language, that we're using the same language.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And all she saw is me as a kid making
fun of you know.
Speaker 7 (31:39):
Like in a sense like bless her heart because she
thought I was being a brat and being a jerk.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But I wasn't.
Speaker 7 (31:45):
I was just doing I was just communicating across And
that's you know.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
That's the thing is like we kind of know, like.
Speaker 7 (31:51):
All right, we're not part of that we have this knowledge,
but like we understand that we're the bridge, that we
are inter linked to this world as well because of
our ability or you know, the fact that we can hear, so.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
You are totally abridge, do you know, I'm Another piece
of my ignorance is I don't know how common or
uncommon it is for deaf adults to have hearing children
is that it depends on how what caused the deafness.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
I think it's very I don't know that. I don't
I can't hate you with statistics or numbers.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
But like all my code of friends I have here,
we're all hearing, and their siblings are all hearing, and
then their parents are deaf. It's like for our mom,
she's the only deaf and deaf line obviously person in
her family. For my dad, he's the only deaf person
in his family. Like it's really rare to me, like
(32:49):
when I know that, Like, oh, like one of my
like to my two best friends are twins their codas
and like their dad I believe comes from.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
A deaf family.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
So it's it's really cool when like it's like a
genetic like their family members are also deaf, like not
just their dad, but oh, like my uncle's deaf, my
grandpa's deaf. I'm like, wow, that's so cool because most
of the time it's just like your one parent and
then your two parents are they're the only deaf people
in their family. And then typically like when they have kids,
(33:22):
they're hearing. I think it might skip a generation. I
know that, Like it's a like for if my partner
has the same gene that I have, which is like,
I don't know what it's called, like the deaf blind gene,
like Usher's usher syndrome, then that means our child could
be deaf and blind. So it's just like a gene
you carry. But I don't know if I'm saying the
(33:43):
right things.
Speaker 7 (33:44):
But no, you're good trying. No, you are saying the
right things. Whatever you got to say is the right things.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Okay, cool?
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I second the notion.
Speaker 7 (33:53):
Yeah, but yeah, So it's either you have like one
like and like to be deaf right, be you born
with it? You could you know, you can acquire deafness
through a mechanical or sickness or something like that. Right,
there's all sorts of ways you could become deaf right,
and there's also different degrees of deafness. Right, At a
certain point, it's kind of like when are you deaf right?
(34:16):
I kind of think it's like you go from hearing
and your hard of hearing and then you're deaf kind
of right, And I think typically when you have full
profound hearing loss in at least one year, you're deaf. Right,
even if you have some hearing, you're still deaf, And
there's cultural deafness and mechanical deafness.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
It's a whole thing.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
So either typically you have one deaf person their whole
family of hearing.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
People and that's a whole that's a whole thing, or
you have families of deaf people because of a genetic component.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
Like historically MARTA's Vineyard had a eighteen hundreds or seventeen
hundreds had a four percent death population because of you know,
some in breeding, but there's a four percent deaf population
there because of a gene that was passed around quite
(35:07):
a bit, and that's why we get Martha's Vineyard sound language,
which is one of the pigeon languages that got to
form a new asl over time. But that's an example
of like there was a huge population, a significant population
of deaf people at that time in that area where
most people knew sound language or at least ms SL VSL.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
So yeah, it's kind of like interesting.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
It's usually one like one person of the whole family typically,
but I think it's more common for just be one
person in the family.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Thank you. I'm just I just wondered if I share
the experience of watching my father lose his hearing. I
just want to see what your response is, you know,
by comparison or contrast that as he heard less and
less and less, we could just see his isolation more
(36:03):
and more and more like and there was a while
way he did. He didn't want us to know that
he couldn't hear, and he would pretend. He got so
embarrassed and tired to say I didn't hear you. What
say it, louder, I can't hear you. And it took
a while for some some of us to notice that
he's he's not He wasn't actually hearing for a while
before we even figured it out. And in that time,
(36:26):
he of course got quieter and less conversion because he
didn't want, you know, he was trying to protect protect
us from knowing that he anyway, I just saw the
isolation increase. So I just wanted to see if you
can I just want to give you I mean, we
(36:46):
have about twelve our minutes, and I just want to say,
before I asked my last couple of questions, I wanted
to give you a chance to say, what else you want?
The hearing world who can hear this to know about
the isolation, and and and anything you want to encourage,
(37:08):
like as a coda, like any way anything you can
tell us to like, hey, you know what you could do?
Any suggestions to help decrease isolation or connect with people
from the hearing community or anything that comes to your mind.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
I think the like when you're explaining about your father
and just that feeling isolation. I think hearing people like
when like losing your hearing is very scary, right, they're like,
oh my god, like that's horrible, but like that's the
beautiful thing about sign language. Yet like, oh how am
I going to survive? I can't hear? But like I
get callers at work who like are learning signs so
(37:42):
latent in life. But then there's a sense of community
and it is a culture and there's connection Like okay,
like you can't hear, but you can still communicate with people,
and there's like the deaf community, even though it's small,
it's also huge, and there's like you can find just
so many different people who are deaf or like who
are learning sign language, and you know, like a lot
(38:03):
of hearing people have to rely on like if they're
losing their hearing late in life or just as they
get older, lie on like lip reading, or they maybe
like hearing aids stuff like that. But my answer, I
mean it's hard to learn language, trust me, I understand,
but like to just learn sign language open so many doors,
you know for somebody who is losing their hearing. And
(38:24):
also you can take asl classes, you can watch YouTube videos.
I know, like even for most deaf people when they
go to a restaurant and the server even knows, like,
oh hello, like my name and just like finger spelling
their name or even knowing the alphabet, goes such a
long wakes and there's a sense of like connection and
(38:44):
be like okay, like this person knows my language and
I don't know. That's just my answer to that question.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
No, that's beautiful, that's a great answer. That's a great answer.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
Yeah, I mean one hundred percent. There's a fear that like,
oh way lose hearing, I kind of just gain. Definitely,
you get a you know, it's not to say like
being deaf is a whole perfect thing. Yeah, I mean
obviously if you're in a world full of that's you're
towards hearing and there's certain things like yeah, it might
be nice to hear the voice of your loved one, right,
(39:16):
that's a very right. But at the same time, it's like, Okay,
we're talking like how are you going to survive?
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (39:22):
How you got to live?
Speaker 7 (39:23):
Like trying to said, like, you know, community, there's so
many people who are deaf. There's many people who have
gone deaf late in life, right, and through learning asl
you you you can find that community and understand too
that like it's not all over.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
It's just you're going to have to shift your perspective and.
Speaker 7 (39:44):
You're you're joining a club pretty much, so to speak, Like,
I think both try and I would say like if.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
We ever woke up one day we were deaf, I
don't think we would. I would more music.
Speaker 8 (39:54):
I love friend, but uh uh sorry lost track.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
I would. I would more music. I love music, but
those people or you know, our mom would go.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
To Grateful Dead concerts. Jerry Garcia was still alive, and
she'd bring a balloon. She's she's always been deaf, fully deaf,
but bring a balloon and she could feel the vibrations through.
You know, There's there's ways to go about it, and
I think it would probably change my perspective on music itself,
rather than being like, I can't ever listen to music. Bega, okay,
(40:32):
I can't, you know, listen to music the way I've
always listen to music.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
But it would change how to approach it. I probably
get in the medal more metal.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Oh my gosh, you that is so inspiring, and we
will go back to more inspiring thoughts. But I wanted
to give you a chance because Kenneth had told me
in a in a texting conversation of the day about
tragic incidents of two deaf individuals, and I wanted to
know if you just want the public to know and
say theirs and let people know that this kind of
(41:02):
thing can happen.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yes, I am a terrible It's okay. I don't think
i've uh.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Maclvin Williams, thank you.
Speaker 7 (41:14):
Yeah, I'm terrible with names. I'm so John T. Williams
is the name of trying to know the story.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
John T.
Speaker 7 (41:19):
Wan is a Native American man, And this is a
Seattle was it seven oh eight who was shot by
a police officer. He's a wood carver, remember, and he
was walking down I think he's on his property or something,
and he's a deaf man.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
He's walking on his property.
Speaker 7 (41:33):
He's with carved his wood carved knife on and then
police officer was like, hey stop, freeze, you know, with
his gun, and uh, I don't I remember if he
was walking toward I don't think he's walking even toward
his officer.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
He's just walking away.
Speaker 7 (41:45):
And he shot him because he felt threatened because he
had he had a weapon. And then it was it
was his name, Tyrone what was his name?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
The other guy?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
This is more recent, Tyrone McAlpin.
Speaker 7 (41:58):
So, so this guy he's he's he's uh as cops
do they mistaken this guy as a suspect and in
a robbery or something like that.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
It's very recent. I think this fre good. The details
elude me.
Speaker 9 (42:10):
But he was why again, he was like, you know,
trying to He's on the FaceTime with his wife and
there he was signing and the cops are like, hey stop,
hey stop, and he's deaf, and so they tackle him
and they beat him up because he's just he's not complying.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
He's like, I'm deaf, I can't hear you. I'm laughing
and it's like, why are you laughing? Because mister willis
he passed away. He was shot and killed. Timrone.
Speaker 7 (42:36):
He he's alive and I think he's I think he's
suing right now because he went to jail, as he should,
because he went to jail and you know, they're like
you and and then the police, uh edited the report
and made it so he was threatening them, but they
had unfortunately for the police and fortunately.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
For you know, everyone else. Uh. His wife was a
witness and was like, hey, he's deaf.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
And I was telling him on the base TIMEE he's deaf,
and he's like, oh, he's a suspect.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
He definitely did this.
Speaker 7 (43:04):
And it just goes to show like even police officers
they don't know anything. And this is what kind of
gets the whole point where it's like why it's important,
why we need people to know sign language.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
I understand at least enough to say please, can you
stop if you're a cop.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Right, or just like tap them, you know, like because
I saw the video my dad, My dad he sent
He sends me really depressing articles about deaf people and
just like the horrible brutality and it makes me sound
I'm like, Dad, please don't send me the stuff. But
there's like a reason that he sends it and obviously
like it's for a purpose, but when you start talking about.
Speaker 5 (43:38):
It, I pulled it up on my phone.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
I'm like, oh yeah, I remember watching this video being
really sad and just seeing these policemen like attack this
deaf guy, just yelling at him, like and like the
one thing is like when you learn like deaf culture,
like Okay, if a deaf person's not looking at you
or their back is to.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Me, okay, what do you do?
Speaker 6 (43:57):
You flash a light or you like stomp on the
ground like different things to get their attention, and it
just shows the light light.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Exactly perfect one just flash or light.
Speaker 6 (44:06):
And like the lack of training in all areas that
police officers have and it's just like it breaks my heart.
Like my dad sends me the articles and I'm like
that makes me so sad that deaf people have to
go through this just because police officers are ignorant that
deaf people even exists, And like that was one thing
I wanted to say earlier is like I know so
(44:26):
many people who've never met a deaf person, Like a
lot of people have never met a deaf person, let
alone a deaf blind person. Like sometimes I sit to
my Like I sit to myself and I think, oh,
my mom is the only deaf blind person that like
my friend has met or this person has met. Like
some people are so like oblivious to the fact that
deaf people exist, which go to show the police officers
(44:47):
in these situations and how they're treating deaf people. They
just don't even know.
Speaker 7 (44:52):
Yeah, and imagine there's actually like a fire, a burning building,
a firefighters, anyone in here, is anyone in here?
Speaker 3 (44:58):
You know.
Speaker 7 (44:58):
It's like, and that's true. One right, it's like, okay,
flash your light or something like. You don't you just
don't assume people. You assume, oh someone's gonna hear me, right.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yes, assume yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
And so that and the other thing too is like
there's not like a ton of deaf people. It's not
like half the people alive or death. It's not like
a quarter of the people alive or deaf. So it's understandable.
I don't want to.
Speaker 7 (45:22):
Demonize people who are hearing for for not thinking about
because it's like, can you blame them? They're not really
we're not really told much in media are growing up
about deaf people.
Speaker 5 (45:32):
We're not you know.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
It's one of those it's not.
Speaker 7 (45:34):
It's not just like any random Joe Schmoe's fault. You
don't know about deaf people. Point you don't know deaf people.
It's it's okay, it's understanding.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Yeah, yeah, and another level of awareness to I just
have to let us let you guys know. I want
you each to be able to when you eat, to
be able to say something that you love, to do
what you're passionate about, because you're builth so creative and
do so many things and then you're closing thought. But
(46:06):
I'm just so grateful for everything that you've shared today.
And I want to mention Kenneth was our asl interpreter
for nine shows. We have one more show and I
think that no, I think we've done ten shows. But anyway,
I want an interpreter every single week, and I feel
remiss when I do not have one, and we're working
(46:26):
on trying to get a budget for that, because interpreters
deserve to be paid, for sure. But anyway, kay, or
do you want to start? Sorry China, please let us
know what you love and what you want the world
to know about you or about either one of your worlds.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
I know what do I love?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
To do.
Speaker 6 (46:50):
I love my job. I love interpreting. It's my lifeline.
I also love just like being at home with my
boyfriend and my cat and my dog and Darthish, and
like just watching movies and just being comfortable. I love
hanging out with my friends, just like I love the
life I have at work with the deaf community. And
I also just like my own little world at home.
(47:12):
If that makes any sense. Yeah, I don't closing thoughts.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
This was great. I loved it.
Speaker 6 (47:19):
I was so nervous. I think, if you want to
learn sign language, go on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
I'm Bill Vie. I guess I don't really.
Speaker 6 (47:28):
I think he's like a really well known he teaches
sign language. If you google any word, how do you
meet all the time? How do you sign this? His
picture will come up, his video will come up. There's
way he's alarmed sign language. If you see a deaf person,
just say hi, nice to meet you. I don't know,
just something like that. Deaf people aren't scary.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
I don't know. That's all I can think of, Kenny.
Speaker 6 (47:49):
We'll probably say better words ieotypes.
Speaker 7 (47:53):
If yousy two deaf people have a conversation, don't interrupt
their conversation.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Just just just just give a hello. You know, if
you're passing by, just give a hello. Be respectful.
Speaker 7 (48:03):
Right, But China, we get a pass because we are
so awesome.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
Okay, I'm just kidding, but I guess. I love to draw.
I love drawing. I like video I love video games.
I love my girlfriend. Shout out Helen. I love you Helen.
And Dixon. Shout out shout Helen. She just passed the bar.
One of the youngest people in America to pass the bar. Okay, uh.
(48:30):
I love also being at.
Speaker 7 (48:31):
Home and quiet, just like peace and quiet drawing.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
And for those listening, join if you're in Davis, join.
Speaker 7 (48:39):
The ASL Davis ASL Club every other Tuesday at the
Mary L. Stevens Library in the small conference room. As
L underscore Davis at on Instagram. I always be posting
the information on there. It's free. Just come you learn
ASL that we got people a different levels there.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
It's a great time.
Speaker 7 (49:00):
I turned my voice off when I just start signing
and I just started selling.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
People go what what do you say? And I just go, okay,
you know, I just I just you just go from there.
Speaker 7 (49:10):
Bill v Uh doctor Bill on YouTube on the internet.
He's a great starting point. He's got a great asl
in Troup series. Watch his videos.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Spella's name b I L L V I C A
R s okay, the car say his last name, so
I always just say Bill v Okay. I'll put it
in the show notes. Gosh, you guys, thank you so
so so much for opening up a world to us
and for being your authentic, beautiful cells. I so appreciate you.
(49:44):
Please stay in touch. I also want to thank the
listeners and viewers and our engineer Rebel and our producer Dean,
and your dear friend who kept sending notes and your
families and uh and for everything that you both do.
Incredible human being, really outstanding.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Pure. Be sure to tune in next Wednesday at a
pm Eastern Time at W four c Y dot com
or talk for TV and maybe we all have enriching
conversations in diversity this week. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Logicalos speech logic, let's speech in logical, let's speech in logic, yell,
let's beach all in logic, Let's beech e logic, Let's
(50:40):
preach
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Speaker 3 (00:27):
Let's Let's Speak show in, Let's beach in lot, Let's
in lots and lot in a lot of.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hello, and welcome to It's Your Voice, the show that
hosts enriching conversations in diversity. My name is Bihia Yaxon.
I'm a diversity educator and a coreliment coach. I support
agencies and organizations and identifying patterns of bias that are
not serving them or others well, and more importantly, teach
(01:19):
practices to learn how to cultivate new habits, new attitudes,
new actions that align with our values to be more
inclusive for everyone and that genuinely brings greater healthier communities
about If you want to check out my samples of
retreats and workshops, you can go to my website at
(01:40):
know what you Want Coaching dot WordPress dot com. I'm
super excited about my guests tonight and our show tonight.
We have two guests and I'd love them to come
on out while I read their bios and feel free
to interrupt me. But I'm going to read your bios.
(02:02):
It's so impressive all the different things that each of
you does, and I'll share it first. The title of
this show as life through the minds and Hands of codas,
which I learned as Children of Death Adults. Kenneth Arnold
and China Arnold, welcome, Thank you so much for being here,
thank you for having us, and I would just want
(02:24):
to acknowledge to our listeners and viewers. I'm very sorry
we don't have an ASL interpreter for this show. We
tried many resources. Hasn't happened yet, but they taught me.
Kenneth and China taught me we can retroactively add sign
language for people who can view it in the future.
(02:45):
So Kenneth is the Child of Death Adults and freelance
ASL aid and interpreter and founder of the Davis ASL
American Sign Language Club, an organization that provides a free
ail resource twice a month. He also works part time
for the City of Davis at the Adaptive Recreation Program,
(03:07):
where he supports adults with intellectual disabilities in recreational activities
such as bowling, batchy ball, and day trips. In addition,
he volunteers with the Community Mercantile, a locally owned reuse
store focused on reducing consumer waste by rehoming donated goods.
Kenneth graduated from UC Santa Cruz in twenty twenty two
(03:30):
with a BA in Art and with a minor emphasis
in education. China Arnold also a child of deaf adults.
They are siblings. She's twenty three and was born in
the ASL interpreting lifestyle, with both her parents being deaf
and her mother being deaf and blind. She's both fluent
in ASL and tactile ASL, and she's been interpreting for
(03:54):
the deaf and deaf blind communities in the greater Southern
California area professionally since twenty twenty. Her work type includes
freelance interpreting, which is a very which is a very
wide range of interpreting for the for deaf children at
school to deaf inmates in prison, that's quite a range. Also,
(04:16):
she works at a call center for video relay interpreting.
China graduated from San Diego MESA Community College with her
AA and ASL interpreting. At the same time, she was
going to SDSU and graduated with her BA in women's studies.
China has known since she was three that she wanted
to be an interpreter for the deaf and deaf community,
(04:39):
deaf blind communities, and that they're both going to share
about life. As coda's talk about deaf culture and deaf marginalization.
There's a couple of case study studies that are tragic
that they might include in this conversation and deafline code
and what that means between hearing and deaf world. Gosh, guys,
(05:00):
you're so impressive. Is there any other good you could
serve in the world? You could cover so much territory
of like huge heart, extremely helpful services to so many people.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
We do our best, That's what we can say, is
we do our best.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
So impressive.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Yeah, I think for us, it's just like the normal.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
I guess we never look at it as a perspective
of reserving a greater purpose in the world.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
We're just like, oh no, that's our lives.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
We were born into it, and I think growing up
we were like, oh, other people, your parents aren't death Like,
this isn't the normal, Okay.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
We kind of learned that as we got older.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
And it's really quite honestly rare to encounter other codas.
It's a very uncommon thing. There's there's quite a few.
I mean statistically speaking, but practically like the only time
we really have everyone to know their kodas has been
at a death events.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Not in not in school, growing up, not in colleges.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
No, it wasn't until the job I have now where
I work at Swarnsen video relay service, or I've actually
like my two best friends are kodos and like me,
Kenny and my two best friends, we all went out
to dinner and we're all talking and Kenny's like, oh wow,
like a moment of realization, like you understand how I
was raised, Like you understand, like, oh, your parents did
that too. And it wasn't until really working or why
(06:36):
I've met a lot of kodas and I'm like, wow,
I've never had this kind of like sense of belonging
if that makes sense, like a relating to other people.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
Yeah, because a huge thing is like as Codas were,
kind of in between the hearing and the deaf world,
sort of as like a bridge.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Where we have at.
Speaker 7 (06:55):
Home experience with deaf parents, deaf culture, you know, in
the extended friends and family, but then when we go
to school or we go to work, we're in the
hearing world, which is you know, we're able to kind
of do our thing and get around, but there's always
a sort of disconnect, you know, between and when it
gets to a personal level, because people talk about when
(07:18):
they talk about their families there, it's a it's a
whole thing.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
It's it's a very different kind of life.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Can you can you expound on that more, either you
or China, because I think we're so ignorant we meaning
the hearing world too, grew up with hearing parents. There's
so much about the isolation and marginalization of deaf community
or children who are hearing who grew up in deaf
community that I think we need to recognize. Can you
(07:50):
just educate me more about that?
Speaker 6 (07:52):
I think what comes to mind. I remember, like growing up.
I don't know if this really answers your question, but
I think it does. I remember growing up and having
certain like they weren't allowed to come to my house.
Oh'll be like because like if there's an emergency, like
the parents' perspective, oh well, how's your mom going to
call nine one one? And I'm like, oh, well, she
has her TTI and she has her video phone, Like no,
we can call nine one one, like you know, and
(08:14):
then they're like, oh, well, you're not really as supervised
as you know, we would want you to be. And
like also just like I also remember like, oh, my
friends were able to like call their parents like on
the phone, like, hey, I'm going to like talk to
their parents, like especially because our mother's deaf and blind.
Like they do have the video relay service where like
tem you can call the deaf person, it goes through
an interpreter and then you call. But for us, because
(08:36):
our mom's deaf and blind, we never had direct communication
with our mother. So just things like that were kind
of I don't know, yeah.
Speaker 7 (08:44):
No, yeah, I remember exactly the kind of like, uh,
situations you're talking about China. We're growing up yeah, and
the layer of having our mom being deaf and blind
adds a whole other aspect because our parents are you know,
when we're pretty young, so there's times where our dad
he wasn't living with us, right, so just be our mom,
(09:07):
And that's what would create a lot of concern.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
And while I'm you know, we're not ignorant.
Speaker 7 (09:12):
To the fact that, yeah, if you can't see your
king here, you're probably not going to be able to
supervise your kids as much as one might be comfortable with.
But at the same time, like our mom was able
to do a lot of things that a lot of
people assume she just couldn't do, Like, like you want
to try to mention communication, like we use tactile as
(09:34):
mentioned in Child's bio, where you sign into the hand,
and this is something a bit more recently developed, Linter,
I want to get back to like general deaf kind
of a pressure.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
We call it autism.
Speaker 7 (09:47):
Right, So in the world, the world is generally geared
towards hearing people, right. And when we talk about American
culture asl became a language in the mid to late
nineteenth century, at heart, I think it's called Hartford. Are
some like that Connecticut School for the Deaf, and the
(10:07):
language is developed by Laurent, a Frenchman who came in
the United States with a man named Galadet.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
So if you know anything about deaf culture of deaf.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
Americans, you know the name Galadet because he is the
only deaf university in this country is named after him.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
He was him and Laurane came here and raised the
money with another guy.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
It's a whole story. But they developed asl at this school,
and so it's it's a relatively newer language, right which
it was created in combination with English or not English, French,
and various pigeon signs from across the eastern United States
and pigeon signs a whole pigeon language.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
It's a linguistic thing.
Speaker 7 (10:50):
But throughout the early twentieth century, the educational mindset of
auralism really too cold where kids were to be educated.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Deaf kids will be educated through forcing.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
Them to learn to lip read right, and a lot
of times that is forcing the deaf person to accommodate
for the hearing person rather than meeting everyone halfway right.
And so that's where a lot of death oppression right
or audism kind of partly originates from is uh the
(11:30):
fact that we live in a world that specifically is
not does not designed or society, I should say, with
deaf people in mind, when we think about I don't know, chinny,
really good examples come to your head.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Not at the moment, not at the moment.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
Yeah, say, I'm kind of blanket on really solid examples,
but you know, like like having a interpreter here tonight,
there's a great example at her feet.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
Right, closed captions and bars, you know, like and also
it's not even like you have the TV sound on
it of our most of the time, so like why
not have close captions so you can know what's going on,
just like things like that, like very like things people
want to think of.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
That's what comes in.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
My mind, Yeah, thinks.
Speaker 7 (12:12):
Yeah, unless you've been around deaf people, you don't really
think about Like I remember, I was watching like a
concert on TV with my dad and I want because
I wanted to see it and I wanted him to
like kind of like experience some of it. And it
is rap concert, so you know, rap and hip hop
lyrics are a.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Huge part of it.
Speaker 7 (12:33):
And the fact that we were watching this and I
was trying to find the close captioning and all the
captions were like music, just a music they didn't even
have And this is a multi is a this is
a multi million dollar artist. They couldn't even get one
person to transcribe already written lyrics and just have it go,
you know. And that's just one example, you know, But
(12:54):
that and you know most people too. We talk about
sign language people. For us, it's just like, let's just
our language, you know, like we we communicate and sign
very comfortably.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
It's a language. But people a lot of people still think.
Speaker 7 (13:07):
Of sign language, American sign language specifically what we're talking about,
as a simplified form of English or just English without speaking,
which is not true.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
It's more it's closer to French than English.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Right, And I don't speak French, and I know, I know,
like heck, Tina does not speak French either, But but.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
The grammar structure and the way a lot of the
words and meanings come from French.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
Like we mentioned Laurent earlier, he's he's brilliant by the way,
that guy who's a genius, a brilliant linguist and teacher
and educator all around. But there's a there's a beauty
to the language. Yes, but for us it's just it's
just the language, right, You don't really describe like so
it says, oh, I speak Russian and I speak Mandarin, right.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Oh, those are such beautiful. I mean, I've always wanted
to learn those languages. I always wanted to learn from.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
We always get this right, and I think part of
it is like one, it's like, Okay, it gets kind
of annoying honestly, just to be frank about it, like yeah,
we know, yeah, we hear all the time. Everyone always says, well,
I've been always been meaning to learn American's sign language.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
But I think it also goes to speak.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
On the other hand, how we as humans have a
natural inclination to speak nonverbally, communicate nonverbally because a lot
of communication, most of communication is nonverbal. Really, when you
when you think about it, the tone in my voice,
the way my eyebrows are moving right now, I've taken
on a tone.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
You could tell, Oh, he's being kind of self aware,
you know, something like that.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
We have a lot of assumptions implicitly, right, How it's
not in the words, it's how it's being said.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
So we have we already have.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
The inner mechanisms to communicate nonverbally, and people kind of
hunger for it and like, oh I should know it,
you know. And it's not just like oh, it's a
fun thing to do. It's a hard language to learn,
but there's a there's a need there because people like, oh, man,
I want to talk to deaf people, right, I want
to communicate with people.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I can really go on about that whole aspect.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
But I do want to say that American Sign language
is not universal.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
That is a common misconsumption misconception. People always like, oh.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
So like you can talk to anybody all around the world,
and I'm like, no, no, no, there's different languages for
sign language. Like I remember, like working at the prison,
there was a prisoner who used LSM, which is Mexican
Sign Language Spanish Sign language, and it's completely different. So
even though like Kenny saying, like, oh, everyone wants to
know it's gesture, like not gestures, that's not signlguage, but
(15:36):
that's the nonverbal. But like each country or like each
spoken language typically will have its own form of sign language.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
Yeah, Like, if I'm not mistaken, I believe it was
Venezuela recently, very recent I think it was believed that
in the nineteen seventies had their own form of sign language, Venezuelan.
You know, the English Venezuelan sign language, right, rise up
so early, in fact, that linguists are able to study
it as an emerging language, right, And.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
There's I think I'm pretty sure I'm my mistake, it's Venezuela.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
But globally, you have Australian sign language, you have British
sign language.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I'm sure there's Japanese.
Speaker 7 (16:16):
Even amongst Native Americans and native people in general, you
have various forms of sign language as well. Even dating
back to pre Columbus times, you know, a lot of
native people would communicate with various forms of sign language
and obviously spoken language too, of course, but usually they
go no, put intend in hand in hand with each other.
(16:37):
But now we live in a time where ASL and
sign languages, at least I could speak for America, ASL
is not really offered widespread in schools where we offer French, Spanish, Mandarin,
other languages. But it's funny how the only language that
(16:58):
has been organically created in the United States is not
taught in the United States.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And I think that's so interesting and that's part of the.
Speaker 7 (17:06):
Thing where it's like that's kind of like part of
the thing where meeting halfway where it's like, why do
we need to fully rely on interpreters on China.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Our kind of bias to the fact is that's our
job or interpreters, that's our livelihood.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
So yeah, we're kind of like we kind of benefit
from that need of needing interpreters, right, So I'm just
addressing that bias.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
But but that's that's like why do we why do
we need interpreters?
Speaker 7 (17:33):
Should we should have hearing people get their own interpreters
kind of things like sort of the death perspective.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
It'd be very handy to have a deaf person.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Here because I feel like they'd be able to speak
to those kind of like perspective shifts a lot better
than we could.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Well we can in the future, we should. Yeah, yeah,
some people have been invited. It would be wonderful to
add through our understanding and help break isolation.
Speaker 7 (18:01):
Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Once it's a
good idea.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
Yeah, it's a great idea. Yeah, I would love to have.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Well, China, I was going to ask you, like, do
you think that I know this is subjective, but because
of the the relative isolation and like hardly meeting any
other codis in your entire lives unless you're at deaf events.
(18:37):
Do you think that you guys formed a special well,
you must have a special understanding between each other, and
that doesn't mean you can't argue like all siblings or
have disagreements, for sure, no doubt you're human. But do
you feel like was it even I don't know, I'm
(18:57):
just imagining that you guys have a close a bond
in a way that no one else could understand for sure.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
I mean, Kenny is my best friend, like I always say,
like we have lived the same experiences, like we have
older brothers but like half brothers. But me and Kenny
were two peas in a pod, even though we fought
and we were sometimes horrible to each other, Like me
and Kenny have experiences and I don't think anyone could
(19:26):
ever really understand even codas, like because of our mom
being deaf and blind, like even like one time we
had therapy together, like he joined my therapy session at
my therapist was like you two like have such a
unique like relationship and like not saying like depend on
each other, but like you can really like learn from
each other from your experiences and like even recently I've
been like finding a bunch of old photos and me
(19:48):
and Kenny from our childhood. I found it on a
CD about a CD player to connect to my computer
and just seeing the photos of us, Like how close
we were. I'm like, Kenny was literally my best friend.
I obviously he still is, but yeah, we definitely only
us understand necessarily one hundred percent what we went through
and our upbringing, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, and I'm curious like you, when you were only
three years old, you knew that you wanted to be
a deaf and deaf and blind interpreter. Yeah, that's pretty amazing,
Like like what was what was the three year old
mind thinking? Like was it just like enthusiasm like this
is so cool, I want I want to share this
(20:30):
or was it like, well it was it? What was
behind that thinking?
Speaker 6 (20:36):
I think it was multiple things. So like, well as
CODA is naturally, I think all codas would say you
grow up interpreting for your parents, whether it's the grocery store,
like that starts.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
At a young age.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Maybe not even like if your brien's like, oh, like
what are they saying you naturally are going to hear
like a hearing person talking to your deaf parent, and
you're going to want to relay that.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Communication to them.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
And I think, I'm I'm very nosy. I want to
be in everybody's business. And even as a little girl,
I would always watch my mom's conversations with their friends.
She'd be like stop, like go away, like don't look
at our conversations, and I'm like I want to know,
and when she would use the video relay, which is
what I work for now.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
So it's like a full circle moment.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
I remember, just like sitting and it would be it's
a camera connected to your TV. An interpreter comes on
the screen, so you type like, for example, like.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Nine one one.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
I'm not saying that my mom called nine one one
in a specific moment and I was watching, like you
tie nine one one. Interpreter comes up on the screen
kind of like how you have They have a headset
and then they call nine one one and then they interpret.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
What my mom's saying.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
And I remember like calling her doctor's appointment, it's calling
whoever she's calling, and just sitting there and like watching
and be like wow, that's so cool, Like I want
to do that, Like I want to be an interpreter
in general, but also more specifically like work for Sorensen
video relay service, which now I do work for them.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
So it's it's definitely cool being on the other side.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
But yeah, I've always been when I want to to
be interpreter, Like three out of four of us in
our family, like out of my brothers, we're all interpreters.
But I always say I wanted to be an interpreter first.
That was my dream.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So it's true copycats, yeah, copy cats.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
China's always been particularly good at sign language too, just
just even even I think if she learned it with
we had hearing parents and China just happened to learn
at a young age, I think she would still have
that same knack for it. Nonetheless, and I think the
fact that she's a native signer just exemplifies her ability or.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Bolsters her ability.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Ever since, while we're growing up, I always looked at
China as like being like the better signer, right, she
just had the knack for it. Not to say I
was a bad signer, couldn't sign or anything, but I
just had a bit I'm a bit more of a
how you say, an abstract thinker, a bit of a
colectic person, kooky kind of person, strange, especially as a kid,
(23:03):
and so my mind was always kind of thinking up
in the clouds, always drawing or thinking about this, that
and the third. So ASL is a very kind of it,
it's very organic, right, So it's a very organic way
of speaking and communicating.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So for me, it's.
Speaker 7 (23:22):
Hard to like get into that, like very that rhythm,
that groove and be able to recall words.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
At a time, signs at a time.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
China's just bang boom boom, boom boom boom, sign and
sign and sign. So I remember even at we would
go we would call it deaf blind class growing up,
but it was really more so like a community meeting,
deaf community meeting in Seattle where we were growing up
in Seattle, which also has a huge death population by
the way, in Seattle and the West. In Seattle too,
(23:54):
they had it was the deathline. Lnehouse were tactile ASL's
we know now was primarily developed. So it was very
good that we were there and our mom was in
a basically in the community of people. There's even a
YouTube documentary about Helen Keller, Someone's like it's basically debunking
all the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And in that video they're.
Speaker 7 (24:13):
Talking about tactile sign language and there's people that we
knew growing up in that in that documentary. So that
was pretty cool anyway, So I totally anyway has always
been a great, great signer.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So it was only actual.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So when like meaning China can express like more subtleties and.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Complexity, complexity just just also just how like quickly she
was able and still I'm just gassed throught my sister
right now, but able to uh communicate Like for me,
I'm you know, as a kid especially, would speak ah
very you know, very kind of it's hard to explain,
(24:59):
but I would ask oftentimes like can you express this.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Idea for me?
Speaker 7 (25:03):
And as like can you sign this to mom? Can
you help me communicate this? I'm really trying to get
this if I can't get it in ASSL, but China could,
and China would oftentimes help me. Now that we're older,
I think we're I think we're definitely much closer in
terms of our skill. But I'm always going to see
China's just a little bit you know, just because she's
(25:24):
just got it.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
You know, she's just got that very natural talent for it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So that's cool. You're welcome, Tryna, I can't tell which
one of you is older. If you want to reveal,
you don't have to. I'm just I just I just wondered, like,
was she or like literally older and modeling for you?
Speaker 7 (25:48):
No, Okay, China's younger than me by a year and
a half, so it's not that much younger.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
But that's funny. All of our life, all of our life,
we've heard that we don't who's older.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
And I love it. I love it, like.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Even though it's not her, it's me.
Speaker 7 (26:04):
But like I said, I was very goofy and aloof
child and it kind of still as an adult.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
But but yeah, I'm sorry, can I can I ask
one of my questions from my ignorant do you think, oh, well,
this is it, this is the thing, we're all doing it.
I'm just curious how and how? And thank you for
letting me ask questions. How did you, like, who did
(26:35):
you emulate learning how to speak verbally? They both speak verbally?
Or like, how does that work?
Speaker 6 (26:46):
I think that's a great question. I'm like, these are
great questions. I would not even come to think of
these questions. I always tell people, Like even in college,
I would be like, oh, like if you're going to
read my paper, I didn't learn, Like English wasn't my
first liege. Like I didn't learn English until about probably
like preschool.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Or like kindergarten.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Maybe maybe like I learned it a little bit as
I was little. Our dad is deaf, very vocal, Like
I think half the people wondn't really know he was
deaf because he speaks very well, but he's deaf, like
he cannot hear. And then yeah, and then our mom,
Like I understand my mother. She to me, I understand
what she's saying, which a normal and not normal like
(27:25):
an average person walking down the road. They'd be like,
what is that sound? But like that's my mom and
I understand her. But I think we just learned from
like our surroundings. Maybe I definitely probably learned our brothers
our my our oldest brother. I think it's seventeen year,
eighteen years older than me, and then my other brother's
ten years older than me. So just like being around
(27:47):
like hearing siblings and then going to a hearing school
and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
TV.
Speaker 6 (27:52):
Yeah, TV, watching TV obviously, like our dad love watching
TV and just say, you know, like you're surrounding, and
our parents would talk to us but in their own
And also, like Kenny said, like Deaf Blind Classic, we
had a lot of exposure to interpreters growing up, and
also like doctor's appointments stuff like that, like there's an
interpreter there. And then obviously like the world is hearing.
(28:15):
So like even though in our little home, like our
little cocoon was deaf, once we walk out the door,
it's not so I don't have a pinpoint and moment
of oh this is when I learned English, but I
know that it wasn't our first language, and I learned
it as I got older.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean I was, I was
thrown in my two cents while child was talking.
Speaker 7 (28:35):
But so on that for me, I think I kind
of gravitated towards like really developing an advanced.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
English acquisition from a from a young age.
Speaker 7 (28:48):
So all China's getting this ASL, like you know, we're
both communicating these two languages. China's getting the ASL like
I'm getting and I'm gonna be the interpret I wanted
For me, I was kind of like I'm gonna explore
the hearing world, you know, like on my own time
and do my own thing, you know. And so I
learned to read and write accelerate a level in school
growing up, you know, and that's just.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
It, Like it's like trying, I said, just the world
around you. It's a hearing world. You're gonna hear, you're hearing,
You're going to hear English, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So so can you tell us more about like exploring
the healing hearing world. Did it did it feel like
stepping into I mean, for all of us, I guess
when we step out of our homes.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I grew up in a mixed heritage household, so we
already had different cultures in the house and different languages
and different religions. But in your house, did you did
you feel a difference, Like did it feel like you're
stepping to a different culture when you hear world.
Speaker 7 (29:47):
Yeah, it's kind of hard to say because I think
just just because we're so young, like.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
It was just normal that this was that way and
that was that way.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Kind Of Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
I think like we knew really early on, like yeah,
there's deaf people, But I think when we got older
fully realizing like how stark, Like how I guess more
how invisible deaf people are in greater society. Yeah, I
think a good way to think about it is like
we would often notice people looking at us when we're signing.
(30:18):
Always just people are trying to say choose nosy hearing
people are nosy Okay, you know yeah, Like like I
remember a story one time where so we would always
ride the bus growing up, city bus that was our jam.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
So we would ride the bus to get to downtown Seattle.
Speaker 7 (30:36):
To get to our deathbling community class meaning thing right,
And so one day we're on the bus and we're
always sitting in the front section because I get our
mom can't see can here? We get that front seat section,
so trying to my mom, are sitting here, I'm sitting
here alone.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Right, It's kind of a crowded bus there saying and
trying to my mom. Are signing and they're.
Speaker 7 (30:53):
Doing the tactile and I'm signed to trying to interpret
when I'm signing to mom, tell mom so and so.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
And the woman she's over.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
There, she's looking, she's staring, but I don't, I don't care,
worry ignore her.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Well, it's just we're used to.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
We don't really pay attention any at that point anymore
when people would stare.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
She says to me, hey, don't make fun of her.
You know. I'm like, I said, that's my mom my, mom,
I'm signing, you know, And so you know, she it
just goes. She's like she, first of all, she doesn't
know what sign looks like. She couldn't tell the difference
at all.
Speaker 7 (31:30):
She couldn't even see that China were doing the same
communicating the same language, that we're using the same language.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And all she saw is me as a kid making
fun of you know.
Speaker 7 (31:39):
Like in a sense like bless her heart because she
thought I was being a brat and being a jerk.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But I wasn't.
Speaker 7 (31:45):
I was just doing I was just communicating across And
that's you know.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
That's the thing is like we kind of know, like.
Speaker 7 (31:51):
All right, we're not part of that we have this knowledge,
but like we understand that we're the bridge, that we
are inter linked to this world as well because of
our ability or you know, the fact that we can hear, so.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
You are totally abridge, do you know, I'm Another piece
of my ignorance is I don't know how common or
uncommon it is for deaf adults to have hearing children
is that it depends on how what caused the deafness.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
I think it's very I don't know that. I don't
I can't hate you with statistics or numbers.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
But like all my code of friends I have here,
we're all hearing, and their siblings are all hearing, and
then their parents are deaf. It's like for our mom,
she's the only deaf and deaf line obviously person in
her family. For my dad, he's the only deaf person
in his family. Like it's really rare to me, like
(32:49):
when I know that, Like, oh, like one of my
like to my two best friends are twins their codas
and like their dad I believe comes from.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
A deaf family.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
So it's it's really cool when like it's like a
genetic like their family members are also deaf, like not
just their dad, but oh, like my uncle's deaf, my
grandpa's deaf. I'm like, wow, that's so cool because most
of the time it's just like your one parent and
then your two parents are they're the only deaf people
in their family. And then typically like when they have kids,
(33:22):
they're hearing. I think it might skip a generation. I
know that, Like it's a like for if my partner
has the same gene that I have, which is like,
I don't know what it's called, like the deaf blind gene,
like Usher's usher syndrome, then that means our child could
be deaf and blind. So it's just like a gene
you carry. But I don't know if I'm saying the
(33:43):
right things.
Speaker 7 (33:44):
But no, you're good trying. No, you are saying the
right things. Whatever you got to say is the right things.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Okay, cool?
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I second the notion.
Speaker 7 (33:53):
Yeah, but yeah, So it's either you have like one
like and like to be deaf right, be you born
with it? You could you know, you can acquire deafness
through a mechanical or sickness or something like that. Right,
there's all sorts of ways you could become deaf right,
and there's also different degrees of deafness. Right, At a
certain point, it's kind of like when are you deaf right?
(34:16):
I kind of think it's like you go from hearing
and your hard of hearing and then you're deaf kind
of right, And I think typically when you have full
profound hearing loss in at least one year, you're deaf. Right,
even if you have some hearing, you're still deaf, And
there's cultural deafness and mechanical deafness.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
It's a whole thing.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
So either typically you have one deaf person their whole
family of hearing.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
People and that's a whole that's a whole thing, or
you have families of deaf people because of a genetic component.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
Like historically MARTA's Vineyard had a eighteen hundreds or seventeen
hundreds had a four percent death population because of you know,
some in breeding, but there's a four percent deaf population
there because of a gene that was passed around quite
(35:07):
a bit, and that's why we get Martha's Vineyard sound language,
which is one of the pigeon languages that got to
form a new asl over time. But that's an example
of like there was a huge population, a significant population
of deaf people at that time in that area where
most people knew sound language or at least ms SL VSL.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
So yeah, it's kind of like interesting.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
It's usually one like one person of the whole family typically,
but I think it's more common for just be one
person in the family.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Thank you. I'm just I just wondered if I share
the experience of watching my father lose his hearing. I
just want to see what your response is, you know,
by comparison or contrast that as he heard less and
less and less, we could just see his isolation more
(36:03):
and more and more like and there was a while
way he did. He didn't want us to know that
he couldn't hear, and he would pretend. He got so
embarrassed and tired to say I didn't hear you. What
say it, louder, I can't hear you. And it took
a while for some some of us to notice that
he's he's not He wasn't actually hearing for a while
before we even figured it out. And in that time,
(36:26):
he of course got quieter and less conversion because he
didn't want, you know, he was trying to protect protect
us from knowing that he anyway, I just saw the
isolation increase. So I just wanted to see if you
can I just want to give you I mean, we
(36:46):
have about twelve our minutes, and I just want to say,
before I asked my last couple of questions, I wanted
to give you a chance to say, what else you want?
The hearing world who can hear this to know about
the isolation, and and and anything you want to encourage,
(37:08):
like as a coda, like any way anything you can
tell us to like, hey, you know what you could do?
Any suggestions to help decrease isolation or connect with people
from the hearing community or anything that comes to your mind.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
I think the like when you're explaining about your father
and just that feeling isolation. I think hearing people like
when like losing your hearing is very scary, right, they're like,
oh my god, like that's horrible, but like that's the
beautiful thing about sign language. Yet like, oh how am
I going to survive? I can't hear? But like I
get callers at work who like are learning signs so
(37:42):
latent in life. But then there's a sense of community
and it is a culture and there's connection Like okay,
like you can't hear, but you can still communicate with people,
and there's like the deaf community, even though it's small,
it's also huge, and there's like you can find just
so many different people who are deaf or like who
are learning sign language, and you know, like a lot
(38:03):
of hearing people have to rely on like if they're
losing their hearing late in life or just as they
get older, lie on like lip reading, or they maybe
like hearing aids stuff like that. But my answer, I
mean it's hard to learn language, trust me, I understand,
but like to just learn sign language open so many doors,
you know for somebody who is losing their hearing. And
(38:24):
also you can take asl classes, you can watch YouTube videos.
I know, like even for most deaf people when they
go to a restaurant and the server even knows, like,
oh hello, like my name and just like finger spelling
their name or even knowing the alphabet, goes such a
long wakes and there's a sense of like connection and
(38:44):
be like okay, like this person knows my language and
I don't know. That's just my answer to that question.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
No, that's beautiful, that's a great answer. That's a great answer.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
Yeah, I mean one hundred percent. There's a fear that like,
oh way lose hearing, I kind of just gain. Definitely,
you get a you know, it's not to say like
being deaf is a whole perfect thing. Yeah, I mean
obviously if you're in a world full of that's you're
towards hearing and there's certain things like yeah, it might
be nice to hear the voice of your loved one, right,
(39:16):
that's a very right. But at the same time, it's like, Okay,
we're talking like how are you going to survive?
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (39:22):
How you got to live?
Speaker 7 (39:23):
Like trying to said, like, you know, community, there's so
many people who are deaf. There's many people who have
gone deaf late in life, right, and through learning asl
you you you can find that community and understand too
that like it's not all over.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
It's just you're going to have to shift your perspective and.
Speaker 7 (39:44):
You're you're joining a club pretty much, so to speak, Like,
I think both try and I would say like if.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
We ever woke up one day we were deaf, I
don't think we would. I would more music.
Speaker 8 (39:54):
I love friend, but uh uh sorry lost track.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
I would. I would more music. I love music, but
those people or you know, our mom would go.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
To Grateful Dead concerts. Jerry Garcia was still alive, and
she'd bring a balloon. She's she's always been deaf, fully deaf,
but bring a balloon and she could feel the vibrations through.
You know, There's there's ways to go about it, and
I think it would probably change my perspective on music itself,
rather than being like, I can't ever listen to music. Bega, okay,
(40:32):
I can't, you know, listen to music the way I've
always listen to music.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
But it would change how to approach it. I probably
get in the medal more metal.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Oh my gosh, you that is so inspiring, and we
will go back to more inspiring thoughts. But I wanted
to give you a chance because Kenneth had told me
in a in a texting conversation of the day about
tragic incidents of two deaf individuals, and I wanted to
know if you just want the public to know and
say theirs and let people know that this kind of
(41:02):
thing can happen.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yes, I am a terrible It's okay. I don't think
i've uh.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Maclvin Williams, thank you.
Speaker 7 (41:14):
Yeah, I'm terrible with names. I'm so John T. Williams
is the name of trying to know the story.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
John T.
Speaker 7 (41:19):
Wan is a Native American man, And this is a
Seattle was it seven oh eight who was shot by
a police officer. He's a wood carver, remember, and he
was walking down I think he's on his property or something,
and he's a deaf man.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
He's walking on his property.
Speaker 7 (41:33):
He's with carved his wood carved knife on and then
police officer was like, hey stop, freeze, you know, with
his gun, and uh, I don't I remember if he
was walking toward I don't think he's walking even toward
his officer.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
He's just walking away.
Speaker 7 (41:45):
And he shot him because he felt threatened because he
had he had a weapon. And then it was it
was his name, Tyrone what was his name?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
The other guy?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
This is more recent, Tyrone McAlpin.
Speaker 7 (41:58):
So, so this guy he's he's he's uh as cops
do they mistaken this guy as a suspect and in
a robbery or something like that.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
It's very recent. I think this fre good. The details
elude me.
Speaker 9 (42:10):
But he was why again, he was like, you know,
trying to He's on the FaceTime with his wife and
there he was signing and the cops are like, hey stop,
hey stop, and he's deaf, and so they tackle him
and they beat him up because he's just he's not complying.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
He's like, I'm deaf, I can't hear you. I'm laughing
and it's like, why are you laughing? Because mister willis
he passed away. He was shot and killed. Timrone.
Speaker 7 (42:36):
He he's alive and I think he's I think he's
suing right now because he went to jail, as he should,
because he went to jail and you know, they're like
you and and then the police, uh edited the report
and made it so he was threatening them, but they
had unfortunately for the police and fortunately.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
For you know, everyone else. Uh. His wife was a
witness and was like, hey, he's deaf.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
And I was telling him on the base TIMEE he's deaf,
and he's like, oh, he's a suspect.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
He definitely did this.
Speaker 7 (43:04):
And it just goes to show like even police officers
they don't know anything. And this is what kind of
gets the whole point where it's like why it's important,
why we need people to know sign language.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
I understand at least enough to say please, can you
stop if you're a cop.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Right, or just like tap them, you know, like because
I saw the video my dad, My dad he sent
He sends me really depressing articles about deaf people and
just like the horrible brutality and it makes me sound
I'm like, Dad, please don't send me the stuff. But
there's like a reason that he sends it and obviously
like it's for a purpose, but when you start talking about.
Speaker 5 (43:38):
It, I pulled it up on my phone.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
I'm like, oh yeah, I remember watching this video being
really sad and just seeing these policemen like attack this
deaf guy, just yelling at him, like and like the
one thing is like when you learn like deaf culture,
like Okay, if a deaf person's not looking at you
or their back is to.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Me, okay, what do you do?
Speaker 6 (43:57):
You flash a light or you like stomp on the
ground like different things to get their attention, and it
just shows the light light.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Exactly perfect one just flash or light.
Speaker 6 (44:06):
And like the lack of training in all areas that
police officers have and it's just like it breaks my heart.
Like my dad sends me the articles and I'm like
that makes me so sad that deaf people have to
go through this just because police officers are ignorant that
deaf people even exists, And like that was one thing
I wanted to say earlier is like I know so
(44:26):
many people who've never met a deaf person, Like a
lot of people have never met a deaf person, let
alone a deaf blind person. Like sometimes I sit to
my Like I sit to myself and I think, oh,
my mom is the only deaf blind person that like
my friend has met or this person has met. Like
some people are so like oblivious to the fact that
deaf people exist, which go to show the police officers
(44:47):
in these situations and how they're treating deaf people. They
just don't even know.
Speaker 7 (44:52):
Yeah, and imagine there's actually like a fire, a burning building,
a firefighters, anyone in here, is anyone in here?
Speaker 3 (44:58):
You know.
Speaker 7 (44:58):
It's like, and that's true. One right, it's like, okay,
flash your light or something like. You don't you just
don't assume people. You assume, oh someone's gonna hear me, right.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yes, assume yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
And so that and the other thing too is like
there's not like a ton of deaf people. It's not
like half the people alive or death. It's not like
a quarter of the people alive or deaf. So it's understandable.
I don't want to.
Speaker 7 (45:22):
Demonize people who are hearing for for not thinking about
because it's like, can you blame them? They're not really
we're not really told much in media are growing up
about deaf people.
Speaker 5 (45:32):
We're not you know.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
It's one of those it's not.
Speaker 7 (45:34):
It's not just like any random Joe Schmoe's fault. You
don't know about deaf people. Point you don't know deaf people.
It's it's okay, it's understanding.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Yeah, yeah, and another level of awareness to I just
have to let us let you guys know. I want
you each to be able to when you eat, to
be able to say something that you love, to do
what you're passionate about, because you're builth so creative and
do so many things and then you're closing thought. But
(46:06):
I'm just so grateful for everything that you've shared today.
And I want to mention Kenneth was our asl interpreter
for nine shows. We have one more show and I
think that no, I think we've done ten shows. But anyway,
I want an interpreter every single week, and I feel
remiss when I do not have one, and we're working
(46:26):
on trying to get a budget for that, because interpreters
deserve to be paid, for sure. But anyway, kay, or
do you want to start? Sorry China, please let us
know what you love and what you want the world
to know about you or about either one of your worlds.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
I know what do I love?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
To do.
Speaker 6 (46:50):
I love my job. I love interpreting. It's my lifeline.
I also love just like being at home with my
boyfriend and my cat and my dog and Darthish, and
like just watching movies and just being comfortable. I love
hanging out with my friends, just like I love the
life I have at work with the deaf community. And
I also just like my own little world at home.
(47:12):
If that makes any sense. Yeah, I don't closing thoughts.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
This was great. I loved it.
Speaker 6 (47:19):
I was so nervous. I think, if you want to
learn sign language, go on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
I'm Bill Vie. I guess I don't really.
Speaker 6 (47:28):
I think he's like a really well known he teaches
sign language. If you google any word, how do you
meet all the time? How do you sign this? His
picture will come up, his video will come up. There's
way he's alarmed sign language. If you see a deaf person,
just say hi, nice to meet you. I don't know,
just something like that. Deaf people aren't scary.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
I don't know. That's all I can think of, Kenny.
Speaker 6 (47:49):
We'll probably say better words ieotypes.
Speaker 7 (47:53):
If yousy two deaf people have a conversation, don't interrupt
their conversation.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Just just just just give a hello. You know, if
you're passing by, just give a hello. Be respectful.
Speaker 7 (48:03):
Right, But China, we get a pass because we are
so awesome.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
Okay, I'm just kidding, but I guess. I love to draw.
I love drawing. I like video I love video games.
I love my girlfriend. Shout out Helen. I love you Helen.
And Dixon. Shout out shout Helen. She just passed the bar.
One of the youngest people in America to pass the bar. Okay, uh.
(48:30):
I love also being at.
Speaker 7 (48:31):
Home and quiet, just like peace and quiet drawing.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
And for those listening, join if you're in Davis, join.
Speaker 7 (48:39):
The ASL Davis ASL Club every other Tuesday at the
Mary L. Stevens Library in the small conference room. As
L underscore Davis at on Instagram. I always be posting
the information on there. It's free. Just come you learn
ASL that we got people a different levels there.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
It's a great time.
Speaker 7 (49:00):
I turned my voice off when I just start signing
and I just started selling.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
People go what what do you say? And I just go, okay,
you know, I just I just you just go from there.
Speaker 7 (49:10):
Bill v Uh doctor Bill on YouTube on the internet.
He's a great starting point. He's got a great asl
in Troup series. Watch his videos.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Spella's name b I L L V I C A
R s okay, the car say his last name, so
I always just say Bill v Okay. I'll put it
in the show notes. Gosh, you guys, thank you so
so so much for opening up a world to us
and for being your authentic, beautiful cells. I so appreciate you.
(49:44):
Please stay in touch. I also want to thank the
listeners and viewers and our engineer Rebel and our producer Dean,
and your dear friend who kept sending notes and your
families and uh and for everything that you both do.
Incredible human being, really outstanding.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Pure. Be sure to tune in next Wednesday at a
pm Eastern Time at W four c Y dot com
or talk for TV and maybe we all have enriching
conversations in diversity this week. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Logicalos speech logic, let's speech in logical, let's speech in logic, yell,
let's beach all in logic, Let's beech e logic, Let's
(50:40):
preach
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