Yeah. I do have a few things I want people to know.
"Please"
"Thank you"
"I'm sorry"
For my family and other people, I'd love them to learn basic signs.
Questions: "How are you?"
"How was your day?"
And then the responses for those types of questions.
They already know "I love you."
Yeah so my background is coming from a family with parents who are Deaf,
my siblings are Deaf, and so my first language was ZEI.
Which is Iranian Sign Language.
I did learn some British Sign Language,
but I haven't remembered it.
I guess it's just like any other foreign language people learn
if you hear it one or two times it's cool, but you forget it quickly.
Ok, it's like the English language has different accents.
In the South there's an accent, in the West, you know in different parts of the country
people have different accents.
It's the same thing with sign language.
The different styles of signing are the same as accents in English
I also think that some people say that I sign something a little bit different.
It's probably the influence from another country.
People come from other countries and they don't maybe develop the fluency in the way Americans sign it.
So they do develop an accent in sign language.
So I'm a black person and I use Black ASL.
There's an influence with black hearing community members—
They have an influence on how black deaf people sign.
So there is African American Vernacular English.
So there are some things to say like “girl please” or “you’re trippin'."
There are certain phrases in the black community that have been influenced,
and now black deaf people use them, like the ones that i just mentioned.
I use Black ASL, but not in the classroom.
I use Black ASL with a specific community.
I don't always think in ASL.
I typically think in English, English word order.
Remember ASL is very different from English.
ASL is it’s own bonafide language with grammatical rules.
In English it’s typically subject-verb-object.
That’s typically the word order.
It’s linear, it has a very linear structure.
While as in ASL, the structure is less.
It could have the object-subject-verb.
And the way we know what is a subject or object, for example, is through facial expressions.
I acquired language,
so just like any other infant acquires language,
I acquired my language at a few months of age.
One time my kids were sleeping,
and my daughter was actually sleep signing.
You know that?
My daughter, what she did, she was like, [signing while asleep],
and I'm in shock.
My daughter is signing in her sleep.
I was born with a hearing loss, but it got worse when I was 18 years old.
And when I was 18, I had a decision to make.
I could either get surgery—I could get a cochlear implant
or I could learn sign language.
I didn’t want to have the cochlear implant surgery,
and I decided to learn sign language.
Doors began to open to a whole new world.
People call me hearing impaired, and I have to tell them, for example, that's not a term that I accept.
I'm Deaf.
They don't understand that Deaf people have a culture.
They think that hearing impaired is more politically correct, but actually it's more offensive.
Because what you do, is you don't recognize the fact that I come from a linguistic minority
where we have our own culture—Not only here but around the world.
I also want people to know that just because I can speak, doesn't mean I'm not Deaf.
I run into hearing people who often say, "Well you can hear a little bit,
and you can speak well. That means you're not Deaf."
I would say "Excuse me. You can't tell me what I am or am not."