California Association of the Deaf – …And the Truth Shall Set You Free.

Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Please Apologize to the Deaf Community

February 12, 2017January 11, 2019 The Last HiccupLeave a comment

It is just disheartening to see that once in a while that Deaf people would be mocked for their own language choice: American Sign Language (ASL). When Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former governor for the state of California has mocked ASL front of the audience promoting them to laugh. I was shocked to see what he has done. I had respect for him.

I’ve seen all of Arnold’s movies, of course, The Terminator, but one movie gave me a lot of laughter, Twins with Danny DeVito. Memories were good! Arnold was the one who vetoed AB 2072 in 2010, he saved Deaf community. But…. after what he did couple of days ago, he did not save the Deaf community instead of mocking them. No compassion.

So, I went ahead and find out when the Twins were produced and surprised that it was made in 1988, the same year Deaf President Now won the hearts of American people to pick its first Deaf president in history. Respect!

Where is the compassion? Is it a right word? A compassion is a moment of sudden clarity on a dank day whether it was morning, neither afternoon nor evening.

We all are the same. We are all Deaf. We are all the same. Though, our stories are not the same. We live in a very oppressed world dominated by hearing people. The hearing world has forgotten that Deaf people have been contributed to the society. Did Arnold even know that the mirror said to him?

Each day, Deaf people face challenges–discrimination in all spheres of public spaces wherever they go to. The nation that has named United States of America was supposed to live in a peaceful space. When Laurent Clerc arrived on the soil of America in 1816, we all need to remember the old mantra of Deaf progress. It makes Clerc as an immigrant just like all of us. Arnold was an immigrant, too. America was built with immigrants.

Clerc’s America was supposed to be seen as “grandfather clause” meant to protect Deaf people. After infamous 1880 Milan Resolution, thousands of Deaf people even today–I meant, a countless number the last two centuries were targeted for bullying.

Soon, few weeks away from the month of March–the National Deaf History Month. Never mind Alexander Graham Bell’s birthday on March 3rd or Sleep Awareness Month that Deaf people were supposed to sleep peaceful without being bullied. We will not forget what AGBell or Arnold has done to us. Deaf History Month is filled of Deaf people pushing us for future and build stronger foundation at every forward step.

Have Deaf people suffered enough hate from cruel people? The scourge of hate speech about ASL has been built enough reputation. ASL might be seen as homeless to hearing people who laughed just like what Arnold did. ASL, arguably the most marginalized and forgotten group in the United States promoted by AGBell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, is constantly either ignored or encouraged by its laughter.

How in the name of ignorance can it be misunderstood if one does not hear or know it? If you were in the same room, talking on the same objectives, then why was the laughter not very much part of us? Laughing is contagious if it shared and understood.

It is about the moan of pain. Will hearing people accept Deaf people in America today? We will need to continue to stand up against hate speech. ASL and the intellectual life of the Deaf have become quite pronounced as the result of the contact between two educators: Laurent Clerc, and the Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. That is why it is important to celebrate 200 years anniversary with the arrival of Clerc.

Before closing this post, Deaf people have given plenty of contribution to the society and recognize them as human beings with inherent rights. Arnold needs to apologize for mocking ASL. We do not need a Terminator to mock us. If Arnold refuses to apologize then he’s terminated! Where is California Association of the Deaf’s action and tell Arnold not to do that?

-JT

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Starkey Hearing Foundation: Exhibition of the Oppressed

February 19, 2016March 20, 2016 The Last Hiccup2 Comments

The first picture of the battery economics product of me for the first time.

The interview between the Daily Moth and California Association of the Deaf (CAD) president Julie Rems Smario and Secretary Deanna Bray was like watching a tennis game. It makes you wonder when the host asks “assonance” style, the term coined to take place when two ore more words close to the sound with the same vowel mix with different consonant sounds. Repeat hearing aids question. Repeat hearing aids question. Repeat hearing aids question.

Like Julie said, “hearing aids is a tool.” The hearing aids was a total waste of my human life for first 15 years—the batteries were a constant bullying against my dignity in school and even in my hometown, too. It is all about battery economics. Julie and Deanna stood fierce to preserve American Sign Language (ASL). They were both warriors of the week.

1986. Ball! Huh? Ball! Huh?

Let me make clear on this. I argue against the battery economics why they should make profits off Deaf children. It is not about Deaf children—it is about language deprivation. The hearing aids were a major ache.

Couple of years ago, there was a major TV show, Home Extreme Make Over, came to Oregon to find the perfect spot. Oregon School for the Deaf. Until Sharla Jones, the outreach coordinator who were responsible to make direct flights bound for Starkey Hearing Foundation to take Deaf students in. That was exactly why Julie and Deanna are making great examples to prevent this again from clowns. It is a repeated cycle.

Language acquisition is the best key for higher education. It could have saved a lot of money away from battery economics. I can remember my days when I had no choice to wear hearing aids. One day during summer 1989, as 15 years old kid, I was with my father, brother, and cousin at a river down from my house that time. The river was owned by the family until 1978. That was the same year my mother took me out of Tucker-Maxon Oral School (TMOS) and that was where TMOS pulled a stunt and made me wear hearing aids. I would always remember the chief architect is. It is like born at first birth.

That was the last time I wore hearing aids on my left ear that summer for good.

TMOS ignored the language acquisition and used a lot of wrenches around my ears to make I command to hear. The wrenches coming out of the tool box to make the staff little richer when they come home and eat dinner with families each night.

After the CAD open letter for Starkey Hearing Foundation, what is more what Starkey Hearing Foundation mission is to label Deaf children of strained leadership. For example, William F. Austin, the Founder, Owner and CEO of Starkey Hearing Foundation was well known for labeling Deaf children to get into power and eventually, an oppressor. Putting hearing aids on Deaf children is a circus quoted in Julie’s words, is powerful.

The foundation has become necessary because it is fun to deliberately cofound Deaf children with the unknown; And to have a good laugh at their expense and ultimately to maintain status quo, ensuring Deaf children remain disempowered while the Starkey Hearing Foundation entertain a new mental plantation.

By not informing parents of Deaf children about ASL, that is all about dirty politics. By putting hearing aids on them for media circus, they simply get confused and by nature they need to go where they could become clear again in the light of new mental plantation to protest Starkey Hearing Foundation. Deaf culture and language is misclassified and misinterpreted. The labels easily mishandled.

The hearing aids—and the battery economics has caused strain in the relationship between me and my father. Sure, it is a nice wish for a change and take the advice that language acquisition on ASL would make a difference in the relationship with my father. I was designed to be a tool.

Are Deaf children still struck in the mud for battery economics? Thank you, Julie and Deanna!

-JT

BACK TO THE FUTURE: How William C. Stokoe Became A National Symbol in Deaf Community

October 21, 2015March 9, 2017 The Last HiccupLeave a comment

……in 1965, when two deaf colleagues and I finished the first dictionary of American Sign Language. My pleasure with the current activity is not unmixed, however. To a certain extent many who study signed languages take that first step over and over again, but one step doesn’t get us far. We need the second stage of the original idea to move it forward.” [Stokoe, Language in Hand: Why Sign Came Before Speech, page 2 in chapter, An Idea That Would Not Go Away]

Done by Joseph Artino. Awesome job!

The world has never really had another William C. Stokoe. While his name might conjure up images of American Sign Language (ASL), William was much more than the father of ASL, William was even bigger than the Vitruvian Man. In short, he was a genius. In the summer of 1955, William walks into Gallaudet College for the first time; the unexpected passion shows up in the picture. He pledges for human rights for the Deaf people to preserve ASL in the public spaces, sleep in the houses, their shelter system remains strong and ASL is impossible to lose.

This investment must provide increased education, assistance, as well as other services called for in plans developed by human rights today—first, build a stronger system that connects Deaf people with ASL is a moral imperative that also makes economic sense and strengthens Deaf community. Deaf people can benefit from the expertise of Deaf leaders in the many outstanding programs to preserve ASL, for example, the current president of California Association of the Deaf [CAD] advocates a bill SB210 to preserve ASL in 2015, already making a difference in Deaf community.

How did Stokoe do this? The answers lie not in language or science, but the in the way in which he saw ASL around Deaf community, and how that made him the father of ASL, it is the same approach that made his discovery so remarkable, that enabled him to invent many of the aspects of Deaf people’s lives today. What was it that inspired and shaped his genius? Can we learn his talents and traits to seek and recreate in our own quest for ASL innovation?

Remember the classic movie, Back to the Future? Whoooosshhh!

Now is the time to support a comprehensive strategy with measurable, long-term goals to preserve ASL. It is important that ASL is a byproduct of the modern way of life, completes with the human cycle. Time was, a Deaf person could wander, walkabout, explore and they have needs of permanent domicile, on account they are more nomadic—what is nomadic? The word means anything that involves moving around a lot.

Today, ASL is a real life, necessarily, and being in hock to keep ASL, so we can turn around and do it again next day, months, decades, centuries, so far that there is always Back to the Future—-and what is that all about, really? 1955.1985. 2015. 2025. 2035. 2045. 2055. 2065. Back to the Future: ASL is nomadic! Thank you, William C. Stokoe!

-JT

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