I took ASL in high school for one year. My experience wasn’t the best in part because my teacher didn’t have the best track record and was later fired during the year. I really wanted to learn sign language though, so I was so happy to hear that Longwood offered those language courses. I loved learning this language, but I loved learning more about the community, too. I learned about Andrew Foster and his contributions to not only our country’s community, education, and understanding of ASL, but also his efforts across Africa to help those who were deaf and had even less access to education and communication. I learned how hard it can be for those in the deaf community to trust those from the hearing community, especially in the past. Most importantly, I learned how important and how little representation the deaf community have, not only in this country, but across the world. Their constant struggle to be seen and head, for equality, even at their own, all deaf, college.

Bellow you will find a reflection I wrote about a movie we watched for our class. The movie, Love is Never Silent, was heart breaking and insightful into how the deaf community used to be treated, how their habits differed, and showed us how far we have come and how far we have to go. love is never silent