I tried to sign the petition but I could not get in because I am not in USA. I am up here in Canada. Dang!!! ASL is important to us, to the Deaf community and to the deaf/hard of hearing children because it is our primary language. No one should take away from us.
As for Native Americans, their dialect languages which are different in many different tribes need to recognized too. But no, they took away our traditions and cultures including native languages so we have to follow their ways. They were not the first people here, but we were First Nations and have been here for eons (years). It was the fault of Columbus who had the nerve to come here thinking that our country was India which was a poor navigation way not know where he was suppose to go. "Indian" is not our title of what Columbus want to call us. The name for us got stuck but we would rather be call "Native or Aboriginal" but a lot of time we like to be call by our tribe names like for me as Cree/ Cherokee. That is what I want to be call. We were not comfortable with dressing up clothes their way, speaking their English their way (very difficult to pronounce with our tongues), getting haircut their way, and having them call us "Savage or Indian" their way. They took our children away from their families and put in residential school or adoption homes making the children think that their parents are dead which they are not. They took our lands, our forests, our waters and tried to put us into smaller reservation. We have no voice to speak up or tried to say "No" to them. That is why we are having the rally for #Idle No More to protest on what the whites have done to our countries and to our people especially in First Nations. That is all I have to say.
Right now I could not sign the petition to allow to have our ASL to be recognized as our primary language.