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UnionDemocrat.com - The Union Democrat Online
The music in the Valley Springs Starbuck's is uncomfortably loud, but it's not interrupting one group's conversation Thursday.
The Deaf and Hearing Social Club occupies one small corner of the cafe, and is engaged in a rapid-fire dialogue using both American Sign Language and the spoken word. To someone used to only listening for pauses, not watching, it could be hard to get a word in edgewise.
At six members, Thursday's group was the most successful gathering, said Natalie Farmer, a Valley Springs resident and ASL student who started the socials in January.
"In January, two people came — one hearing and one deaf. And in February and March, there was no one," she said.
Lori Fikes, one of Thursday's hearing attendees, said she had learned of the social a few months ago, but hadn't been able to go until this month. Fluent in sign language, she started learning at the age of 6 so she could talk to her younger cousin, who is deaf and mentally handicapped. Fikes later became a counselor at one of the first deaf camps in the area in 1978.
"It was a Boy Scout Forty-Niner camp and they rented out their campgrounds for the week to deaf students in Stockton, ages 5 through high school," she said.
The nearest deaf schools and sign language classes, with the exception of Columbia College, are still in Stockton and Sacramento, which is part of the reason Farmer wanted to start a group closer to home.
"I was tired of driving," she said.
However, finding the deaf community in Calaveras County has proven to be a challenge.
The NorCal Center on Deafness — a regional resource center based in Sacramento that provides deaf and hard-of-hearing people with advocacy, job training and interpretation services — does not keep statistics on the deaf population in each county. The Calaveras County Office of Education only has one registered deaf student and 10 hard-of-hearing students in the county. And Jeanne Boyce, director of the Calaveras County Health Services Agency, said in her nearly two decades of working with the public, she has only encountered one deaf person.
"That doesn't mean they're not out there," she said. "We have special equipment at the library, but no particular organization providing services for deaf people. That's not unusual in small counties."
Vernon and Janet McVay, a deaf couple who attended Thursday's social, said they know of about seven other deaf people in the Valley Springs area. It's good to have socials to give deaf people a variety of people to talk to and keep them from becoming isolated, they said. Though it's all the same language, different people sign words differently, in the same way hearing people have distinct accents or dialects.
It's also a good opportunity for Farmer and other students to practice their sign language. Judy Eschen and her 14-year-old daughter, Mary Eschen, are taking an American Sign Language class together at Columbia College. Mary discovered her interest in signing from a book several years ago and is considering becoming an interpreter.
"I'm just doing it to give her someone to sign with," Judy said. "I don't have the confidence she does."
But the small group talks like old friends. Everyone is patient and polite. Fikes said that at the bigger socials in the city, deaf people would cluster together away from the students and the two groups didn't interact much.
"Hearing people are annoying; a lot of them don't take the time to learn about deaf culture," she said. "They don't understand what deaf people have been through or the world they live in."
Deaf people take pride in their history of fighting for their rights and in their culture, Farmer said. They don't see it as a handicap.
"Some people feel there's a lot of anger there, but I interpret it as pride — like they don't need us hearing people to prove that they're OK," she said.
Historically, deaf culture has been overlooked. When using the term "bilingual," for example, people often don't include ASL as a traditional language, Farmer pointed out. The nuances of facial expressions and body language that go with it make it much more complicated than just signing.
"I think that's part of my fascination," she said. "It's very challenging. It's so much more than just using your hands."
The Deaf and Hearing Social Club meets the first Thursday of every month from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Starbucks off Highway 12 in Valley Springs. Anyone is welcome to attend. For more information, contact Natalie Farmer at natalie.farmer@ hotmail.com. For listings of other deaf socials in the region, go to NorCal Center on Deafness, Inc - Monday, July 16, 2007 and click on one of the different office headings.
The music in the Valley Springs Starbuck's is uncomfortably loud, but it's not interrupting one group's conversation Thursday.
The Deaf and Hearing Social Club occupies one small corner of the cafe, and is engaged in a rapid-fire dialogue using both American Sign Language and the spoken word. To someone used to only listening for pauses, not watching, it could be hard to get a word in edgewise.
At six members, Thursday's group was the most successful gathering, said Natalie Farmer, a Valley Springs resident and ASL student who started the socials in January.
"In January, two people came — one hearing and one deaf. And in February and March, there was no one," she said.
Lori Fikes, one of Thursday's hearing attendees, said she had learned of the social a few months ago, but hadn't been able to go until this month. Fluent in sign language, she started learning at the age of 6 so she could talk to her younger cousin, who is deaf and mentally handicapped. Fikes later became a counselor at one of the first deaf camps in the area in 1978.
"It was a Boy Scout Forty-Niner camp and they rented out their campgrounds for the week to deaf students in Stockton, ages 5 through high school," she said.
The nearest deaf schools and sign language classes, with the exception of Columbia College, are still in Stockton and Sacramento, which is part of the reason Farmer wanted to start a group closer to home.
"I was tired of driving," she said.
However, finding the deaf community in Calaveras County has proven to be a challenge.
The NorCal Center on Deafness — a regional resource center based in Sacramento that provides deaf and hard-of-hearing people with advocacy, job training and interpretation services — does not keep statistics on the deaf population in each county. The Calaveras County Office of Education only has one registered deaf student and 10 hard-of-hearing students in the county. And Jeanne Boyce, director of the Calaveras County Health Services Agency, said in her nearly two decades of working with the public, she has only encountered one deaf person.
"That doesn't mean they're not out there," she said. "We have special equipment at the library, but no particular organization providing services for deaf people. That's not unusual in small counties."
Vernon and Janet McVay, a deaf couple who attended Thursday's social, said they know of about seven other deaf people in the Valley Springs area. It's good to have socials to give deaf people a variety of people to talk to and keep them from becoming isolated, they said. Though it's all the same language, different people sign words differently, in the same way hearing people have distinct accents or dialects.
It's also a good opportunity for Farmer and other students to practice their sign language. Judy Eschen and her 14-year-old daughter, Mary Eschen, are taking an American Sign Language class together at Columbia College. Mary discovered her interest in signing from a book several years ago and is considering becoming an interpreter.
"I'm just doing it to give her someone to sign with," Judy said. "I don't have the confidence she does."
But the small group talks like old friends. Everyone is patient and polite. Fikes said that at the bigger socials in the city, deaf people would cluster together away from the students and the two groups didn't interact much.
"Hearing people are annoying; a lot of them don't take the time to learn about deaf culture," she said. "They don't understand what deaf people have been through or the world they live in."
Deaf people take pride in their history of fighting for their rights and in their culture, Farmer said. They don't see it as a handicap.
"Some people feel there's a lot of anger there, but I interpret it as pride — like they don't need us hearing people to prove that they're OK," she said.
Historically, deaf culture has been overlooked. When using the term "bilingual," for example, people often don't include ASL as a traditional language, Farmer pointed out. The nuances of facial expressions and body language that go with it make it much more complicated than just signing.
"I think that's part of my fascination," she said. "It's very challenging. It's so much more than just using your hands."
The Deaf and Hearing Social Club meets the first Thursday of every month from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Starbucks off Highway 12 in Valley Springs. Anyone is welcome to attend. For more information, contact Natalie Farmer at natalie.farmer@ hotmail.com. For listings of other deaf socials in the region, go to NorCal Center on Deafness, Inc - Monday, July 16, 2007 and click on one of the different office headings.