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Woman strives to end barriers for deaf in Merced - Local - MercedSun-Star.com
Angelica Martinez, 41, was at a baby shower in 2000 and mistakenly told a young boy, who strongly resembled her son, to stop running around.
"I found out this wasn't my son," she recalled.
A few months later, she was at a Deaf Club event and, "I saw the boy and I asked him who his dad was."
When she saw her future husband, it seemed as if there was a glow about him, like a halo of sunlight surrounding him.
"It was love at first sight or something," she said, laughing, as she was helped in conversation by American Sign Language interpreter Becky Edens-Paul on Thursday afternoon. "When I saw him, I didn't realize he was deaf."
The two felt a connection when they found out both had lost their hearing when they were toddlers. The couple got married in 2007, and their family grew to include six children, all of whom can hear.
Martinez overcame a childhood of pretending that she was only hard of hearing. She attended regular school and tried much harder than her peers in classes.
Eventually, she decided to promote deaf awareness in Merced and to try to break down barriers in the community.
"They are normal people and want to have jobs and go into restaurants and feel free to do everything everyone else does," she explained.
Years of hiding
Most deaf people in the United States use American Sign Language or Sign Exact English, in which the exact words are signed.
When she was younger, Martinez's parents identified her as hard of hearing, not deaf. But she said she was profoundly deaf, a specific level of deafness.
"When I was growing up, they didn't want me to learn sign language," she said. "I was in speech therapy, not in special ed. It was hard."
She didn't have anything with which she could compare her experience of growing up deaf. She would conceal her hearing aid "because I was hiding who I was, I didn't know what I was."
She was good at pretending, such as laughing when everyone else laughed even though she didn't know what was funny.
"I worked 10 times harder at school," she said. She said she didn't learn sign language but knew finger spelling, which is spelling out every letter of a word. Still, she said "sign language was the language that should have been my native language."
In 2000, when she was at Modesto Junior College, she saw a deaf man signing and went up to him to try to talk to him. From there, he introduced her to deaf culture, other deaf people and interpretive services.
In 2007, she began to work for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Service Center in Merced as a coordinator of client services. The center, with headquarters in Fresno, opened in Merced in 1999 and has offices in Madera, Mariposa, Tulare and elsewhere.
The center focuses on advocacy, computer literacy skills for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, community education and much more.
She said she wants to remove barriers for deaf people.
"I had to overcome all those obstacles," she said.
She eventually wants to work as a social worker for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
"I want to bridge the gap between the deaf and the hearing. They can't hear, they have hands, they are still human beings," she said.
But she said there's still a lot of discrimination against deaf people in the community. For example, a lot of doctors don't want to provide interpreters during office visits and "they want to have someone in your family interpret, which can be hard."
"I'm the kind of person who wants to make a difference," said Martinez, who can speak English, Spanish and Sign Language. "To get the word out to the community to accommodate the hard-of-hearing needs."
Just because you can't hear, she believes, doesn't mean you have to be silent.
Angelica Martinez, 41, was at a baby shower in 2000 and mistakenly told a young boy, who strongly resembled her son, to stop running around.
"I found out this wasn't my son," she recalled.
A few months later, she was at a Deaf Club event and, "I saw the boy and I asked him who his dad was."
When she saw her future husband, it seemed as if there was a glow about him, like a halo of sunlight surrounding him.
"It was love at first sight or something," she said, laughing, as she was helped in conversation by American Sign Language interpreter Becky Edens-Paul on Thursday afternoon. "When I saw him, I didn't realize he was deaf."
The two felt a connection when they found out both had lost their hearing when they were toddlers. The couple got married in 2007, and their family grew to include six children, all of whom can hear.
Martinez overcame a childhood of pretending that she was only hard of hearing. She attended regular school and tried much harder than her peers in classes.
Eventually, she decided to promote deaf awareness in Merced and to try to break down barriers in the community.
"They are normal people and want to have jobs and go into restaurants and feel free to do everything everyone else does," she explained.
Years of hiding
Most deaf people in the United States use American Sign Language or Sign Exact English, in which the exact words are signed.
When she was younger, Martinez's parents identified her as hard of hearing, not deaf. But she said she was profoundly deaf, a specific level of deafness.
"When I was growing up, they didn't want me to learn sign language," she said. "I was in speech therapy, not in special ed. It was hard."
She didn't have anything with which she could compare her experience of growing up deaf. She would conceal her hearing aid "because I was hiding who I was, I didn't know what I was."
She was good at pretending, such as laughing when everyone else laughed even though she didn't know what was funny.
"I worked 10 times harder at school," she said. She said she didn't learn sign language but knew finger spelling, which is spelling out every letter of a word. Still, she said "sign language was the language that should have been my native language."
In 2000, when she was at Modesto Junior College, she saw a deaf man signing and went up to him to try to talk to him. From there, he introduced her to deaf culture, other deaf people and interpretive services.
In 2007, she began to work for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Service Center in Merced as a coordinator of client services. The center, with headquarters in Fresno, opened in Merced in 1999 and has offices in Madera, Mariposa, Tulare and elsewhere.
The center focuses on advocacy, computer literacy skills for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, community education and much more.
She said she wants to remove barriers for deaf people.
"I had to overcome all those obstacles," she said.
She eventually wants to work as a social worker for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
"I want to bridge the gap between the deaf and the hearing. They can't hear, they have hands, they are still human beings," she said.
But she said there's still a lot of discrimination against deaf people in the community. For example, a lot of doctors don't want to provide interpreters during office visits and "they want to have someone in your family interpret, which can be hard."
"I'm the kind of person who wants to make a difference," said Martinez, who can speak English, Spanish and Sign Language. "To get the word out to the community to accommodate the hard-of-hearing needs."
Just because you can't hear, she believes, doesn't mean you have to be silent.