Hi everyone! My name is Jesse (hearing) and I have a 23 y/o brother who was born deaf, got a cochlear at age 3 and uses ASL and voice. I never learned ASL growing up even though my mom, dad, and sister all know ASL to varying degrees and my mom is the director of a nonprofit community service agency for the deaf. I have been around and on the outskirts of deaf culture my whole life. Despite the guilt I feel for never learning, I am proud to say that I am finally, at age 26, learning ASL. I'm getting help from my mom's agency (I convinced them to do a 6 week class for myself and some of my coworkers) and I am going to begin taking ASL classes at our local community college this summer.
I have felt for several years like I should learn sign, but when I was growing up I never wanted anything to do with Deaf culture. Maybe this was because I was jealous of all the attention my brother got with the surgeries and speech therapy that I had to tag along with for most of my early childhood, I don't know because I certainly wasn't mature enough at the time to know whether or not that was the case. I learned Japanese and Chinese, but never had any interest in ASL until recent years.
I am getting ready to be married soon, and there is a chance my kids will be deaf. I want to be fluent in ASL not only to be part of my brother's life, but my future children if they need it. Now that I've been learning ASL I've learned much more about the Deaf community and want to be involved.
I joined this site because I want to find more SODAs that can relate to my experience, and I want to find people that can share in my experience of learning ASL!
Nice to meet you all
I have felt for several years like I should learn sign, but when I was growing up I never wanted anything to do with Deaf culture. Maybe this was because I was jealous of all the attention my brother got with the surgeries and speech therapy that I had to tag along with for most of my early childhood, I don't know because I certainly wasn't mature enough at the time to know whether or not that was the case. I learned Japanese and Chinese, but never had any interest in ASL until recent years.
I am getting ready to be married soon, and there is a chance my kids will be deaf. I want to be fluent in ASL not only to be part of my brother's life, but my future children if they need it. Now that I've been learning ASL I've learned much more about the Deaf community and want to be involved.
I joined this site because I want to find more SODAs that can relate to my experience, and I want to find people that can share in my experience of learning ASL!
Nice to meet you all
