"Fortuitous"
When I first started high school, I was presented with a unique opportunity. As I scanned the course catalog to select my classes, I was expecting to be faced with the classics, like Spanish and French, as well as some of the newer languages making their way into US schools, namely Mandarin. To me, none of these choices seemed particularly inspiring, so, like many others, I was already dreading my language education. Imagine my surprise, though, when I read that American Sign Language (ASL) was offered as an option. While I barely knew anything about ASL, I found myself suddenly scintillated by the sheer novelty of the language being offered. I not only had never heard of other schools offering ASL, I also did not know anyone who had any experience with the language. If you know me, or you feel like you do because you read this newsletter, you are probably well aware that, most of the time, I’m intrigued by that which I don’t know much about. Therefore, instead of shimmying onto the Romantic branches of the human language tree, I signed up for ASL.
For the uninitiated, ASL is a manual language primarily used in the United States and Canada (minus, or, more appropriately, sans Quebec). Despite common misconceptions, ASL is not simply a signed version of English. In fact, there are several phrases in ASL that do not translate to English and vice versa. ASL stands as its own unique language with its own grammar structure. Additionally, ASL is mostly, but not exclusively, used by Deaf people. While ASL is, I reiterate, not exclusively used by Deaf people, the formation and history of ASL cannot and should not be separated from the history of US Deaf communities. At the same time, due to a variety of factors, not all Deaf people use ASL. If you are seeking a more robust introduction to ASL, I would recommend checking out the video linked below!
It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with ASL. My newfound love partly came from discovering that I had a knack for the language. This was primarily because ASL, in its very nature as a visual language, relies on facial and bodily expression to convey meaning. People who sign ASL use their face and body in a similar way to how people who use spoken languages inflect or intonate their voices. The facial and bodily expression used when signing a certain word or phrase can add context to that word or phrase, or it can completely change its meaning. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for those unfamiliar with ASL to be surprised by how animated signers are when in conversation. However, that’s simply the nature of the language. It would follow that, as a lifelong drama queen, I took to ASL like a fish to water. While my other classmates struggled to emote in the new language, I had fun with it. Of course, by this point, I had also spent a good amount of time acting in theater, meaning I already had an awareness and command of how to convey emotions through my facial and bodily expression. Luckily, I was also able to get a hold of the grammar (which can be a challenge for a native English speaker like myself) and I continued to excel in my classes.
Along with the language, I also found myself enthralled by the history of ASL. Whether it was the story of Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc, along with countless other members of American Deaf communities of the time, formalizing ASL in the nineteenth century, or the Deaf President Now demonstrations of the nineteen-eighties, I remain fascinated by the history of the language and the histories of the respective Deaf communities the language serves; they are vibrant and inspiring histories that, unfortunately, too few get the opportunity to learn about.
I stuck with ASL classes through the rest of high school. When I graduated, I was fortunate enough to attend a university where I could further my ASL education. However, college transformed my education by introducing me to Deaf people. Before college, all of my ASL education had been administered by a hearing teacher (the politics of which could be its own newsletter), so, despite learning ASL, I had not had the opportunity to interact with any Deaf people. This changed pretty immediately, as the majority of my college’s ASL faculty was Deaf. Unlike my high school classes, I was prohibited from speaking to my fellow classmates during class time; instead, I had to sign to them. In addition, as a part of our ASL curriculum, we had to participate in Deaf community events in Pittsburgh, exposing me to even more members of the Deaf community. While I certainly learned a lot in high school, this more immersive nature of my college education allowed my signing to flourish in a new way. By the time I graduated college, I not only had a greater command of the language but also a more in-depth understanding of Deaf individuals and communities.
After I graduated college, as you may have read here before, I embarked on a trip around the world. There were several times during that journey where I found myself saying, “it would be really useful if I spoke the language.” That line of thinking, however, never made me regret how much time I had invested in studying ASL; I was more so pondering upon how my life could have taken a different path if I had chosen a different language when I opened my high school’s course catalog. “If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” It’s something I find myself considering a lot. In fact, I like to think about, if it is true that there are an infinite amount of dimensions, what, for example, the Quinn in the dimension wherein I took Spanish in high school is like, but I digress. All this to say, as I traveled around the world, I was, at times, second-guessing my decision to learn such a localized language spoken by a relatively small group of people.
About a year and a half after finishing my last ASL class in college, I had a special experience. For those of you who don’t know, I have been working at a winery for the past six months. My place of work is particularly known for their annual Halloween event; five weekends in which adults flock to our property to trick or treat. However, instead of (just) getting candy, they get wine. During this five week period, I graciously came out of my tour guide retirement to lead trick or treaters around our property; I told them about the wine, regaled them with stories about the haunted grounds, and, above all, subjected them to my bad jokes.
While it’s certainly a fun event, after managing forty tipsy adults for about an hour, I began to realize why we stop trick or treating at a certain age. After giving three of those tours a day on both Saturday and Sunday for five weekends in a row, that realization only became more crystalline. However, on the third weekend, having about fifteen tours under my belt, I noticed something new in what was becoming rote. After starting my tour and laying out the ground rules, I was pouring the first tasting of wine for my customers when I see a woman in my group signing to another woman. Then, I spot a hearing aid in the one woman’s ear. I put two and two together and realized that I had a Deaf person on my tour.
As I said, I’m pouring wine, which, if you can believe it or not, makes it hard to sign. However, when the woman comes up for her first tasting, I manage to sign “hi, how are you,” to which she replies, “fine,” clearly excited by the fact that I’m signing to her. Throughout the rest of the tour, when my hands were not occupied with pouring or serving, I had the opportunity to chat more with the woman. I learned that she had come with a group of her friends, all of whom were hearing and delighted that I could sign with her, and that she attends this particular event every year. She also told me a bit about her upbringing in our shared home state. I told her about my education in high school and college, and how my mom wants me to become an interpreter even though I’m not qualified (which the woman agreed with). Even after the tour had ended, we stood talking for about ten minutes before I had to take another tour group out.
Later, after I told my coworker about this interaction, I remember her describing it as “fortuitous.” I couldn’t help but agree with her. Five of my coworkers also gave tours that day; however, quite serendipitously, it was me who ended up having that particular customer in my group.
I tell this story not to give myself a pat on the back for learning ASL and, thus, being able to provide this experience. On the contrary, when I think of this story, it makes me understand how much ASL has given me. Without my knowledge of ASL, I would not have had such a meaningful interaction that day. Therefore, while the idea of me speaking French in another dimension can be enchanting, this encounter allowed me to let go of some of those thoughts. It is a testament to a belief I try to foster within myself; a belief that the decision to take ASL when I was a freshman in high school, along with all the other decisions I’ve ever made, came from a place of deep wisdom. That, somewhere within me, I have the answers if I’m only willing to listen. In the transitional moment of life I’m in, a moment wherein I find myself questioning all those decisions I have made (of course, more on this later), the meeting I had with that woman affirmed, in some small way, that I’m on the right track.
This piece is dedicated to my ASL educators: Shelley Collier, Deb Hast, Airza Bosley, and Wendy Payne-Craig. Many thanks always!