My final semester senior year, I was honored to be accepted into one of Clemson University's Creative Inquiry courses, focusing in human research. Under the supervision of Dr. Jody H. Cripps, seven students and I took on the daunting task to reintroduce signed language to the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. A good friend of mine started the project with Dr. Cripps and encouraged me to ask to join the project. I completed a certification for human research through CITI and was able to apply my past studies in Deaf culture and ASL to the project. We worked with local businesses, Libraries, and the Martha's Vineyard Television station to encourage a more accessible environment on the island and record interviews to gather data on the businesses' opinions and experiences. 

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In the 18th into the  early 20th century, Martha's Vineyard was a bilingual community. They used Martha's Vineyard Sign Language and spoken English as the two primary communication methods. The island is a significant place in the Deaf community, as it was the first place in the US that showed complete acceptance and inclusion of Deaf individuals. They did not need to struggle to communicate, and that is what we are striving to recreate: an accessible, inclusive atmosphere on the island once again. 

 

We are advocating for full accessibility and encouraging hearing residents of the island to learn basic ASL. The first part of the project involved local businesses. We will provide them with a pre-recorded webinar teaching them basic signs in order to welcome and assist any Deaf customers they may encounter. The second aspect of this project was working with the local libraries to find ways to engage the community. The final part of this project which I have overseen personally is working with Martha's Vineyard Television station (MVTV). We continue to work on captioning ASL lesson videos, documentaries, and virtual tours. I am also currently working with Adobe Rush in order to create a more accessible and modernized version of the original ASL lesson videos from the 1980's. I am editing the color of the videos to be ASL friendly (blue tint/background), updating outdated text fonts, and adding captions and interpretations for any spoken English. We also used requests from local businesses to create modern demo's to teach basic American Sign Language in an accessible, and culturally sensitive way. 

 

This project was a culturally rich experience, as my peers and I learned more about the role interpreters play in the lives of Deaf individuals. We saw first hand how effective and professional interpreters must be, recognized audism in the community, as well as recognized acceptance and accessibility. It was difficult at times, but overall the trip gave me a new perspective on not only Deaf culture, but also the dysconscious audism in the hearing population. Many times, we would run into people who did not know or understand the intricacies and intersectionalities that come with Deaf individuals and their cultures and identities. They may say something that we can recognize as insensitive, but they are unaware of the offensive nature of such remarks, and we learned how our professor chose to handle such situations. All Deaf individuals have different preferences and ways of approaching or avoiding such situations, but it was an important learning experience to see how my professor chose to professionally, respectfully, and kindly inform the hearing person on Deaf culture and how what they said can be taken as offensive by many people in the Deaf community. 

 

This Creative Inquiry study abroad experience was the best way I could think of to end my college career. I gained research experience and was able to see first hand the types of ethical and moral dilemmas I will undoubtedly face in my future, as an aspiring interpreter. I will use these experiences to aid in my development as an interpreter and to further deepen my understanding of Deaf culture and the immensely diverse Deaf community.