Personal Narrative: My Experience In Deaf Culture

This past month, I’ve attended my first two deaf events. In the beginning I was a little uncomfortable, with my limited ASL knowledge. I enjoyed being amongst so many who knew how to sign. I also enjoyed watching the interpreter during the church service. In my observations, I learned a great deal of deaf culture. The first event I attended was the ASL Kick Off Picnic. A friend of mine in ASL 3, shared that she would be attending the event also. It wasn’t until; she expressed her nervousness attending her first event that I became nervous. I thought of my limited ASL knowledge and background, how all I could share with others is my name and the numbers I knew. It felt odd being at an event with many people, but there was little to no voices speaking. It was a very relaxed environment with food and signing. Many people seemed to know one another, and would spend time catching up. I would call it a very social event. Naturally, people began making their way over to some bean bag tosses. Those who I signed with understood, that I was new to ASL. I found that while I didn’t understand much, or it took a couple of times singing, I could understand the basics of what someone was trying to say. I was uncomfortable in the beginning; begin in a new situation and not knowing how to fully communicate with others. I’ve never been in a situation, where I had
I realized that some would mouth what they were signing. This helped me, since I wasn’t just relying on the signs. When two people were signing, one would alert the other before singing back to the other person. In my mind, one would wait until one person was finished signing to reply. I understood the sense of the deaf community. It felt like a friendly and close group, many were already familiar with one another. During the service, Deaf Awareness and a few others signed a song. The group was paired up and would sign different parts of the