FACES BEHIND THE SCREEN

“We’re able to socialize and communicate with people just like the rest of the world. The only difference is that we have a different language and other ways of communicating with each other. It’s an easy language to learn that requires patience and understanding. We have passion and we want people to know that we’re not going to live isolated and silent lives. We can do anything our hearts desire and we are capable of much more.

Being DeafBlind we have balance problems due to our inner ear equilibrium issues. In addition to this most instructors use verbal cues when teaching you the next steps of the progression instead of comprehending that I have a disability and accommodating me to help me learn the next progressions.  I have gone to workshops where I have asked instructors to use microphone system that wraps around their arm which connects wirelessly to my hearing aids, so I can hear their instruction, however many instructors are not so kind when asking them to put it on. The easiest part is understanding your body movement and predicting the next progression because it simply feels right. Connecting and applying perfect balance allows you to move gracefully without even thinking about what happens next.” – Tanya

“We all live in a world that seems to crave more and more for instant gratifications. Time is essentially an DeafBlind individual’s biggest barrier. I have read that 80% of the information out there are delivered via the eyes and ears. Boy, that is a lot of information! Certainly, we need more time to process all of those information!

Ironically enough, I would say the easiest and hardest part [of doing acroyoga] is interchangeable. DeafBlind people are extremely tuned in with their own bodies. They can detect a slight change in the air or gravity. Yeah, I am saying we are mutants! Step aside, X-Men! Anyhow… when I am being the base supporting a flyer, I can certainly detect whether the fulcrum feels good or not. I can adjust to the flyer or the flyer can adjust to me. Of course, like Tanya said, we generally have horrible balance. So if the fulcrum is off just too much, just run for your lives!” – Andrew

“After Deaf Can! Coffee opened, people started hearing about it and coming. They were very curious, especially about the name, Deaf Can. They’d ask, “What does that mean?”

“I grew up, identifying myself as a big D, capital D – Deaf. I emphasize that because of the culture of my deafness. But I wasn’t really sure if I was hard of hearing or not. I had a lot of friends who signed, but all of them signed English, called S-E-E, SEE. So I was kind of stuck. But I didn’t meet a lot of deaf people out in the community.

Then when I entered high school, I started to meet different people, and in college too. That’s when my bubble burst. Oh, man, did I really get engrossed in everything! I still struggled with my identity during that time. I went to Gallaudet, and I also had my own little culture from growing up. And I had to assess myself.

Then I felt like I was really a Deaf person very strongly. So I really got motivated to match with the ASL. And that’s when I became and started to identify with the big D capital Deaf.”

“There are so many crazy myths [about Deaf people] out there. I think my top ‘favorite’ one is, ‘All Deaf people can lip-read.’

I remember when I first was asked if all Deaf people could do that and I was like, ‘Uhmm… Can you even lip-read? Oh, you can’t? Because it’s hard right?’

I think it’s funny how easy some people think lip reading is until they’ve actually tried it themselves. Then after they’ve tried it they are like, ‘Oh wow, this is WAY harder than I thought.’”

“I adapted, but I didn’t know what was going on. And it took a couple of years before I was diagnosed with what was going on. But I struggled.

I’m adapted to blindness. It’s not my greatest struggle.

I’ve been totally blind for about 30 years, and the hardest thing for me to overcome is the assumptions of sighted people. Not blindness itself, but the assumptions of sighted people. Their preconceptions, their prejudice of what it’s like to be blind.

The blind label encumbers a whole bunch of, like you say, spectrum of blindness. I’m totally blind, and so when I function, people think I’m mysterious or magical or, how do you do that? But it’s a slippery slope. When you don’t function, people think that you can’t function at all, and actually, people start talking to you louder, as if you can’t hear or grabbing hold of you as if you can’t walk.

This is the best time in history to be a blind person. Technology, the adaptive aids and equipment, that dogs are, by law, supposed to be available and you can take them anywhere. We live in a very good time for blind people.”

“I was first introduced to the YouTube community through music. I followed pianists like Kyle Landry and Sherry Kim and they were my inspiration for playing.

It wasn’t until I started contemplating my sexual orientation that I discovered the vlogging community and coming out videos. I wanted that same sense of community and resource to those living with disabilities.

So I started talking about my experiences living with albinism and low vision.

I’m almost positive that when people hear the phrase ‘visual impairment’ they think of someone who cannot see completely.

A majority of the blind community are people with low vision. We can still see a little, or most of the detail of what we’re looking at, it just depends on environmental conditions. I am visually impaired, but I am also a painter, and I coach soccer.”

What would you like tech companies to keep in mind?

“Probably the only thing I would like them to know is, if the deaf community is important to them, continue to be active and involved with the deaf community.”

“I’m really lucky and happy to be able to meet the people within the hearing loss community. They are all from different kinds of backgrounds and varying degrees of hearing loss, some people have come to terms with their hearing loss. Some people haven’t. Some people try to hide it. Some people are very expressive with it.”

“I’m not so much trying to bring in more interpreters, but trying to improve the quality of music. The whole idea started from me watching interpreters. I was like, OK, I’m deaf, and I’m learning sign language… why can’t I understand the interpreter?”

“Not knowing that she had hearing loss before three, I felt guilty because I work in early intervention. I didn’t even notice it. So I was feeling guilty for a long time. We made up for the years that we lost.”

“I was born and raised in a more oral method of instruction for the deaf where they teach you to speak and understand lip-reading. My father didn’t actually permit me to sign. And that was the 1970s or so. My mom did sign a little bit, mainly just home signs (invented gestures), but my father required me to speak when he was around.”

“When my hearing changed so dramatically, I wondered how I would be able to continue working… I couldn’t see a path forward with how I would function in my personal life and my work life. For me, getting a cochlear implant gave me my life back.”

“Deaf dogs are known for being more frightened because of the way that people treat them. It has nothing to do with them.”

“I remember playing telephone and noticing that I had to completely turn so they’d talk in my good ear.”

“Love yourself. It’s hard to do. But worth it.”

What is the best thing about being deaf?

“I hear screaming/crying babies less. Unfortunately, sometimes, I can still hear them depending on how close they are, but for the most part, the sound is less for me than it would be a hearing person. Sorry, babies. I understand why you cry, but it hurts.”

“My parents are both deaf, and ASL was my first language. English is actually a second language for me.

In our family we had a footstool that would sit by the TV, and that was the interpreter’s footstool because we didn’t have closed captioning back then. Growing up there was the Vietnam War, and that [was] the first war that was really televised. So I would sit on the footstool next to the TV and interpret the news and update Mom and Dad.”