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Asra Rizvi
Professor Augustus
Deaf Culture
7 June 2016
My experiences in the Deaf community
Before this year, I had never been around deaf people and because of this I was not
familiar with this culture and this life style. When I first started Mount San Antonio College I
had a classmate that was deaf. I had never been in that situation before because I did not have
any deaf classmates in high school. When I saw my classmate and the interpreter, I just thought it
was so fascinating and would watch them sign during class, even though I later learned that
staring is not polite when they are signing. I continued to have classes with deaf students and
interpreters. I wanted to learn Sign Language but I did not know where to start. I did not know
what Mount San Antonio College offered them until I was talking to my councilor. My Major is
Speech Pathology and one of the requirement is to take a Sign Language class. When the
councilor had told me this I was pretty excited because I then could have a conversation with my
deaf classmates. As I took Sign Language I felt like I was learning so much. And after taking
American Sign Language, I knew the basics on how to have a conversation with someone and I
wanted to have a conversation with one of my classmates and surprise them because I felt that a
lot of times people try to avoid deaf people because they cannot have a conversation with them
and we saw that when students were presenting Dinner and Movie, where the waiters would
avoid the deaf customers because of the language and hearing barrier. Anyhow, I honestly

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enjoyed taking that class and was sad when the semester was over. But I decided that I also
wanted to learn about the culture and background and that is why I took this class. At first I was
nervous because I was putting myself in a whole new environment which I was not used to but
After the first few class sessions I was making new friend and really felt I was getting to know
everyone and their stories.
As I started to make friends in the class, I decided to do the Movie and Dinner with
Natalie. I was really nervous because I had never pretended to be deaf before and was nervous
that I would accidentally talk during dinner, but hopefully that did not happen. We decided to go
to Olive Garden for dinner. We had a great experience, Our waiter was really nice and friendly.
She even had a notepad and pen to ask us questions. She would always come and check up on us.
She was not afraid of us. Even when I had gotten to the restaurant, Natalie had already been
seated- I was ten minutes late, we can say I was on deaf time. I had made a note on my phone
and showed it to the host that my party was waiting for me. She was nice and guided me to my
table. When I sat down the waitress asked me the basics, if I wanted water or a drink. Since we
went to Olive Garden they have unlimited soup or salad so we asked us which one we wanted
and we used our phones to reply. It was pretty simple. But I was nervous- not because I was I
was embarrassed but because I did not want to mess up and speak in front of the waitress. During
our dinner we had many interactions with the workers. The second waiter that came to our table
was from the kitchen and he gave us our food. I do not believe that he realized we were deaf
because he was talking to us but after we pointed at which plate was ours and he then realized we
were deaf. While we were eating people were looking at us but that did not bother us. Some

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people could not stop looking. The waitress kept coming asking if we wanted anything else and
would come refill our drinks and bring us more breadsticks when we ran out. Communication
was not a problem at all and I was really happy about that. We even had small talk with our
waiter. She had a tattoo on her wrist and we asked her what it meant. Also, the waiter knew some
sign language- not a lot but she knew how to say hello and thank you. Overall, I had a great
experience and it was one of the moments that I will alway remember.
For the movie I watched High School Musical. I had not watch that movie since I was a
child and thought it would be fun to watch it again for this class. Oh boy, was I wrong. While
watching the movie I was so distracted, I was constantly on my phone and when I looked up on
my screen I had no clue what was going on. And when the cast were singing and dancing it was
kind of boring. But I still sang the songs in my head. I realized that I needed to put all my
attention to watching that movie, I could not multi task. Half way to the movie I had fallen asleep
so I was not able to finish the movie.
Another experience that I had when I first got involved with the deaf community
was when I went to an event that was held at Mount san Antonio College. This event was in the
fall. At this event Margo was speaking. I had never had her before nor did I ever hear about her.
But I do remember people talking highly of her in my Sign Language class. When I went to the
Event there were many people. The room was filled. I sat with some of my classmates and we
listened to the speakers. Margo was one the speakers. She spoke about her experience being deaf.
This was my first time hearings someones experience because my Sign Language professor was
hearing so he did not have to experience the same things as a deaf individual would have faced.

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As soon as Margo started signing at the interpreters started translating- I found her hilarious. She
signed about her experiences in the past as a child. How she and her family lived. She signed
about how deaf people like to go to parties and how they stay out late. When I was at the event I
learned so many new things about the deaf world and community that I had never knew and ever
thought of. And because of going to that event I wanted to learn more about the deaf culture and
the history. And that event is one of the many reasons I am taking this class. Going to that event
where Margo signed about her experiences. Some things that she talked about was when she was
a baby and how her mother would take of her and when her mom knew if she was crying or not.
Another thing that I remember was her talking about Roscos. Before that I did not know what
that was. Our Sign Language professor did not talk to us about that- maybe because we were all
new and did not know any sign Language. But anyways, she talked about how much fun they
have and how late they stay and get together with others from the deaf community, she signed
about deaf time and how people stay very late to the events and how saying goodbyes take a long
time. Another past experience she talked about was her and her family going to visit their friends
and in the day when there was no FaceTime or Skype. She said that they would just have to go to
their friends house hoping that they were there and if they were not they would just go back
home. And the story that she told was that they had drove 2 hours to visit their friends not
knowing if they were home or not. And when they arrived they rang the doorbell, but it was not
just any regular doorbell- it was a door bell with flashing lights. They would flash all around the
house. I found that fascinating. I would have never thought that thats how they would know if
someone was at home. Anyways they rang the doorbell and no one answered, so then Margos

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dad decided to hop the fence hoping that he had seen if anyone was at home. After he hoped the
fence he looked through the windows and flashing a flash light. And after doing so someone
inside saw the lights and let them in. When hearing all these stories that she was signing got me
so interested into the deaf community. After hearing her I was not afraid to go up to other deaf
individuals-as before I was scared that they would get mad that my Sign Language was bad.
After hearing her talk, I one day wish I can take her class because I know that I will learn so
much more than from her twenty minutes speech.