Silent lunches at BSU: Deaf community ‘speaks out’

ZACH GANSCHOW Only sign language allowed.

If you walk into the Cultural Center on a Friday afternoon, you will be met with excited chatter.

But you won’t hear anything.

Every Friday, members of the deaf community gather to have lunch and converse with friends also fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). Those who come to gather include Boise State University students, non-BSU students, those who are deaf and those who can hear. Everyone is invited to mingle at the silent lunches. Most of the people who attend are deaf and enjoy the support and kindred feeling they receive through chatting with other deaf people.

“Lots of people don’t recognize that we’re deaf, so there aren’t too many programs that offer help. It’s not that we can’t learn, it’s just that there aren’t many programs,” said Kevin Majors, a non-degree-seeking student. “It’s still important for us to learn.”

The deaf at the silent lunches enjoy talking to each other about struggles with their disability, coping with life as a deaf person and other things such as politics.

Section 508 of the U.S. Code states that Federal agencies must provide resources and technology to persons with disabilities. BSU provides interpreters for deaf students in classes, but due to limited availability and resources, sometimes getting an interpreter proves difficult for these students. Even when there is an interpreter available, deaf students say that at times it’s difficult for the interpreter to keep up and they end up falling behind.

Even reading the text books is harder for many deaf students than for students who can hear. ASL is a language that is understood differently than English. Not only are there no grammatical articles in ASL, like “the,” “to,” and “and,” but there can be many different signs for one word. So reading a textbook proves twice as tedious, since deaf students have to read it in English, and then translate it to ASL.

“ASL is my first language. English is my second language,” said Christina Deleo, a graduate student pursuing her master’s degree in educational technology. “I try to get involved on campus, like in rallies and events here (however) most of those events don’t have an interpreter, so I feel left out. I still feel like an outsider looking in.”

Sherri Matthews-Thomas recounted for the group about a time when she was to receive a prestigious award during halftime in a basketball game. She wanted to bring a friend along to interpret. However, event coordinators did not want to allow the friend in free of charge. Matthews-Thomas had to speak with several people in charge before she was allowed to bring her interpreter in for free.

But not all is gloomy in the silent lunch; on the contrary, there were many smiling faces as group members talked about an upcoming chili cook-off at Rocky Mountain High School. All are encouraged to attend Friday, March 5 at 5 p.m. and meet the silent cooks.

Brown-bag silent lunches take place every Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Cultural Center on the second floor of the Student Union Building.

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Posted by Rebecca De León on Mar 4 2010. Filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.