ASL - American Sign Language

Belinda Vicars

I grew up in the middle of Mojave Desert, in a small mining town called Boron, as the only deaf child in my family and in town. Like many deaf children, I got off to a rather shaky start in the education system. There weren't many options available in the early 1970's and I was sent to public school without the aid of an interpreter. Because I had some residual hearing loss, I wore hearing aids -- the boxy kind that I wore strapped around my chest. They passed me through Kindergarten with a kind teacher that I still remember. The first grade experiences, however, were different, having failed first grade twice, which might have been the result of my throwing tantrums, refusing to wear my hearing aid, and sitting at my desk with a coat over my head.

Boron was a remote place, 60 miles from Lancaster and 90 miles from Bakersfield. Mojave Desert was a wide area in which about ten or twelve deaf children had lived, scattered all over the county, from Tehachapi, to Rosamond, to the south, Boron, and to the east, a trailer park town called Aerial Acres. Under the auspices of a now defunct Kern County day program for the deaf (in Bakersfield), a satellite classroom was set up in California City. What this meant was that students from all over were bussed thirty or more miles to school every day. When I was placed in this program, it changed my life. I was no longer frustrated and threw fewer tantrums. I learned the meaning of words. Though I had undergone speech therapy in the public school system, I had not learned to speak until the age of seven.

Mrs. Gibeault was to be my teacher for the next six years, opening my world through sign language. I talked with my friends on the playground, went to week long deaf camps in Morro Bay, joining the deaf day school in Bakersfield. I developed life long friendships and crushes. Mrs. Gibeault became one of the top influences in my life, shaping the way I communicate and inciting my passion for learning. While interacting at school, I had a "normal" childhood -- but the moment I was bussed home after school, I changed into the quiet girl. None of my family had signed. Like many deaf children, I had grown up oral in the home and Deaf in school.

During my middle and high school years, I was mainstreamed and had attended the local public school without the benefit of an interpreter. They weren't the best of times, but I did well in school. Once I had graduated, I attended Bakersfield Community College and ran into some old deaf friends much to my delight. I took American Sign Language classes, because my former training had been in Signing Exact English. Though I was exposed to ASL on the playground, I was by no means well versed. After BCC, I dropped SEE and started using ASL from that point forth. This sums up my experience with the education system as a deaf child.

As an adult, I worked for B-GLAD (Bakersfield-Greater Los Angeles for the Deaf) as an intake worker and receptionist. Later, I had moved to Ogden, Utah and worked for Utah Community Center for the Deaf Relay Center as the Deaf Culture/ASL specialist. As Bill had noted, I also taught for several years as an ASL teacher for adult education and community colleges. I now teach ASL part-time for CSUS. As Bill's partner, I take care of the business side of Lifeprint.

Because of my love for language and literature, I have a BA in liberal studies/creative writing and am now working on my MFA in Creative Writing. I am fascinated by how "deafism" has influenced my grammar, and my writing and I look forward to sharing some of them with you during the ASL Safari.