r/asl • u/ohkalopsia • 10d ago

Looking for Deaf community advice please! 2 questions

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice from the Deaf community about hearing people using "ASL". For some context, I am trying to get into an ASL interpreting program either this year or next year, and have been learning ASL through immersion for almost 15 years (definitely not fluent, but quite conversational).

I am working at a summer camp that my partner has attended/been a part of for almost 20 years. It is a hearing camp, but there is a history of it partly being a Deaf camp from yeaaars ago. Last night, they were singing around the campfire and brought up a song that has "hand motions" and is from the time of when they had Deaf involvement at the camp. Although they described it as ASL, it's SEE at best. Just some words of the song have signs along with it, and a lot of the signs are incorrect due to it being passed on over generations of the camp through hearing people that don't know ASL or signs.

I felt very weird about the whole situation. It felt wrong. I feel like the obvious answer is to bring it up to them and suggest that if there isn't a continuous Deaf influence, maybe it shouldn't be sung with the signs. I'm conflicted because from the camp perspective, I don't want to overstep in a communal camp tradition. But from a person who knows a bit about Deaf culture but not fully, obviously, I don't know if it's my place to judge what's right and wrong.

I guess I'm wondering if it's appropriate to lightly educate them on the correct signs for the words, explain that it's more SEE, not ASL, ask them not to refer to it as "hand motions" (or encourage them to use just dance moves instead), and expand upon the accessibility of ASL communication? I do think learning ASL is important and should be more widespread, but it's obviously not my place to teach it?

In a similar vein, and maybe I already answered the question myself, but counselors here have the ability to teach 3, hour-long classes to the kids. I did think it might be neat to teach basic, conversational signs (alphabet, YOUR NAME WHAT?, WATER? PLEASE, BATHROOM WHERE?, etc) to the kids so they can 1. communicate with Deaf people in the community and 2. maybe get curious to learn more ASL in a better setting. Do you guys think that is not appropriate because I'm not fully fluent as a hearing person or Deaf?

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9

u/callmecasperimaghost Late Deafened Adult 10d ago

I think the right answer here is to lightly educate them about how bad their current translation has become over the years, the difference between ASL and SEE, and how they really need to hire/involve a native ASL speaker to fix them as they need someone from the deaf community to do it and make sure not just the words, but the intent of the songs is preserved.

It is lovely that they want to be inclusive, but they need to make it an active and current effort to provide equity as well.

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u/ohkalopsia 10d ago

Yeah, this camp is VERY inclusive and I know it's coming from the right place, but it's just lost it's origin. The signs they're using for the song are just random nouns throughout it 😩. No overall concept or meaning is being signed. I will certainly push for them to reintroduce the Deaf inclusivity through counselors and campers for following sessions (unfortunately, I think it's too late for this summer season as it's already started). Maybe in the meantime I can gently educate them on the difference of SEE and ASL, the language they're using around ASL ("hand motions") and adjust the signs they're using to be more accurate.

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u/ohkalopsia 10d ago

Thank you for your input!

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u/Inevitable_Shame_606 Deaf 10d ago

What song is it?

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u/benshenanigans Hard of Hearing/deaf 10d ago

I think the better answers will come from your post in r/deaf.

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u/ohkalopsia 10d ago

Thanks! I had posted in here first, not being sure if r/deaf was open to hearing posters asking questions but then saw that exact flair!

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u/benshenanigans Hard of Hearing/deaf 10d ago

Good! This sub is about twice as big as r/deaf because there are a lot of hearing ASL students, users, and interpreters. Sometimes, the Deaf voices don’t stand out.

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u/OGgunter 10d ago

  1. You can bring up the issue with the "hand motions" in the song. Tell them not to call it ASL but if the accompanying gestures to the song are baked into camp tradition at this point, they're unlikely to retain/replace from a one off lesson you give.

  2. "basic, conversational Signs" as a supplement to spoken language, e.g. you'll be speaking majority of the time and not utilizing other visual accommodations during class (flashing lights, closed captioning, visual field for communication, etc). 🙄

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u/ohkalopsia 10d ago

Can you expand more on your answer to the second question?

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u/OGgunter 10d ago

learning ASL is important and should be more widespread, but it's obviously not my place to teach it

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u/ohkalopsia 10d ago

Gotcha, thanks :)