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Deaf & Hard of Hearing Culture: Deaf Culture

Resources about the Deaft Community

Deaf Culture

ABC Stories are a unique creation of the Deaf Community. A story is told using the hand shapes for the ASL Alphabet, starting from A through Z.

Deaf, Not Disabled: In Deaf Culture, deafness is embraced and is not considered a disability. Because of this, the term “hearing impaired” is frowned upon by Deaf people, as it implies that they are lacking something. For people in the Deaf Community, being deaf is part of who they are.

In ASL, the placement of your hand in relation to your body, the movement or not of your hand and the handshape determine the word you are conveying. You can see this demonstrated in ABC Stories.

For example:

This is the ASL letter and handshape "Y". This hand shape is used for the words for yellow and silly:

                                                                                                          image of letter y in Sign Language

 

Deaf Choirs can be anything from simply signing the words of the song (Signed Exact English or S.E.E. method) to the most common form which is artistic interpretation of the meaning of the song. 

Sign Name: It is traditional for a person from the Deaf Community to choose the sign name for a hearing person new to the Deaf Community.

                                                                                    photo of football players in a huddle

The Huddle: In 1892, Paul Hubbard was the star quarterback for the Gallaudet Bison football team. Hubbard was worried that other teams, both deaf and hearing teams, were stealing his hand signals at the line of scrimmage. During one game against the Illinois School for the Deaf, Hubbard could tell the opposing team was reading his signals and he decided to do something about it. Hubbard called his offensive line to “huddle up” before the next play and was able to call the next play without the opposing team knowing what they were about to do. It worked so well that today the huddle is as much part of football as helmets and shoulder pads.

                                                               photo of skateboarder doing the mute grab air move

The "Mute Grab/air":  The ‘mute grab/air’ is being renamed as the ‘Weddle grab/air.’ For almost 40 years, the "mute grab" has been a well-known skateboarding trick: grabbing the toe side of the board between your feet, rotating backside, and landing to face the opposite direction. However, many skateboarders do not know the origin or its inventor the deaf skateboarder Chris Weddle.