Rough Draft #1 (my shitty first draft)

In high school, I joined the American Sign Language (ASL) club. I’ve always been interested in sign language and the culture but never got the chance to learn about it until I joined this club. The president who oversaw it at the time was passionate about sign language as well. She had deaf friends that were a part of the club and she was volunteering at a deaf literacy center. After seeing how involved she was in the community, I wanted to be just as involved. I went to every meeting and the after-school tutoring and became good enough at signing to where I could have basic conversations with another person. Eventually, I started volunteering at the same literacy center my president was going to. I was babysitting deaf children and helping around the building to make things a little easier for the family members that were apart of the deaf community. I also started attending deaf socials on Friday nights with my club. Deaf socials are a good way to interact with other people who know how to sign or are learning how to sign. The whole purpose of a deaf social is for mostly deaf people to meet and mingle with other people in their community. Anybody is allowed to go to them, but it is common courtesy to stay silent and only sign. By the time I was a senior, I became the president of the ASL club and was able to run the meetings myself. I would spend the meetings teaching the members basic sign language and I would teach them a little bit about the history of the deaf culture. Not as many members would go to the literacy center that year but I always made time to go at least once a month to help any way that I could.

This club meant so much to me and had such a big impact in my life because it was one of the few places where I felt like I truly belonged. I had never felt more passionate about learning a new language let alone the whole culture that followed along with it. I am not deaf, and I only know a couple of deaf people from school or the literacy center. I can not advocate for what a deaf person goes through or how they feel about certain issues, but I do try to learn as much as I can about the culture, so I can understand what they go through and the struggles they must face in order to keep up.

The ASL club was the first club that I joined, and I felt passionate about what I was doing in it. It gave me motivation to volunteer and help a community that not a lot of people knew about. The second half of my high school experience was partially molded around what I did in that club and what I learned from it. I became good friends with a deaf boy who would sometimes come to the meetings and he would teach me new signs every time I talked to him.

I taught my parents how to sign as well. I was also a cheerleader in high school and had to go to every football game. That meant that my parents came to every football game as well to watch me. While I was down on the field I would sign to them up in the stands whenever I was hungry or thirsty. I would sign “hamburger” or “water” and they would go down to the concession stand to get it for me so I could have it during half time. Eventually, I ended up teaching my friends how to sign as well so we could have conversations in class without the teacher noticing.

American Sign Language has been a big part of my life for the past couple of years now and it has shaped me into a better person. I become more involved with volunteering and learning about communities to help make them better. I got to experience what it was like to run a club and teach other students ASL, showing them how interesting this entire culture is and how it has helped an entire population of people be able to live an easier life. Most deaf people don’t even see being deaf as a disability and as just part of who they are. They understand that some everyday functions are harder for them than if they were hearing, but just like anybody, they figure it out and work with what they know.