Deaf Culture Totally Had A Moment: 2018 Edition

What better way to enact real change than to step into a political role and work from the inside?

• This year the town of Angels Camp, CA elected Amanda Folendorf, a 31 year old Deaf woman, as mayor. Folendorf has a background in government, elected in 2014 to City Council, as well as a history of grassroots activism in the Deaf community, having served as a California Association of the Deaf Youth Director, and Ms Deaf California from 2007-2009.

• Two aspiring Deaf politicians, Robb Dooling and Matthew Sampson, were elected as Advisory Neighborhood Commission representatives in Washington D.C.

• Philip Wolfe became first Deaf candidate to run for City Council in Portland, OR.

• Following an alleged jaywalking (yes. really. jaywalking) incident, 76 Year old Hui Jie Jin was violently thrown to the ground by a police officer, resulting in a permanent brain injury and a number of contusions and abrasions. The Deaf woman is suing Alameda, CA County sheriff’s deputy for the unlawful arrest, claiming at no point did she resist the officers in any way

• A Federal Judge in Chicago finally approved a settlement in a 7 year old lawsuit over the state’s handling of Deaf prisoners that guarantees sign language interpreters for disciplinary hearings, medical visits, and counseling sessions. The settlement is also supposed to open up educational and vocational training programs to Deaf/HoH inmates, which can help shorten sentences and improve reintegration into the mainstream population.

• Daisy Ortiz filed a federal lawsuit against Somerset, NY County Jail and police after she alleges she was "ignored, humiliated and treated like a non-person" by police officers and guards when she was arrested without her knowledge and she was sedated "without her consent.”

An unfortunate side-effect of early language deprivation, literacy rates in the Deaf community have remained lower than average. According to one study, the median reading comprehension score of deaf or hard of hearing students at age 18 was below the median of fourth-grade hearing students. All that is starting to change as we move into the future!

• Bilingual Story Apps being created for Deaf Children: The VL2 Storybook Apps are being created in the Motion Light Lab at Gallaudet with stories in ASL and English, while in the UK, StorySign offers bilingual BSL tales for children.

• Language Equality and Advocacy for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K) and the Alexander Graham Bell Association reached a historic agreement toward the goal of Language Acquisition for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children, with both groups agreeing on amendments to strengthen services for all children with hearing loss.

• Rochester Institute of Technology/ National Technical Institute of the Deaf’s Deaf Studies Archive received a grant to digitize, caption, voice, and transcribe videos about ASL poetry and literature. The recordings capture performances by deaf poets such as Robert Panara, NTID’s first deaf faculty member; Clayton Valli, referred to by critics as “the Deaf Robert Frost”; and more — immortalizing these pieces of Deaf history and culture for future generations.

• India has the world’s largest Deaf and Hard of Hearing population, and in 2018 India’s first Sign Language Dictionary was released by The Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC) containing more than 3,000 Hindi and English words and their signs. Advocates hope this brings Indian Sign Language one step closer to being recognized as an official language.

• Starbucks opened its first Signing Store in D.C., staffed and managed by Deaf or Hard of Hearing employees, with the goal of better serving the capital district’s large Deaf/ HoH population. All Signing Store partners will be fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) to drive greater connection with the Deaf and hard of hearing community

• Lyft introduced a new feature called Amp to help Deaf drivers, it’s a bar on the dashboard that says the passenger’s name. Amp is the latest feature Lyft has added in association with the National Association of the Deaf, including an automatic text sent to riders notifying them if their driver is Deaf or Hard of Hearing so they know to communicate through text.

• One sweet ice cream shop in Indiana called Fundaes Ice Cream and Sweets had their whole staff learn ASL because the owners’ daughter was born deaf.

• In February 2018 the Cheesecake Factory was held liable in a $15,000 lawsuit filed by the EEOC after a Deaf dishwasher was refused effective accommodations and subsequently fired for his disability.

• National Public Radio was sued by Deaf man for not providing captioning for videos on NPR website. By not providing closed captioning, the suit claims, NPR.org “violates the mandate of the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide ‘full and equal enjoyment’ of a public accommodation’s goods, services, facilities, and privileges.”

•The EEOC also sued a staffing agency for refusing to hire a deaf candidate.

• And then the EEOC filed a lawsuit against FedEx for discriminating against a nationwide class of Deaf and Hard of Hearing package handlers and applicants for those positions.

• Walmart Stores East in D.C. were also sued by the EEOC for Disability Discrimination.

…Meanwhile, Deaf entrepreneurs are showing us all how to break the cycle of economic and social poverty with employment opportunities.

• Communication Services of the Deaf Social Venture Fund has invested in both Deaf-owned pizzeria Mozzeria, and reFort: a Deaf start-up focused on reusing waste by refurbishing appliances.

• Three Deaf brewers and Gallaudet alumni opened a newly successful brewery called Streetcar82 that attracts both Deaf and haring clientele.

• The number of Deaf-owned businesses has grown from just over 600 less than a decade ago to an estimated 1,000 across the country today

• Kindergartners at one Tennessee school learned ASL to wish their Deaf custodian Happy Birthday

• A group of Aramark employees at Soldier Field learned ASL to sign 'Happy Birthday' to their Deaf co-worker

• A group of employees at Weight Watchers UK learned sign language to surprise a deaf coworker for her Birthday

• A Brazilian Man went viral during the WorldCup this year for helping his DeafBlind friend “watch” his favorite team compete.

• Young Deaf actress Millicent Simmonds was cast as lead in A Quiet Place— a sci-fi thriller directed by John Krasinski that features sign language as a means of creating suspense. The movie also had high profile ASL masters working on set as consultants.

• This Close, created by and starring Shoshanna Stern and Josh Feldman, was released on Sundance Now and renewed for second season. The show depicts the complicated real lives of Deaf / Deaf Queer twenty-somethings.

• Deaf actress Lauren Ridloff nominated for a Tony for her performance in Children of a Lesser God on Broadway, while Nyle DiMarco was a member of the production team.

• Lauren Ridloff also joined the cast of the Walking Dead in Season 9 as the show’s first deaf character

• This year Sign Gene was released in the US to positive reviews, it’s a superhero film about a deaf secret agent that has a rare genetic mutation which gives him superpowers enacted through the use of Sign Language. The movie features a mostly deaf cast with a number of references to Deaf history and Deaf culture.

• The Silent Child is a touching true-to-life film about a deaf child born into a hearing family that explores the use of sign language to overcome communication barriers and create connections. It won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film and writer and actress Rachel Shenton even signed her heartwarming acceptance speech in BSL to keep a promise to 6 year old Deaf costar Maisie Sly.

• The Shape of Water, a fantasy romance story that centers around the use of American Sign Language, won four Academy Awards including Best Picture.

• Baby Driver features CJ Jones, a deaf comedian-writer-actor, playing a Deaf role. “I saw some other actors pretend to be deaf and sitting through those auditions with actors pretending to be deaf after having seen a deaf actor play the part was very difficult,” said director Edgar Wright.

• This year Alexandria Wailes signed the National Anthem and America the Beautiful at Superbowl LII alongside performing artists Pink and Leslie Odom Jr., respectively.

• Pink also featured an ASL interpreter on stage for her Grammys 2018 performance, although the interpreter was unfortunately not shown on screen consistently as the artist intended.

• Singer Symon, who is a hearing artist, released a lyric video in ASL for her song “Lonely Girl” to engage with Deaf audiences and show the expressive nature of this visual language.

• Canadian Folk group Raine Hamilton String Trio just went ahead and brought ASL interpreters on tour with them this fall to ensure equal access during all their performances.

• In February 2018 Deaf activist and performer Nyle Dimarco went to see Black Panther, just like everybody else. Except DiMarco had to leave less than 20 minutes into the film when the captioning device he was provided would not work. He shared his experience on Twitter and other Deaf people around world chimed in to share their cinema captioning fails, brining attention to a major accessibility issue.

• In June Karamo Brown from Queer Eye joined fans in standing up against poor/ censored captions on Netflix videos that limit access.

• YouTuber and accessibility activist Rikki Poynter has continued her #NoMoreCraptions campaign this year to raise awareness surrounding inadequate captions and lack of captioned online content.

• In October 2018 Google added a new captioning feature to its presentation app Google Slides which uses a computer’s built-in microphone to automatically transcribe a presenter’s words and display them in real time as open captions right on the slideshow. Google’s Translate app also supports visual translation through smartphones.

• Microsoft has partnered closely with RIT/NTID to improve the automatic captioning features in it’s Microsoft Office 365 Suite, with updates coming early next year. In May 2018, Microsoft launched a $25 million, five-year program to fund the development of AI-based tools for people with disabilities, and at the beginning of December, the company rolled out a new automatic captioning feature to Skype.

• In November, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez announced she would be adding captioning to her Instagram videos from D.C. to ensure Deaf community access