The language of two worlds

Over 400 people lined up outside of Hoffman Hall last Friday while waiting to attend the American Sign Language Comedy Night. When guests went inside, it was to find a standing-room-only scene.

The event kicked off a campaign run by Portland State’s American Sign Language (ASL) Club and ASPSU that aims to relocate ASL studies from the speech and hearing sciences department to the foreign languages department.

American Sign Language is not the same language as English, so the deaf community wants ASL recognized as a language in the same way that Spanish is recognized as a foreign language, said Steven “PV” Jantz, co-president of the ASL Club and second-term member of the ASPSU student senate.

Currently, students can receive foreign language credit for ASL but students of the deaf community and their supporters feel that there is a much deeper issue, Jantz said.

“As of right now, deaf culture is not viewed as a multicultural group,” he said. “It is also not treated as an actual community. I’m not saying that it is intentional and I don’t believe it is, but the fact of the matter remains, it is oppression.”

During the event, three giant screens showed video of a deaf rock band, a deaf homeless man and photos of members of the deaf community with captions explaining the outstanding contributions each has made.

Headlines appeared on the screen such as “Judge screams at a deaf man,” “Police shoot deaf man holding a rake” and “We have a dream.”

Two comedians followed the video, one hearing and one deaf, but both signed. The event planners also provided interpreters for both hearing and deaf guests alike to allow for interaction between the guests. Also at the event were a number of activities that promoted interaction between the hearing and deaf communities.

Through the collaboration of ASPSU and the ASL Club, the night was also the kickoff for the ASPSU food cupboard for hungry students.

“At the comedy night, we pulled in over 1,000 pounds of food for Tsunami victims in the American islands of Samoa and the free food cupboard for students,” said ASPSU President Jonathon Sanford.

At the end of the night, ASPSU President Jonathan Sanford asked that students and community members contact Portland State dean Marvin Kaiser to request that ASL be recognized as a foreign language at Portland State.
Dean Marvin Kaiser’s e-mail: [email protected]