Unfortunately, my study abroad trip to Australia and New Zealand was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. Luckily, I have taken two trips to Martha’s Vineyard Massachusetts where I was able to do research and gain new experiences!

            I was a part of Dr. Cripps Creative Inquiry research class for two semesters in the spring and fall of 2023. The focus of this class is the history of sign language on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Martha’s Vineyard was once a place that thrived with sign language and had a large population of deaf individuals.

            During my first semester taking this class, my project was community outreach. I was given contact information for businesses on the island that the previous group had spoken with. These businesses were interested in learning signs that pertained to their jobs. For this, we would communicate with the businesses about what they were looking for. We would then check with our professor that our signs were correct. After we were given approval on the signs, we recorded them, and they were posted to our website for the businesses to view and practice. Along with this, the businesses were able to ask us questions about how to make their company more accessible for deaf individuals. 

            The first trip was a week long. We spent this entire week fully using sign to communicate with our professor, other deaf islanders and each other. This was a new experience for me because I was only used to have conversations in sign for a few hours at a time; dinner, classes, etc. This trip quickly allowed me to immerse myself in the culture. During the trip, we did a lot of research at the museum and other places on the island. The information allowed us to view different things that are only available on the island such as censuses, reports, news articles and many more. This allowed us to make a lot of progress to continue with our research. Getting to meet many new deaf people from the island was a great experience. I was able to learn new signs as well as work on my fluency and receptive skills. In the deaf community, people are given ‘sign names’. As a hearing person, you can only be given a sign name by a deaf person. During this trip I was given a sign name. This was a great accomplishment for me.

            Deaf Culture is very different from other cultures. I have met many deaf people before, but this trip was the first time I stayed in a house with a deaf individual. This was new for me because their culture and how things are done are very different than what I am used to. One thing that I noticed that is different from other cultures is that deaf people always want doors open if you are just hanging out in a separate room (ex. Bedroom). This is for many different reasons such as accessibility, safety, and respect. It is considered rude to shut the doors because this excludes deaf people from their environment. Deaf culture and deaf people value the time that they spend with other signers and deaf people being able to have conversations in their natural language. The concept of ‘turn-taking’ during conversations is different as well. In spoken conversation, it is known that people will jump into conversations and cut other people off. This is considered very rude in ASL and deaf culture. I was aware of this before the trip, but I was able to learn new ways to make conversations flow more efficiently.

            Another opportunity that I was given during these trips was being able to practice my interpreting skills. During these trips, we collaborated with many different hearing individuals. In some casual situations, the deaf individuals would ask me to interpret for them. This was very beneficial for me because it allowed me to practice in a real situation. Throughout these two trips, I was able to experience many different things and also be surrounded by many deaf individuals. Being able to increase my language skills and knowledge was a great experience.