In the rectangular Zoom window, American Sign Language lecturer Benjamin Lewis held up his open right hand in front of him, with his pinky closer to the camera. He splayed out his five fingers – or at least, that’s how it appeared on the laptop screen.
“If I sign this, you only have one view of this,” Lewis signed, which was interpreted by ASL interpreter Mariam Janvelyan. “I have to turn to the side, so you have the other view of it because you can't actually tell what I'm doing.”
He turned to the side, revealing that what looked like an open hand was actually his first four fingers splayed out, thumb folded in. He touched his pointer finger to his chin, signing “speak” in ASL.
When he reverted back to facing the camera head-on, the sign for speak was almost indistinguishable from the sign for mom – he demonstrated the latter with an open hand and his thumb touching his chin.
In the 2D world of Zoom, teaching a 3D language like ASL can be challenging. But even without new difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, ASL classes have greatly evolved from UCLA’s ASL class offerings 10 years ago.
The calls to action to have ASL classes at UCLA started in fall 2010, when UCLA alumnus Asad Ramzanali wrote a Daily Bruin Opinion column calling upon the university to offer ASL. The column led to an interest survey, and soon, Ramzanali had collected enough student signatures to submit an appeal for ASL classes to then-Dean of Humanities Tim Stowell, a professor emeritus of linguistics.
In 2012, UCLA hired Lewis, who is Deaf, and the linguistics department began offering introductory ASL classes in the fall.
Janvelyan, who is a UCLA alumna, took the first three courses in the ASL pilot program with Lewis. After her first year of ASL, Janvelyan planned to continue with ASL to fulfill the two-year language requirement for her linguistics major but then hit a roadblock: UCLA had no ASL classes for levels four to six.
Janvelyan, who is hearing, spoke with Ramzanali and then started her own change.org petition, demanding that UCLA offer intermediate ASL classes. The petition eventually garnered 336 signatures. In fall 2013, UCLA began offering ASL 4, with ASL 5 and ASL 6 following in winter and spring, and permanently funding ASL classes.
However, before UCLA began officially offering ASL classes, one organization attempted to fill that niche. In 2011, UCLA alumnus and former Daily Bruin copy editor Moses Sumney founded Humans Establishing Awareness Regarding Deafness, or HEARD.
According to Janvelyan, who joined HEARD as a freshman in 2011, the club focused heavily on teaching ASL. During meetings, HEARD leadership picked a different theme each week, such as family, and taught signs relating to the theme. Janvelyan said while these club activities may seem innocuous to people not in the Deaf community, she pointed out the club’s controversial beginnings: nonnative, hearing people teaching ASL.
Although Lewis believes anyone can learn and use ASL, he questioned how a nonfluent, hearing person without knowledge of Deaf culture can fully teach it. He strongly cautioned against teaching ASL without this knowledge – especially if someone culturally appropriates or seeks to profit from it.
In his own ASL classes, Lewis’ perspective as a person who is Deaf comes into play, as he infuses Deaf culture and customs into lessons, rather than only teaching the language.
“Learning the language isn't really complete without actually experiencing the language in real life,” Lewis said. “And to be able to do so, you have to have a basic understanding of what it means to be Deaf, what it means to hang out with Deaf people.”
When UCLA began offering ASL in 2012, the club shifted its focus from teaching to practicing and socializing in ASL instead. As a social club, they attended Deaf coffee chats, invited a deaf comedian to UCLA and held fundraisers. Janvelyan also changed the name from HEARD to Hands On.
“A lot of time, the Deaf community doesn't like to focus on the hearing aspect of being deaf,” Janvelyan said. “Deaf people don't really care about that part, so I felt like Hands On was more representative of using your hands to sign.”
Given the absence of ASL classes in 2011, Hands On’s creation reflected students’ interest in ASL and the need for a space that didn’t exist in the UCLA community yet.
Ten years later, Hands On remains a unique space on campus, as the university’s only ASL club. Mark-Anthony Valentín, a second-year pre-human biology and society student and current Hands On president, was drawn to Hands On when visiting the club fair during his freshman year.
Hands On provides resources for people interested in ASL and Deaf culture, but the club doesn’t teach ASL, Valentín said. They aren’t certified interpreters or instructors, so they encourage people to sign up for ASL classes instead. Additionally, Valentín checks in with Lewis to ensure the club isn’t overstepping its role.
“Essentially, (the club’s) purpose was meant to sort of fill a void,” said Valentín, who is a CODA – child of deaf adults – and is hard of hearing.
Second-year sociology student Monique Sims, who is deaf, said she’s received many backhanded or ignorant comments about deafness during her time at UCLA.
Some comments she’s received – such as “I would never be deaf” and “I don’t know how you do it” – laud Sims for her strength as a deaf person and rest on the assumption that her deafness is a burden.
“It's more that we're in a society that just isn't accessible to us,” Sims said. “Obviously I have my struggles with it, but in my opinion, I love it so much. I have my community.”
Once, for a creative writing class, she wrote a story about a deaf person, sharing her own experiences from a third-person perspective. During the critique session, a classmate offered her some advice: “‘If you're going to write about a deaf person, make sure to do your research.’”
Because Sims attends UCLA, does well academically and speaks “decently,” some assume she is smarter or can hear more than other deaf people. This comparison discredits their struggles, Sims said, and reveals how others have a difficult time conceptualizing how deaf people learn, function and act.
First-year physics student Christy Ma, who is deaf, said people are largely ignorant about disabilities. Some have asked Ma if she needed a wheelchair – which she was baffled by – and a restaurant offered Ma’s sister, who is also deaf, a Braille menu. Others asked if she can tell when people are yawning, how she drives or how she gets dressed in the morning.
“I say ignorance, but I don't mean that in a derisive way – it's just sincerely that kind of not knowing,” Ma said. “It's not something that ends. It's in personal conversations or just talking with people, getting to know them, posting about it."
While discussing their views, Lewis, Ma and Sims were all careful to note the heterogeneity among deaf people and emphasize that they only speak for themselves, not everyone in the Deaf community. While Lewis was born deaf to deaf parents, which shapes his own views and experiences, he pointed out that some people become deaf later in life or may be born to hearing parents, for example.
“Please don't assume that one deaf person represents all deaf people,” Lewis said. “I love being Deaf, I'm very proud of being Deaf, but there's another person who might not have that strong pride or identity as I do. It's not that they're wrong or I'm wrong or right or what have you – it's just our perspectives vary because of our individual experiences.”
According to an emailed statement from the Center for Accessible Education Director Norma Kehdi, approximately 45 to 55 deaf and hard of hearing students are registered with CAE as of February. Additionally, Kehdi reported that this year, the “number of deaf students (or students with severe hearing loss; those who qualify for, and use captioning or ASL) roughly doubled in comparison to last year and prior years.”
Despite an increase of deaf students in the past year, this number pales in comparison to a school such as California State University, Northridge, which has more than 220 hard of hearing and deaf students, despite its smaller student population.
Janvelyan said the vast majority of the students in ASL classes are hearing people who want to learn ASL – that’s not where Deaf community goes. Valentín added most Hands On members are hearing as well, estimating that only about 15% of this year’s members are part of the Deaf or hard of hearing community.
In hopes of gaining a sense of community, Sims contacted CAE and asked them to pass along her phone number to any other deaf and hard of hearing Bruins. She said her own initiative is the only reason she ended up meeting her deaf and hard of hearing friends at UCLA.
Is there another way to meet deaf and hard of hearing people at UCLA? If there is, Sims said she doesn’t know of one.
“It's not to say that deaf students don't come to UCLA,” Janvelyan said. “It's just, it's not as welcome or inclusive or inviting as a place like CSUN, which we're working to change. That's why we want to offer more classes, so more people know sign language, so it becomes a deaf-friendly space.”
Given the diversity within the Deaf community, Lewis stressed the importance of hiring more ASL instructors. Just as any language has regional accents or slang, ASL has the same heterogeneity that reflects the diversity of the Deaf community and culture.
“I'm one white male representative,” Lewis said. “That's not good enough. We need diversity. It's not enough to represent the community. We need more people of color, we need people with different identities, different backgrounds.”
Hiring only one ASL instructor also limits the number of students who can enroll, which is further exacerbated by the high demand for ASL classes. For example, ASL 1 is only offered in the fall, with only 40 seats spread across two lectures.
Janvelyan said that while ASL 1 through ASL 6 laid the foundation of her ASL education, two years aren’t enough to get a student fluent in any language, especially if they hope to one day become an interpreter, as she did, or communicate with deaf family members.
Lewis compared UCLA’s program to CSUN’s, which offers a bachelor’s degree in Deaf studies, and University of California, San Diego, which employed nine ASL instructors as of 2018 and offers a language studies minor with a concentration in ASL. UCSD is the only other UC school besides UCLA to regularly offer ASL classes. No UC campus offers a full ASL program.
In addition to hiring more instructors and adding more ASL classes at UCLA, Lewis hopes to eventually offer an ASL major or start by offering an ASL minor first.
Third-years statistics student Abby Irby, world arts and cultures student Molly Vendig and art student Rowan O'Bryan – a group comprised of hearing and hard of hearing students currently taking ASL – set up an appointment with Dean of Humanities David Schaberg to discuss creating an ASL minor and department and also sent out a petition to gauge student interest, Irby said.
According to their survey, 95.3% of respondents wanted more ASL classes to be offered, with 64.5% expressing interest in an ASL minor and 36% in an ASL major. On March 5, they presented this data to Schaberg, who provided logistical information and next steps for an ASL minor and program, Irby said. At best, it could take around two years before an ASL minor comes to fruition, Irby added.
Lewis said he appreciates the support of the linguistics department, which currently houses ASL, but added that he thinks the ASL program is starting to outgrow the relationship.
“Spanish and Portuguese has its own department,” Lewis said. “Each language has its own place to be, so why doesn't ASL?”
In addition to ASL classes, Lewis also teaches ASL M115: ”Enforcing Normalcy.” Lewis said because UCLA has a strong medical school, this perspective seeps into how the UCLA community often views deafness: a medical condition that needs to be cured. Lewis shares a different lens to view disability in ASL M155, and after taking his class, Lewis said many of his students said he changed their perspectives.
“(The UCLA community’s) vision of disability, their perspective of disability is that disabled people have to be cured, they have to be fixed, whereas those of us in the Deaf community do not want to be cured,” Lewis said. “We want to be different. We love and cherish and value our identity. We like being Deaf. We do not want to become hearing. We don't want to eradicate our deafness.”