Discovering ASL and Deaf Culture at Santa Rosa Junior College

I’ve been trying to get into the loop of the Fall semester with my classes and my brand-new campus job. As school starts, there are also events happening on campus, like club day, movie nights, and more. One event that stood out to me was the week-long celebration of the Disability Cultural Center Grand Opening. Among all the activities, the ASL event was particularly meaningful. 

Learning another language

Sign language and the Deaf community are topics I wasn’t very familiar with growing up. I didn’t think much about it until I took an ASL class at Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC).  I enrolled in ASL 1 during my second semester because it was part of my general education requirement. To be honest, I didn’t think much of it at first. 

When I stepped into the classroom, I felt a little scared because our teacher is Deaf. As someone who speaks English as a second language, I worried about communicating with my professor, especially since it was already challenging for me in other spoken classes. In those classes, if I didn’t understand something in English, I could translate it. But I was concerned about how I would manage with sign language. 

To my surprise, throughout the class, I was amazed at how our professor managed communication with everyone. After class, my classmates and I would go to the library to practice. By the time we reached mid-semester, I was shocked at how well I could communicate in ASL. Of course, we didn’t know all the signs yet, but we would look them up online or fingerspell what we wanted to say. 

A chatty class

This class taught us not only how to sign but also the history of ASL, how to communicate with Deaf individuals, and the culture of the Deaf community. During our study group sessions, we would discuss everything we learned and come up with so many questions to ask the professor the next day. It was the chattiest class without a sound I’ve ever been in. I could feel the atmosphere getting louder without becoming noisy whenever there was a discussion going on in the class. 

Continuing to learn

Thanks to all the study group sessions and tutoring at the library, I now have the confidence to take ASL 2 in my third semester. From this, I also noticed how important it is to be a first-timer and how crucial a good professor can be. Because I had such an amazing experience with an incredible teacher, I learned to love the language, culture, and community. This is thanks to the hard work and effort my professor put in, the way he taught us, and his support and care for the students, which kept our willingness to explore more about the subject. 

Feeling welcome is super important

Now I understand why we have First Year Peer Coaches at our Welcome and Connect Center at SRJC, as well as First Year Peer Coach classes. I also see how important it is for the international student program to have our special ISP Student Mentors, especially for those of us who have left our homes and traveled thousands of miles to build a new community at this stage in our lives. It’s important because feeling welcome, belonging, and connected during your first year is what encourages you to stay in school.  

Thu Aung from Myanmar is studying humanities at Santa Rosa Junior College in California.