A quick post to follow up on the last one: my ASL usage in the UK is indeed alive and well, also due in part to the opportunity to meet other deaf people, interpreters, and ASL users on this side of the pond. This isn't something I would have predicted even a few months ago, I have to say!
The very first time I applied to Oxford, for a Stanford overseas studies program three years ago during my junior year of college, I had one major trepidation hanging over my head whenever I considered my impending studies in the UK: how would I make my time at Oxford accessible? American Sign Language is, after all, very different from British Sign Language, and I'd become spoiled by excellent interpreters at Stanford (as well as in high school and back home in New Mexico, of course). How would I cope with a foreign country with foreign accents and where my preferred mode of access was scarce? I have to say the process was a little more difficult than I would have liked to start, but the Stanford in Oxford program did find a good interpreter agency based in London for my time abroad. They made provision for services, I came to Oxford and enjoyed working with the two interpreters I had that term, though I still needed to plan ahead for my classes and other events and wasn't able to request interpreters as quickly or easily as I had done at Stanford. And then I left. And don't think I realistically expected that I would be back anytime soon; chalk that one up to experience.
And then, two years later, when I applied for and got the Rhodes, I found out that more Oxford was in my future, indeed. Time for this whole ASL-in-the-UK thing again, except I felt much more prepared this time. What's more, my first time in Oxford had proven to me that it could be done, that American interpreters did exist on that side of the world. Over the summer, I was able to get back in touch with one of the interpreters I'd worked with my last time in Oxford; though he's not personally based in the UK anymore, his agency is still in London, and he still has a group of skilled interpreters working in the area. The Oxford Disability Advisory Service was glad to make contact with this agency, I daresay, since I suspect that getting an ASL interpreter wasn't something they had ever done before. Everything is set, they told me in September. So I sat and had to take their word for it. And I waited.
Fortunately, when I got to Oxford at the beginning of October, I showed up at the Welcome Day at Rhodes House and met the two primary interpreters I'll be working with this year, and liked both of them immediately. Since then, I've worked with a few other interpreters and have discovered that the overall interpreter-client relationship is different here than in the US. In short, we're all Americans, we're all expats, we're all part of a very small ASL-using group on this side of the world, and we rarely meet anyone who knows our language and, as a consequence, rarely have any chance to use it. (Okay, so signing Rhodes gatherings excluded, it is nice to have a conversation with someone who is fluent in sign. That's something I keep coming back to, over and over again, over the course of my life, even though I've generally become content with living in the hearing world.) We ASL users have to stick together, and so my interpreters introduced me to a group of other deaf Americans living in London and other parts of England.
A few of them I've only "met" digitally thus far, but earlier today we had our first gathering -- a group of them came up to visit me in Oxford. Sitting down with these deaf and signing Americans, chatting with them over cups of tea and bowls of soup, before heading out on a rambling tour of the city replete with even more conversations in sign, was the perfect way to spend my Sunday. Meeting other smart, talented, articulate deaf expats (some of whom are friends with some of my deaf friends back in the States) reminded me once again of how small the world is, and also reminded me of the importance of community and linguistic access. After grappling with international accents and new friends and classes and activities for the last few weeks (not to mention an entirely new culture and way of life here), it felt unbelievably reassuring to sit down, sign, and watch other people signing back. I grasped the motions of their hands and the expressions on their faces. No uncertain moments of introducing myself and saying, "Look, I'm deaf, and I'm reading your lips right now." No misunderstandings and endless queries for repetition. No missing the joke when the group conversation grew lively. A strong deaf community was something I never had at Stanford, though I did find a few deaf and signing friends around the Bay Area outside of the main Stanford campus. I'm smiling a little bit to realize that I may have tapped into a group of amazing deaf friends, interpreters, and ASL users in the very last place I might have expected -- thousands of miles away from home and the linguistic conventions that I enjoy. Here's to more of these expat gatherings (and signing sessions with hearing friends), and here's to recognizing the value and the understanding that a mutual language can provide.
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