By: MATTIE SPINK
Staff Writer
On March 25th, I had the pleasure of going to my first Deaf Event that was hosted at the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Service Center located in Fresno. This event was called Martha’s Vineyard, and it was an educational presentation on the Deaf history of the island Martha’s Vineyard during the 1800s.
Before the actual event, I had taken time to briefly look up the history of Martha’s Vineyard to try and figure out what sorts of things I should expect before attending. I was intrigued to learn that Martha’s Vineyard had a large population of deaf people during the 1800s to the point where the island had created its own sign language that everyone who lived there used. I initially thought that this was just a story that was then retold in order to inspire others to learn sign language and engage in the deaf community; people in today’s day and age are already so negligent in learning sign language when they have someone close to them who depends on it for communication, it seemed unlikely to me that a whole island would learn sign language to use even when communicating with other hearing people. However, the more I read, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was wrong. Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language was a real language that the people who lived there really did use during the 1800s up until 1952. Learning this made me that much more excited about actually attending this event, and I told all my friends and family about it.
When I actually went to the event, I went with my dad. We had gone to the 1:00 p.m. meeting, so that morning I tried teaching my dad some simple signs before we left the house (“I’m here for the food”). By the time we got there, I was a little surprised to see that it was an indoor event, not an outside one. I was expecting to see different stands and booths lined up to make it feel as though we were walking through a marketplace in a little town. But, when I got inside with Elizabeth (we waited in line together), I was still impressed with the decor and booths there. The first booth I went to was the sewing/quilt-making booth. One of the ladies there was very nice, and showed me how to sew two pieces of fabric together. I wasn’t very good at it, but it was still fun nonetheless. After that, I went and read the posters on the walls in the main room while I waited for the event to officially start. The posters were mostly informational papers about some of the people who had lived on Martha’s Vineyard, one of which was Jonathan Lambert and his family tree. Right when I had finished reading all of the posters, it was time for the performance to start. The show was about a deaf man on the island who was arrested for supposedly stealing a horse because he didn’t pay the full price for it, even though it was actually a miniature pony instead of a big tall horse. His sister helped bail him out, and with the decision of the jury (the audience), he was let out as a free man. Right after the show, there was a game of trivia. Members of the event picked audience members from the crowd to participate, and I happened to be one of the chosen few. The trivia was based on the documents and posters that were pasted on the wall, so I happened to get a decent amount of questions right. At the end of it, I ended up winning! As my prize, I got chocolate, which I shared with Elizabeth.
My favorite part about this event though, was learning about Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language. It was so cool to see the differences in Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language vs. ASL, and it was intriguing to me that they had so many different signs for specific fish. Of course, it makes sense that they would, considering that it was an island, but it was still something different that I hadn’t expected. It was cool to see the similarities between some signs too, as it showed how Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language inspired some of the signs and was incorporated into ASL. I wish this segment could have been further expanded on, but it inspired me to look into it and the history behind the creation of ASL for myself.
After all of the presentations, I didn’t do much else. I checked out the rest of the booths that were there and even had a small conversation in ASL with the lady at the boutique booth. I told her that I was taking this ASL 2 class, and she was very excited for me. Then, I went home with my dad and we got dinner. Overall, I would say this was a very interesting and educating experience that I’m very grateful I was able to experience. I would definitely go to this event again next year and would encourage others to attend as well.
