Inaudible Nonsense

thursday afternoon: more thoughts on learning ASL

Christopher — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:23:20 +0000

Tomorrow is midterms. Eek! right? These compressed summer schedules everything is faster. I just had a spring break, it lasted 20 minutes. Anyway, since I really should be studying. A quick few thoughts.

Maybe it was my last post, or maybe it was several hours watching myself sign on a web cam or watching the documentary Through Deaf Eyes, but somehow yesterday the stage fright (mostly) went away. It was like everything just clicked. Or that I wasn’t embarrassed by my own mistakes (or myself). That all made for a pretty good Wednesday. And once I am able to relax, I learn a lot easier.

Being here at Gally is a really nice experience. In cultural theory there is something referred to as a “liminal” — a space that exists at the boundaries between two starkly defined opposites. (At least culturally starkly defined.) For example, LGBT people are often considered liminal, existing between defined male and female gender norms and expectations. College is also liminal, it exists between childhood and adulthood. In liminal periods, rules are often opposite or otherwise different than the before and afterward.

This is all a very rough definition. And a way to say that Gally right now for me, at least in this small summer context, a interesting safe space between wherever I’ve been on my hearing loss journey and wherever I am going. A place where I am surrounded by a variety of hearing abilities. And perhaps, I don’t feel quite so unusual. And don’t have to worry about expectations.

Through that liminal period, if only for a couple weeks. Despite the school work and the pace of learning, it has been incredibly relaxing. At the core, I just feel better about things.

We’ll see how long this positive attitude lasts, I may start enjoying it. I’ll let you know how I feel after a written midterm and an on-camera conversational midterm.

tuesday evening: thoughts on learning ASL

Christopher — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:41:31 +0000

Monday was a whirl so I didn’t have time to put down my thoughts. Now — two five hour classes and a couple study sessions later – here are my thoughts on learning ASL so far anyway.

The Gally summer school is intentionally intensive. Both less and more so than I had hoped. Partially from my own doing. I will only be taking one two week session. It would not have been possible for me to miss 4 weeks of work, unfortunately. Also, to save costs, I’m not living on campus — I already live in DC and fairly close to Gally as it is – nor did I take an afternoon one credit course. So anyway, I’m not in the classroom as much as I probably should be. I’m poor and with an inflexible job is what that all means.

Not living on campus has made it a little more difficult to find study partners. I had hoped that there would be others that were from out of town that would need to experience DC and do so while abstaining from oral communication as an extended immersive activity. Perhaps, I’m not doing all I could to connect with the other students. The class itself adheres to a strict all ASL and no oral communication policy. This is great! That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Our professor is Deaf so we are learning from a native ASL speaker. So all will work out. I should have a good foundation when next week ends.

As for ASL, my manual dexterity is pretty low. I know this will improve with practice. My typing speed is high, and I don’t really remember how that happened. Eventually too, I will stop being self concious about my ASL and then the signs will flow more easily. My comprehension is pretty high, but I do have horrible stage fright. Just in general. I’ve never been good at languages in part because I hate making mistakes in front of others. So, this means more effort on practice. Yes?

One identity note, I realized in class that fingerspelling my whole name — Christopher — is kind of obnoxious. My full name as a marker of my adult identity has been a major point since I began using it as such at 18. But now as I face a new identity, or a modified identity, as a late-deafened adult. Perhaps it’s time to let go of some ideas from the past. Perhaps it’s smarter now to just be Chris. Don’t like the way that sounds, but it fingerspells pretty nicely.

More later. Thanks again for following along.

in the morning: ASL begins

Christopher — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:17:03 +0000

Beginning at 9 am on Monday, 7 July, I begin ASL I at Gallaudet summer school. Had my orientation today, which is where the photo came from. I’m excited about this new beginning. Wish only that I could have afforded — either in time away from work or monetarily — more than one class.

I’m trying to be all immersive about the next two weeks. No verbalization. Wish me luck with that goal and class. I’ll try to fill in details as the time progresses. Consider it a summer session live blog. Or something.

from the bookshelf: web standards and accessibility

Christopher — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:55:01 +0000

Finally finished reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards (2nd Edition). The book gets lots of attention as does Zeldman. And for good reason, he’s one of the grandfathers of web standards and general man about the web. He’s also a great writer who can tackle a topic like CSS, XHTML and web standards with humor and intelligence, while not making you feel dumb. If you, like me, are interested in the accessible web — the web that attempts to be open to all levels of communication and functionality for people of different abilities (vision, hearing, mobility) — there’s even more here to love. Zeldman tackles accessibility from a technical standpoint while also laying out a strong case for why. (Something, that, unfortunately has to be done all too often with clients and bosses and anyone else that doesn’t see the value in reaching beyond an audience of able-bodied 18-year-olds.) So what does he have to say? And how does he say it? What resources does he suggest? And how should you approach this book? More on all of that, after the jump.

Zeldman’s approach to the book is to take the reader through the history of web standards, then layout a case for adopting them, and the offer some practical advice and tutorials on how. Generally this works, he rights clearly and forcefully, building his case. A case that you can take to your client and your superiors. If this is your own project, he makes the case for investing the time to get standards compliant and toss out past ways of designing and coding websites. He doesn’t come right out and say it, but the new world of Web 2.0, of places like here at WordPress, is the adoption of standards-based design built on XHTML and CSS that can be deployed across a variety of mediums.

If however, you are trying to make the case not for standards, but for accessibility, and don’t give a hoot about the rest (you will shortly, but let’s say you are approaching it from this perspective first), Zeldman’s book is also a great place to start. If (and here I suggest reordering the book), you begin with the last to the penultimate chapter. Start with Chapter 14, “Accessibility Basics,” which is like a second introduction, giving an overview of why accessibility, some of the access issues that different populations have, what else to read and where in the book you can find the answers to make the most accessible websites possible. It’s like a choose your own adventure novel here, you don’t have to start at the beginning. Which come to think of it is a pretty good way to think of the accessible web — it has a logic and internal structure that works best to address different needs. It has a different, effective syntax that works for its ultimate audience. In the same way that ASL has a syntax that might not make sense to an English speaker, but works in the context of ASL. It gives the user control over the experience in order to meet her needs.

Chapter 14 continues on through the considerations and planning in respect to reaching differently abled audiences. From Chapter 14, you’ll find references to chapters in the rest of the book that further expand on the concepts he presents. He presents accessibility element by element just as he has done elsewhere. If your point is to understand Web standards from the viewpoint of accessibility, this is the place to start. You’ll discover, of course, that to get to the accessible Web you walk through Web standards.

Zeldman’s look at accessibility is far from comprehensive. He busts apart some myths in regards to accessibility affecting design issues, costing too much or not having a large enough audience. He readily admits to not being the foremost expert here, but his approach is to bridge the gap between the abled corporate suits and their differently abled audiences.

His ego is small enough to give props and point attention to those that have lead the way toward accessibility and who have amassed a what has become the standard of knowledge. He specifically recommends a couple books on the accessible Web:

Building Accessible Web Sites by Joe Clark (more on Clark in a second). Zeldman “recommend[s] this book unreservedly.”
Constructing Accessible Web Sites by various authors.

A quick word on Joe Clark, who I mentioned in my post on CaptioningSucks.com and the Open and Closed Project. Joe is to Web accessibility as Zeldman is the Web standards, the leading evangelist and whatever else you would say to indicate something of a god. Joe is Canadian, but don’t hold that against him. You can find his site here. He also is a great writer who understands the importance of design in presenting content for the Web. Or, as his interests in typography and design extend into the actual world, the importance of design everywhere.

Accessibility (and web standards for that matter), as Zeldman states, a reputation for being the domain of spoilsports, who would sink good design and typography in favor of sterile one presentation for everything. Zeldman and Clark are some of the best examples that design and standards (whether for accessibility or development) are not mutually exclusive.

the big hunt: update on NYC and accessibility

Christopher — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:03:24 +0000

So despite my (obvious, see previous post) love for San Francisco, I’m still smitten with the idea of moving move to New York City. I didn’t get much feedback from the NYC side of the Deaf/HH community in regards to accessibility and deaf-friendliness, so I wrote to the Manhattan Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America to get the scoop from them.

First as a caveat, HLAA generally caters to late-deafened and hard of hearing adults. As such, there is a preference toward assistive technology — hearing aids, CART, and the like. Although HLAA members span all age groups (I’m 34 and a member), there are plenty of members that are older and perhaps feel that learning any of the sign languages is too difficult or won’t help them communicate with their oral friends and family. The advice from them and their advocacy are then aimed at those that were born (and raised, very likely) oral.

So all that being said, what I found is that the the Manhattan Chapter of HLAA is very involved in advocacy and is making great progress in opening up Manhattan to accessibility. I specifically heard back from Ellen Semel who offered the follow information to me (and granted me permission to share it here at Inaudible Nonsense). So after the jump, edited slightly for continuity and annotated with links, here’s what Ellen wrote:

We have lots of captioned theater here in NYC, we are working on looping public places. Our chapter is presently involved in getting the Muhlenberg public library 2nd floor room looped. Are you familiar with room loops? When a room is looped, you can turn your hearing aids to t-coil (telephone program) and hear quite well. Many churches and synagogues are looped. Our monthly meetings are looped and we have CART, which means we have a professional person (like a court reporter) who types on a machine that shows on a screen the very words spoken by our expert speakers. We have movie theaters that show captioned movies. Taxis should be getting loops installed soon — that is the newest, most exciting venue to be looped. The Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, has been very supportive to those with hearing loss. There are many accommodations one can get in the workplace. The League for the Hard of Hearing, here in NYC, has a wonderful technical person who advises us on what we need and helps us get the equipment; there is no charge to meet with him. There are also a few subway stations that have loops. We are working to get more public access. I would say NYC is in the forefront of accessibility.

So all and all, I was pleasantly surprised to hear what she had to say. That doesn’t necessarily mean that New York employers are going to be any more accommodating, but it does mean that the structure is in place to assist the Deaf/HH with self advocacy. Or so it would seem. Next: I’ll be writing the League for the Hard of Hearing (I can only think Justice League, so I hope they all wear capes) and see where that leads.

So anyone else have any experience of fending for themselves in NYC? How’d that go?

an urbanist’s advice: what to see in San Francisco

Christopher — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:50:11 +0000

Recently I was asked by a fellow reader of Richard Layman’s blog for the low down on San Francisco. The requester is on a temporary assignment in the City by the Bay, and had heard that I was familiar with it. We both, obviously, had an interest in planning, placemaking and urbanism evidenced by our shared readership in Richard’s blog.

Somehow, I ended up writing over a 1,500 words on San Francisco. I made a comment about this on Twitter and was subsequently asked for the piece again. So I thought I’d share it with the world at large. Or at least the world that reads Inaudible Nonsense. All three of you. After the jump, my recommendations a follow-up passage. (I take no responsibility for typos, it was totally stream of consciousness. Also, this is my recommendations and what I love/miss about SF, your mileage may vary.)

Don’t worry, I may live in DC, but my heart is in San Francisco. (Or at least a part of it, I’m a Chicagoan, with big soft spot for New York as well.)

As for SF: SF is such a hard city to get a handle on, because it really is so many different places. And it celebrates that. And celebrates it’s character as a city of characters (it’s tourist slogan is “Only in San Francisco” which is true.) It celebrates it’s scrappiness as well and its blue collar heritage. It’s very much a town that can be full of wealth and glamour, but doesn’t like to put on airs. It doesn’t have to in many ways, because as you’ve seen, it’s in a stunning location.

I think Jacobs talked about how SF is a city of vistas and views. And she’s right. Even its blocks that on a map appear to go forever, but often dead end, or become stairs for a little while, create this system where because the road will just end at a cliff, that you have views in completely unexpected places. It has so many different types of neighborhoods. And it’s a city of neighborhoods (or “Districts” as San Franciscans call them). Where each can function completely self contained — every District seems to have at least one of all the basics: a neighborhood bar, a sit down restaurant, a movie theater, a coffee shop, a sushi joint, a taqueria, a hardware store and a clothing store too. Very likely also a tattoo parlor.

I remember being at a party in the 1990s and someone saying that it was the first time they had been off their block in a month! And frankly, that doesn’t seem that odd to me anymore.

So what should you see and do?

Well you’ll need to get a feel for the different kinds of neighborhoods. Some of my favorites:

1. The Haight aka Haight-Ashbury. Well, just because. Plus, great shopping. I’m not sure how old you are, or your sexual preferences. But you still need to go to the Haight. It’s definitely youth oriented, but then you walk around and you realize that the people that live in the Haight have been there for 30 years. My suggestion, take the N-Judah train up and get off in Cole Valley, which is just through the tunnel. It’s a neat train ride. And Cole Valley is one of those cute little SF neighborhoods that’s tucked into a corner and has great food, a fantastic hardware store. And seems miles away from anywhere. You can walk down to Haight from Cole Valley. It’s like 4 blocks I think. 4 blocks, and you are in a completely different space. Different people. Different atmosphere.

2. Pacific Heights. You’ve seen the mansions of the Marina (and I thought to myself — those aren’t mansions, those are just nice houses.) I mean, if you really want to see mansions, you have to go to Pacific Heights. See Millionaires Row (which is probably really billionaires anymore, but old names don’t change on things like that). It’s along Broadway at the crest of the ridge that drops down to the Marina. Check out Fillmore street for another collection of boutique shopping, like Georgetown, only classier. And more out of the way (and not overrun with tourists). Fillmore in just a few blocks is something that goes from the really wealthy Broadway crown, down to Japantown (and a new theater owned by Robert Redford and Sundance Festival) and across Geary to the old Fillmore Jazz District. All in about 10 blocks, you’ve been throw three neighborhoods.

3. The Mission District. The Mission is hard to get a handle on. Mission is the old back bone of what was once a working class Irish neighborhood. Valencia, though, is probably more “hip.” Both aren’t tony. In fact, they don’t really clean up at all. But you’ll find so much street vitality. And then all this random pockets of stuff that just seem out of character with the space. While in DC it seems that things go from really rough to completely gentrified. Change happens slower in SF, and there’s a huge resistance to change. So you’ll find there will be a taqueria next to a high end organic grocery store. Or a top gourmet restaurant across the street from a dive bar. The Mission is definitely where these things collide like that. Start at 16th and Mission at the BART station and go from there.

4. The Castro District. I’m a gay male, that spent my 20s in SF. So the Castro and the South of Market (and to some extent Pulk Gulch) where a big part of my coming of age. I recommend the Castro just to see the gayborhood. And to check out what’s playing at the fabulous Castro Theater, which is a great big old time movie house, with a fantastic show schedule and special events. The shopping around there is trendy, but there’s some good walking around there. You can take the bus up the hill on Castro Street (which I’ve forgotten the number on, it’s the Divisidero Bus, but I’ve forgotten the number). You’ll go up an impossibly steep hill. And you’ll come down and get off at 24th Street. Now you are in Noe Valley, which I guess is like the Park Slope of SF. Or Del Ray. Lots and lots of baby carriages. I lived on that street, and despite the Baby Carriages, it’s a great neighborhood. If you are feeling strong legged, you can walk up Sanchez Street to the top. Amazing views from up there. And this little enclave of arts and crafts mansions. And then there will be a series of stairs back down to 18th and you’ll be in the Castro District again.

5. The Western Parts. Lest you think that all SF is quaint victorian-esque dense neighborhoods. You probably should check out some of the Western parts of the city. Take the K, L or M train through Twin Peaks and get off at West Portal (the first stop after the tunnel). It’s sort of 1920s/20s era area out there. Forest Hills and West Portal were championed by the Sierra Club and Daniel Burnham and the like. It’s really a precursor to modern day suburbs — heavily planned, tightly controlled. Winding streets, matching street lamps, underground utilities. Etc. Etc. West Portal is the shopping area. All done in that early 20th century mission style — red tile roofs, etc. Good places to eat out there though. The other two main parts of the western lands are the Sunset District and the Richmond District. The more gentrified parts of the Sunset District are closer in and closer to the heart of Golden Gate Park. You can reach that with the N-Judah again. I’d recommend taking the street cars to as many places as you can. Just to experience all the feel of the streetscapes. Take the historic F-Market, take the J-K-L-M-N lines to their various end points, and take the new T line out through the Mission bay and down to near the old shipyards. Anyway, back to the western parts. Out in the Richmond District, which is a little harder to get to, you can take the 38-Geary bus from Union Square out that way and get off at once the streets start going to numbers 2nd Avenue is a good place. Walk North to Clement and you’ll find another little pocket of awesomeness. It’s very chinese and, oddly enough, Russian out there. Plenty of great places to eat. And Clement has a great used bookstore, Green Apple. And good, cheap furniture wholesalers. Kind of like Bethesda used to be before it got all fancy. But yet, you’ll find there are tons of people around there.

Obviously, I could go on and on. But I think that’s a good start. If you want a different tour to take, definitely do the Barbary Coast tour. And if you want the four ultimate tourist experiences: Alcatraz, a Cable Car, the Bleach Blacket Babylon show and Chinatown.

Update sent: By the way, I left off Hayes Valley which was silly of me. I shouldn’t have. It’s totally come back after the central freeway was torn down. It’s near Market Street and Octavia Blvd. (It came up because that I wrote to you 1,500 words on what to do in SF on Twitter, and someone else asked for it). Good shopping there as well.

Mission Dolores Park is fantastic, it’s much more the National Mall like park that Golden Gate Park is not (GGP’s Panhandle is though. GGP is a fantastically weird space that can feel miles away from anything and with the new DeYoung and the new California Academy of Sciences continues to reinvent itself). Take the J-Church (also a great former Bay Area punk band’s name) through the Park and you’ll end up in Noe Valley as well.

The buses and streetcars in SF aren’t terribly confusing, but they tend to run for very long ways, but the names of the streets that they run on (if not entirely at least for their longest stretch, or in the names, I think there is something about even numbers going north to south and odd numbers going east to west, but that’s not always true.). Also the system has owl service at night, so do check the maps. And always ask the bus drivers for help. When I first moved to SF, I lived in Oakland and hadn’t discovered the transbay owl service. So I thought you just had to wait around until the morning to get back to Oakland if you were out late. I used to ride the owl buses all night, back and forth just to see what I could and experience the city.

I forgot one link: I was going to show you the Blocker articles at SFist. A great series of articles, SF — one block at a time: sfist.com/tags/blocker

Anyway, enjoy your time there. It’s a magical city. I truly believe.

a moment of urban beauty: Tokyo construction fences

Christopher — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:26:38 +0000

I have thought, written and created art about the urban enviornment for 15 years (as an anthropology and architecture student then as an artist and now as a designer), and yet I rarely share that here. Since Inaudible Nonsense is about nothing and everything, I think it’s time to start sharing more about design, art and life in the urban context.

What inspired this sudden need to share? This post at PingMag about the art on construction fences in Tokyo. The Japanese have a refined sense of design. No place is so obscure as to not create moments of beauty. A couple of my favorites from PingMag at the top and after the jump.

Construction fence as informational graphic:

Construction fence as community building opportunity:

i see words: captioning sucks! (now let’s fix it)

Christopher — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:15:46 +0000

I’m working on a longer post about the accessible web inspired by Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards, Second Edition when what should pop up on my Twitter feed?

“CaptioningSucks.com. Now let’s fix it” from none other than Zeldman himself.

In Designing with Web Standards, Zeldman lays out an incredibly strong case for accessibility in Web design. He’s not Deaf. He’s not Blind. He’s just a Web designer and business person that understands that ignoring even a small part of your audience is bad business strategy.

Captioning Sucks! makes this even more explicit for the Deaf. Under the heading “Deaf People Settle for Crumbs!“:

Time after time, deaf people – and other captioning viewers – settle for not enough captioning or lousy captioning. Or they file lawsuits and complaints against companies and, after all that trouble, they settle for exactly the same thing.

Captionioning Sucks! is exactly what it seems, a call to arms to web developers and programmers to fix captioning in web video by the creation of the kind of programming standards that Zeldman has been evangelizing for years. If you are reading this now in an RSS reader or here at WordPress, you are at least partially familiar with the standards-based web design. It’s cross platform and accessible (if done right).

Check out the site for more information about this project and promote the heck out it. I’ve already added a banner over there to right. It’s time we stood up on this. Web video is becoming ubiquitous and leaving far too many of us out.

[UPDATE: So although Zeldman is promoting Captioning Sucks! I realized by reading Daring Fireball that — not unsurprisingly — this is a project by Joe Clark, who Zeldman singles out in his book as the godfather of accessibility. So credit where it is due and more on all of this in a future post.]

from the internet archives: self-plagiarization on art in the community

Christopher — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:51:02 +0000

A friend wished someone a happy blogoversary on Twitter today. This got me to thinking about when mine was.

I blogged the last semester of my senior year in art school that was 2002. My first post was September 26 of that year. It was an interesting experiment. I tried to use the format as an open sketchbook to talk about my influences, and to follow my ideas as they became projects.

In light of my renewed interest in the human environment (the interaction between people and the space and community around), I had forgotten how important that was to my work 5 years ago. I found the following post (after the jump) dated 9-27-2007 and thought I”d repost it here. Its more relevant to who I am today than ever:

Art can be anything that we say it is. So, Richard Long can crisscross England on foot and be known as an artist and not an outdoorsman. There is a priviledging of aesthetical experience that helps broaden the view of “what is art”. Art school is about paying a lot of money to make things for four years. Or, so they would have us believe. Try not making things, try only talking and thinking. You’ll be admonished. Or misunderstood. Or, so I’ve found. Ah, to be the misunderstood artist. How romantic.This morning, we led a walk down a median of Mandela Parkway in West Oakland. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake rendered the Cypress Freeway useless. Built through the neighborhood in the late 1950s over what was then Cypress Street, the Cypress Freeway was a double-decker noose that further divided the struggling West Oakland neighborhood. Those of us who were old enough to remember, later recalled news stories of the cars trapped between the decks of the freeway. Often, only one person from a car with an entire family survived. It was pretty horrific at the time. And eventhough I was living in Chicago then and was only 15, I remember the whole situation vividly.Our idea this morning was pretty simple. Oakland has a trouble with self-love. It gets trashed by its own residents more than any city I’ve ever seen. The streets and sidewalks in Oakland function as a public garbage can. Our group thought that it would be a good idea to explore this stretch of urban history by picking up the trash. After we had cleaned up a couple of blocks we would leave wildflower seeds so that in the spring, their would be secret reminder of our having passed through. A second stage to our renewal efforts.This all seemed pretty straightforward to me. But I was reminded today how sometimes a simple act can be revolutionary. Mandela Parkway was renamed as part of a vision for this now freewayless but still barren stretch of Oakland. The community set about trying to convince CalTrans (the state transportation agency) to create a greenway down the median. A very narrow park if you will. Think of the panhandle in San Francisco, and make it about a block narrower. Well, it’s been 13 years, and just the very first inklings of change of begun to happen at the site. It will be at least another 2 years, before we start seeing the vision others have for the area.The slow progress of change here hasn’t affect anyone’s ability to enforce bureaucratic turf wars. The neighborhood was stunned by our activities. A local landscaping crew that was working at the housing projects nearby told us they had never seen anyone pick up trash before. Eventually, we caught the interest of a City of Oakland clean-up crew. They wanted to know why we hadn’t contacted them. They wanted to give us trash bags, haul away our collections, and offer us orange vests. Only the fact that my mother teaches at the elementary school where the head of that crew went to school (a coincidence indeed) did we confuse them into calming down. She also reminded us that we were not on City of Oakland property but on CalTrans property.Who should show up next, but CalTrans. CalTrans wanted to assure us that this whole section was about to be cleaned up. (We’d seen there cleaning efforts in the first block, where we had walked away with some of our most full trash bags.) And that they wanted to thank us but let us know that whatever work we had done was about to be plowed over anyway. They recommended that next time we clean up the sidewalks along the edge of the Parkway. (This, of course, would be back to City of Oakland property.) I was stunned really. We had done something so easy, so harmless and yet this had been interpreted as a direct challenge to more than one agency’s management of its land. We had stepped so far outside of their conception of “what people do” that they could only step into bureaucratic maneuvering.Revolution does not always have to be about walking through Berkeley naked. Do anything outside of the expected (and we have such rigid expectations, so this isn’t difficult) can be the much stronger action. Angry rebellion is expected and trained for by armies and police forces around the world. But 10 people picking up trash in West Oakland just threw everyone for a loop. Amazing.

the big hunt: NYC vs. SF which is the better Deaf city?

Christopher — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:54:12 +0000

In theory, I live in the Deaf Capitol, the District of Columbia, which would be great and all if that was the only thing that defines me. But it’s not. And what was supposed to be a one year stop-over in DC has turned into almost four years. (Egad!) So although my hearing continues to decline, I’m also not getting any younger — it’s time to move.

But where?

I’ve long dreamed of NYC (as a kid in the midwest it seemed the epitome of all that was awesome). Even still, despite the costs: it’s got a huge creative economy; it’s international in its influence; it’s got fantastic grad schools; its population is ethnically diverse; and its an urbanist’s dream. All these things are important to me and my partner. But is it a good city for the Deaf/HOH?My fear of the impatient, fast-talking New Yorker suggests maybe not. However, everytime I’ve been there (which is a lot, no fewer than five former roommates live there), I’ve found everyone to be warm and friendly and to “in nothing-phases a New Yorker” style adjust to alternate forms of communication very easily. Will that still happen in the workplace?

SF on the other hand has top programs for ASL and the Deaf and is very accommodating of difference and of course international, design-centered and urbanist with great grad schools.So which is better? And is there someplace that I’m leaving out that I should also be considering? (On the coasts please, my partner is not moving to fly-over country.) Perhaps LA? Philly? Seattle?

None of these moves are going to be easy, and jobs are competitive while being hard of hearing may well be a knock against me. (I’ll be honest here. It shouldn’t be. But that’s not the way life works.) But we need a goal and we need to get along from the holding pattern that I’m in right now here in DC.Please chime in. And thank you.

[UPDATE: Curious Eyes brings up something that I should have pointed out. we've lived in the Bay Area too in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley from 1998-2004. I went to college in SFand Oakland. I met my partner there. I had jobs in Concord and SF, but the job market was such in 2004 that I wasn't finding full-time work. And friends and former professors were leaving for much the same reason. But I was generally hearing then -- or at least more so -- and thought I would have more years before losing my hearing. That was just hubris. So I'm trying to make a decision that will be good for my developing Deaf identity as well as allow me to eat. And pursue graduate school.]

Image of Manhattan in the San Francisco Bay courtesy of kottke.org