The silent way to celebrate: International Sign Language Day at ASU
At Arizona State University, the American Sign Language Club celebrates International Sign Language Day, a national holiday declared by the United Nations.
The idea for the International Day of Sign Languages originated from the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), which represents around 70 million deaf individuals through 135 national associations dedicated to their human rights.
Sept. 23 was chosen to commemorate the founding of the WFD in 1951. This date signifies the establishment of an advocacy organization focused on preserving sign languages and Deaf culture, which are essential for realizing the human rights of deaf individuals.
The first International Day of Sign Languages was celebrated in 2018 as part of the International Week of the Deaf. This week, first observed in September 1958, has grown into a global movement fostering unity among the Deaf community and advocating for awareness of daily challenges.
ASL Club helped host the "College of Health Solution Celebrates International Sign Language Day and International Week of Deaf People" event on Sept. 23, seeking to promote American Sign Language awareness through their involvement in different events around campus.
Sophia Woods, the president of the ASL Club, starts the session off with a game of Bingo where students have to guess what number was being signed, playing along with the original rules of Bingo. They then transitioned into a game where the students were given a hand shape and had to come up with as many different signs as possible that used said shape. For example, they were given the shape of the letter C. They could have written down words like “chocolate” and “church” or “Christmas” because they all use the shape C for their sign.
Woods said that the club is “really informal. It's unlike class, where you can’t use your voice. We do try to just make a community.”
“We want people to find people that they can sign with outside of the club,” she added. “We want people to be able to experience what different students at different levels sign. Most of the time we just play games, talk and have a good time. It's nothing crazy. We're not teaching, but it's just more building a community.”
One of the club members, Brandon Whitmore, talks about his experience with American Sign Language
“The deaf community in ASL, to me, is contagious,” Whitmore said. “I’ve always wanted to learn the language. I never want to stop. When you're doing ASL, you want to practice every day because something that you learned a while ago will not help you with what you will learn in the future. So I feel like if you practice every day and you get on it every day, you're going to have great success in this class. And I'm glad I came here to learn it.”
Wood finishes off by saying, “I think it's important that as a hearing person, I try to get out there and learn sign language for a more accessible world.”
You can learn more about the ASL club here. Go out, have some fun, and learn sign language. It’s unlike anything out there.