FINISHED RUNNING SESSIONS (as of yesterday) WOOHOO. On the one hand, am sad we only ran 12 pairs of participants and didn’t get more data, but on the other hand, am very grateful we only ran 12 pairs of participants :’) Anyway, the tedious work is over, for me at least (Isabelle is still working on acquiring the speech data which I’d say is equally as tedious as creating transcripts of every spoken utterance and every caption displayed in real time). I’m looking forward to taking a step back and looking at everything we’ve collected from a more holistic perspective (rather than being super focused on the details which is what I’ve been doing this past week).

Each team presented their results so far during the program wide meeting yesterday. I noticed that each group talked about some of the issues they had run into while conducting their studies. All very interesting and good learning experiences; I wish we had devoted a portion of our time to reflecting on the obstacles we ran into instead of focusing our entire presentation on the results we had gotten. I guess, lately, I’ve neglected the process of research and instead been too hung up on results. There’s just so many things we’ve collected and of course, it’s exciting to dig through and see what’s cool but the process leading up to acquisition of such data is also meaningful.

Had the exit interview this afternoon with the person that had interviewed us (the interns) at the beginning of the REU. She said something that stood out to me quite a bit and I am still processing my surprise. She said that the goal of this specific REU for hearing individuals was so that their experience interacting with Deaf people during the program would allow them to see their capabilities and motivate them to later stand up for the Deaf community and advocate for a Deaf person in the workplace, for example. I suppose I am surprised because I’m interpreting that the inverse of her statement is true for some people一that hearing individuals who don’t have experience interacting with Deaf people don’t think that they’re capable一which is really unsettling. For a long time, I’ve known that ability and identity aren’t mutually exclusive and furthermore, ability is only one facet of existence but one that people put a premium on because of capitalism. The reality is一Deaf people and people from other minority groups are put down even if unintentionally more frequently than those who don’t belong to those groups which sucks. But I guess as someone who tries to be conscious of this, all the time, I will, of course, do my best to look out for everyone so everyone has the same access and opportunity. Anyways, I wasn’t surprised that every Deaf individual in this REU is accomplished and excellent at what they do, but I was surprised that the interviewer seemed to imply that she expected me to be surprised.

Since I am getting a bit personal here, might as well bring up this other thing that I felt weird about. So my mentor asked me the first week of the REU if I wanted to be more involved with some of the other Deaf individuals in the program because she had seen that I had taken 2 American Sign Language courses in my application. The way I feel is yes, I do want to but I want to get to know you as a person who happens to be Deaf, not because you’re a Deaf person. What I mean is一I don’t want a relationship to be founded on your Deaf identity because in that way, it commoditizes Deafness and that doesn’t sit well with me. I think if this program had happened in person, organic relationships would have naturally developed in passing and that, I’m totally down for. Anyway, I had said no to my mentor, that I didn’t want any more interaction than that that had already been planned. Looking back, I don’t think I would choose differently. Even though I did not learn as much about Deaf culture as I anticipated I might before starting the program, I do think my receptive ASL has improved (it’s definitely been less cognitively taxing watching people sign as the weeks went by, which I think partially is because many of the words are used again and again haha) and it’s refreshing to see a handful of different people sign and notice the little differences; kinda like how when hearing people speak English, they’re all speaking the same language but each individual has their own quirks and says things just a little bit differently from everyone else. Anyway, I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to grow in this environment and I’m looking forward to the final week :)