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ASL Rose Newsletter
Vol. 2 No. 1
January 2008



At the time of this writing, the year of 2008 promises to be an exciting one for ASL Rose. ASL Rose wants to work with you in increasing cultural knowledge and literacy through both ASL and English. A plethora of ideas for ASL “language arts” activities were shared with you in the previous newsletter, December 2007. By working together, we enrich Deaf children’s knowledge, appreciation, and skills of ASL. With your support, ASL Rose is determined to accomplish some of the goals in 2008. More DVDs/books and other materials specially designed for Deaf children are sorely needed.

For us to reach this important goal as stated above, whether at home with your own children, at work with your students, or out in the community with people just learning about ASL and Deaf culture for the first time, we must have a vision to help them meet for their needs. A lot of people make a resolution on January 1st for what they promise to do in the New Year. ASL Rose set a resolution for the year of 2008 wanting to gain the “weight” from DVD/books, figuratively speaking. It means more materials for Deaf learners.

On the contrary, many people for their 2008 resolutions want to lose weight. One way to start is to walk. You can do this the hard way, by going out, buying shoes, a new exercise outfit, and then setting your alarm for 6 a.m. and setting the pace. An easier way is to let your fingers do the walking! Pick up your hand, make a “two,” flip it upside down, and let your fingers go!

Some of us make this promise, and then by this time, we’re on the couch. Next to you is a pair of scissors. Yeah, a pair of scissors, reading…A PAIR OF SCISSORS READING!?!? You read that right! Have You Ever Seen…? An American Sign Language (ASL) Handshape DVD/Book (HYES DVD/Book) does indeed feature a pair of scissors reading. The scissors aren’t walking, they’re reading-but all three signs are made with the same V or 2-Handshape: scissors, walking, reading.


One of the many things that a pair of scissors likes to read is books, newspapers and magazines about Deaf culture. Right now, it’s a holiday weekend, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is on Monday. His quotation, “People fail to get along because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other,” touches the deepest part of ASL Rose heart and soul. Through the Black History month in February, we could learn more about black people’s lived experiences and expression. You know about Dr. King, but what about famous black deaf people? The name of Dr. Andrew Foster, an African-American, came to many minds of Deaf people for his work to establish schools for the deaf in Africa. His life, like Martin L. King, Jr., was shortened due to the plane crash while doing his missionary work. In today’s America, we now see more successful black deaf individuals and ASL Rose hopes for more books portraying them.

Well, behind the scissors reading is a picture of Ernest Hairston, a successful Black Deaf role model. Dr. Hairston was born and grew up in West Virginia, where he attended the West Virginia School for the Colored Deaf and Blind, and then after integration, the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Romney. After graduation, Hairston attended Gallaudet, where he excelled as a scholar and athlete. As an educator and administrator, Hairston was a role model at a time when black deaf professionals were rare. Hairston later went to work for the U.S. Department of Education, where he guided and influenced government support for and policies on media for the deaf, from captioning to the National Theatre of the Deaf. Hairston returned to Gallaudet, where he earned a doctorate in Special Education Administration. From the National association of the Deaf (NAD) to National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA), Dr. Hairston has participated in and worked with the Deaf community in many roles over the years. Whew! That’s just one person, from one picture!

At ASL Rose, we like to learn a lot about people and languages from all over. We feel that educational materials should both speak to and show children and adults from diverse backgrounds as a way to model diversity and reflect today’s society. There’s diversity everywhere, not just within the black community: Deaf, males, black, hard-of-hearing, Asian, gays and lesbians, mainstreamed, females, young, old… You can use the background pictures and information in HYES DVD/Book. To enrich lesson plans, or expand your knowledge about Deaf history and culture, and the world you live in!

As you celebrate the memories and legacies of Dr. King and Dr. Foster, and think about people like Dr. Hairston, here’s a fun quiz to refresh your memory or learn new facts! Take the quiz yourself, or share with your children, students, neighbors, and friends!

  1. Who said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…”?
    1. John F. Kennedy
    2. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    3. Malcolm X
    4. Oprah Winfrey

  2. Who refused to sit in the back of the bus at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement?
    1. Rosa Lee Gallimore
    2. Anna Stella Rose
    3. Rosa Parks
    4. Laurene Simms

  3. What year did the Supreme Court decide Brown v. Board of Education, which determined educational segregation to be unconstitutional?
    1. 1945
    2. 1954
    3. 1951
    4. 1995

  4. In which state did Martin Luther King write his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail?”
    1. Georgia
    2. Tennessee
    3. Alabama
    4. Louisiana

  5. Which President desegregated the U.S. Armed Services?
    1. George W. Bush
    2. Harry S. Truman
    3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
    4. John F. Kennedy

  6. Who was the first Deaf Black student at Gallaudet?
    1. Andrew Foster
    2. Andrew Jackson
    3. Jackson Foster
    4. Aristotle Ogoke

  7. Name a well-known Black Deaf dance troupe.
    1. The Tame Ziggurats
    2. The Black Lightning
    3. The Wild Zappers
    4. Good Vibrations

  8. Which African country did Andrew Foster found his first school in?
    1. Sudan
    2. Togo
    3. Cameroon
    4. Ghana

  9. Who were the first Black Deaf people to earn Ph.D.s?
    1. Dr. Laurene Gallimore Simms and Dr. Ernest Hairston
    2. Dr. Angela McCaskill and Dr. Glenn B. Anderson
    3. Dr. Shirley J. Allen and Dr. Glenn B. Anderson
    4. Dr. Michael Jackson and Dr. Martin King

  10. Who was the first Miss Deaf America with black ancestry?
    1. Tyese Wright
    2. Rosa Lee Gallimore
    3. Lauren Teruel
    4. Sophia McFadden

How did you do? How do you THINK you did? Some of those questions weren’t easy! Whether you got them all right, or all wrong, you either know a lot about black history, or you just learned a lot of new facts!

Here the answers: 1. B, 2. C, 3. B, 4. C, 5. B, 6. A, 7. C, 8. D, 9. C, 10. C. (For #8, Andrew Foster also established schools in Benin, Congo, Chad, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon. For #10, Lauren Teruel served as Miss Deaf America from 2000-02; Tyese Wright followed Teruel as Miss Deaf America from 2002-04. Sophia McFadden was Miss Black Deaf America from 2004-05.)

That was a fun quiz, wasn’t it? Now, we’d like to turn the tables: we have a question or two for YOU! ASL Rose isn’t just a company to sell you DVDs and books. We want to work with YOU to help improve and strengthen knowledge and use of ASL and English together in addition to the Deaf world.

What would you like to see in this newsletter? More ASL facts and history? Ways to best use ASL Rose materials, such as Have You Ever Seen…? An ASL Handshape DVD/Book? Teaching tips and tools?

Don’t be shy. Your comments don’t only have to be limited to the newsletter. What kind of future materials would you like to see from ASL Rose? Contact us and let us know!

Enjoy the rest of the first month of the new year. Tell that pair of scissors to stop reading and join you for a walk! See you next time!

Let us hope that the year of 2008 is a productive one!

[Some of the information on Dr. Ernest Hairston is from Great Deaf Americans: The Second Edition, by Matthew Scott Moore and Robert F. Panara. Rochester, NY: MSM Productions Ltd., 1998.]

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