Personal Narrative: My Deaf Culture Experience

On Friday, July 2 2010, I traveled to the Menlo Mall in Edison, NJ to observe and participate in a Deaf culture event meeting at the Starbucks. This event takes place on the first Friday of every month, and I was lucky enough to be able to hear about and attend to this one right before the paper was actually due. All the other events I attempted to plan on going to interfered with my work and class schedule, so I was fortunate to have gotten an e-mail from a fellow class mate, Allison White.
This wasn’t my first Deaf event because last year one of my close friends took AMSL 101 and 102 during the summer so I went with him to a Starbucks in Edison, NJ to be a wingman for him while he observed and talked. Last year when I went with him, I had no idea what to expect. It was a little overwhelming seeing groups of people signing, but I was there as a tag a long, so I just went with it.
I luckily talked a girl I am talking to, to come with me since she wasn’t doing anything else. Not gonna lie, I told her we were going for Rita’s and then going to see the movie Grown Ups; totally lied. At first she was really pissed at me,
We walked around the whole mall twice creeping on people trying to see if they were Deaf or not. I was so pissed at her because I figured that while we were going store to store, the event finished. Not gonna lie, I was giving her hell, but it was for a good reason, my grade!
She was trying to calm me down and of course telling me, “We’re going to find someone, don’t worry.” All I was hearing was, “Blah, blah, blah.” I was so pissed off. While she was talking to me, she accidently bumped into an older couple. She apologized with the movement of her hand on her chest and coinsidently, the woman signed to her and said, “It’s okay” with the little different tone. I automatically knew she was Deaf and almost hugged her knowing I found