Nearly 50 Years Later: The Chicago Fire that Killed Two Deaf Students (Part 2)

January 26, 2018

By Trudy Suggs (Click here for my thoughts on this story in ASL and English).

PART 2 (Read Part 1 here)

Zee Beranek in 1970 on the phone in the aftermath of the fire.

Zeke Beranek was the sole chaperone, along with the school bus driver, for 40 boys. Many credit him for his calm demeanor during the crisis.

Zeke Beranek: The Unsung Hero
Zeke Beranek was the sole chaperone of 40 boys — something that would never happen today. “Well, how I did it was I set up a buddy system. I had the older boys be responsible for the younger students,” Beranek explained. “The boys who went on this trip had been allowed to go based on their grades and good behavior. But I had more faith in the dorm parents, who were with them all the time, than their teachers, so I trusted who the dorm parents said should go on the trip. It worked out well for the most part.”

Only 37 at the time of the fire, Beranek looked older than his age, although he was rarely without his sense of humor or smile. A well-respected gentleman from Nebraska, he was popular among the students. As a Boy Scouts leader and school teacher, Beranek often took the boys camping and on trips. “The way I saw it was that whenever the boys achieved the Eagle Scout rank or did good things, this was good publicity for ISD,” Beranek explained. “It helped bring awareness to the school.”

And then the fire happened. “I can’t remember how I knew there was a fire, but I woke up and opened the door. There was smoke, and I began trying to do what I could,” Beranek said. “I wanted to wake as many boys up as I could, but it wasn’t possible.”

He continued, “I opened Freeman Harper’s room, and I saw him talking with a few scared younger kids near an open window. One of them started to jump, and Freeman told the kid, ‘Don’t jump! Don’t forget about me!’ That was his way of convincing the kid to not jump.”

The boys learned later that after being rescued Beranek had gone above and beyond in his role as chaperone. “Mayor Daley provided a police escort when he learned who I was and what group I was with, and I instructed [junior] Pedro Medina to be in charge of the boys,” Beranek remembered.

Pictures of written notes between ISD students and newspaper reporters

Written notes between ISD students and newspaper reporters.

He saw a group of reporters clamoring to interview the boys at the hotel, and was disgusted. He told the reporters, “Leave the boys alone, they’ve already been through enough.” When they didn’t cooperate, Beranek immediately notified hotel security. “Someone from the Hilton hotel did physically have to pull the reporters away.”

The church service the group was supposed to attend that morning had secured an interpreter. Beranek said, “The church didn’t know yet about the fire, and they actually held off starting the service for about 20 or 25 minutes, waiting for us.”

As soon as the church learned of the fire, the interpreter went to help Beranek as much as possible. “In fact, when I left Chicago, the interpreter said he’d keep visiting the kids still in the hospitals until they were all gone,” Beranek recalled.

The Smoke Clears
After all the chaos eventually settled somewhat, Beranek also had to make arrangements for that evening’s lodging and transportation. The boys clearly could not attend the Bulls game, so some boys had been picked up by their parents, and the remaining boys relocated to the Palmer Hotel, also owned by the Hilton family. Reynolds wondered if his parents, who lived just over an hour away, would come. He had no way of contacting them; although they were Deaf, they didn’t own a TTY.

ISD boys surround entertainer Connie Stevens.

The ISD boys went to Connie Stevens’ performance the night after the fire. Reynolds is fourth from left in the front row; Albert Jones is second from left in the back. Robert Perry, who later drowned, is third from right in the back behind Connie Stevens.

Entertainer Connie Stevens was scheduled to perform at the Palmer Hotel that evening. When she learned of the tragedy, she invited the ISD boys to come to her performance. Saline remembered, “We were given free food on Mayor Daley’s tab. We were treated like royalty. We were also asked to fill out insurance forms to get reimbursed for our belongings and clothes.”

Yet most of the boys were too dazed and could not eat much. Reynolds’ throat hurt too much to eat, and he had lost his sense of taste. They tried to keep their spirits up despite the horrible tragedy. “She sang all evening, and when she spoke to the crowd, we were seated in the upper balcony and she made sure to look at us,” Reynolds said. “After her performance, she came to us and posed with us.”

That evening, the boys retired to their rooms. Five firemen, including a fire chief, stood guard by their doors overnight. Reynolds roomed with Jim Gurley, and as they got into bed, Gurley kept saying, “Look at the door. I see smoke. Do you?” Reynolds indeed could have sworn he saw smoke coming under the door, too.  They decided to leave the light on and try to get some sleep. They didn’t get much, of course.

Monday Morning
Beranek woke each of the boys up, telling them it was time to return to Jacksonville. They got early editions of the Chicago Sun Times and Chicago Tribune, and there it was for all of the world to see: two “deaf-mutes” had died. It was a punch in the guts for the boys. Although they already knew Zanger and Kennedy had died, they now felt a mixture of sadness and survivor’s guilt.

The group gathered in a conference room, and Beranek told the group, “As I woke each of you up, I noticed that more than three-fourths of you left your lights on overnight.” When Reynolds learned this, he let out a sigh of relief. He had thought he was going crazy with the need to leave his light on. They all had suffered a horrible trauma that was intensified by the lack of communication access. Worst of all, they had no psychological support. There were no counselors, no trauma advocates, and no family nearby. Although some parents had already picked up their boys, many of the boys’ families lived too far away (some as much as eight hours away) and others had no idea what had happened. They only had each other.

Reynolds later learned that his parents didn’t know about the fire until Sunday evening, when his hearing brother told them to look at the TV. The news reported on the fire, and his parents began to worry. They made his brother call the school, but there was no information yet. When they saw the newspaper on Monday and Reynolds’ name was listed among those hospitalized, they panicked, thinking he had been badly burned. They couldn’t sleep all night, trying to figure out what they should do.

As the boys climbed silently back on the yellow bus, Reynolds looked up at the overhead bins and realized that Kennedy’s pillow, streaked with mud, was still there. He sadly remembered how Kennedy had thrown the pillow at his friends, laughing, as they rode to Chicago.

Beranek stood up as the bus rode along, and talked to the boys in his SimCom style of what had transpired over the weekend. He shared that he knew some students were in their rooms, but he didn’t realize that several, including Zanger and Kennedy, had gone into the hallways. He didn’t know until later about Bright’s jump, which continues to be a legend in the Illinois Deaf community even today.

Saline and Reynolds both remembered how Beranek shared the rumor that Zanger and Kennedy had been found near each other by the elevators, but that this hadn’t been confirmed. (Newspaper articles reported Chicago Fire Commander Robert J. Quinn as saying that the two boys’ bodies were found outside a room on the north end of the corridor; Quinn added that had the boys stayed in their rooms, they likely would have survived.) Beranek also told of how he had to go to the morgue to identify the boys’ bodies, which were badly covered in soot.  As Beranek spoke, every boy on that bus shed tears. The ride to Jacksonville was eerily quiet, with Kennedy’s pillow literally hanging over their heads.

The Aftermath
Reynolds remembers vividly how upon arrival, the school bus was swarmed by other ISD students, and the sense of dread he and the other boys felt. “We should’ve had trauma counselors on the ready for us, instead of kids wanting to know every detail about our experience,” Reynolds says. He saw many cars, mostly driven by hearing parents, waiting to pick up their boys. He walked to his dorm and as he put away his things, a houseparent notified him that his family had called.

Reynolds quickly went to pick up the phone and call his family. When his brother picked up, “It was at that moment that I realized I couldn’t speak. I had lost my voice, and could only speak a few words.” His brother asked, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” Crying, Reynolds responded that he was okay and that he loved them.

Meanwhile, Saline’s mother and niece drove down from Rio to see him that evening, and took him out for dinner at the local Hardee’s. They wrote back and forth, talking about what had happened.

The next morning, the survivors went to class on the second floor of the main building. Saline said, “So many people hugged me, and it was weird. It was really hard on me, knowing that Donald, who was my roommate at the hotel, and Bruce both had died. I wondered about them for a long time, and it took a while for that feeling to wear off.”

Soon after class began, Reynolds was thrilled to learn that his parents and brother were there to pick him up. As soon as he made his way to the first floor, his brother ran to him. Reynolds recalls bittersweetly, “I never had that hard of a hug from my own brother before that, and it was the best feeling.” He went home for a week.

Upon his return, Reynolds practiced with the school basketball team. On game day, on the court in uniform, he had one of many epiphanies. “I was warming up, and as I was dribbling, I looked around the gym. There were people in the bleachers, I was playing with my teammates, and I thought, I’m alive. I have another chance to play basketball. My view of the world changed at that moment, and I embraced my newfound maturity. I ran and did a lay-up, never forgetting the boys we lost in Chicago.”

Bright went home after seven days, where he had virtually been isolated from the world. After all, back in those days, TVs were inaccessible and no interpreters were provided. Newspapers reported that he would not return to school that year. After two weeks, though, Bright was going stir-crazy. He was the only deaf person in his family and town, and missed his friends. He begged his parents and ISD superintendent Dr. Kenneth Mangan — who wasn’t too fond of him, since he was somewhat of a troublemaker — to let him return.  Bright’s doctor felt he wasn’t ready, either, but Bright lied and told Mangan that the doctor had given approval.

Mangan still refused. Dean of Students Lawrence Huot spoke on Bright’s behalf, and finally convinced Mangan to let Bright return. Mangan finally agreed to let Bright return. Bright walked using specially fitted crutches for about a month, but was overjoyed to be back. Reynolds and others were stunned to see Bright back so soon after his near-death experience. “We all thought Bright would be crippled for life, and even today, I am astounded he survived,” Reynolds said.

Bright was thrilled to be back, and wasted no time in healing. He went on to have a noteworthy athletic career both in the last years of high school and in adulthood, and graduated with his classmates in June 1972.

Charles Bright, shown here with his mother and their family lawyer, had to return to Chicago for a medical follow-up visit. (Courtesy of Charles Bright)

Bright also remembers how a lawyer representing the Hilton corporation showed up at his house and convinced his parents to sign a $10,000 agreement, although today he isn’t sure what the agreement stipulated. When Bright returned to Chicago for further medical care, his family lawyer accompanied him — and his mother wouldn’t leave Bright’s side during an overnight stay at the hospital; she was too afraid something would happen again.

For decades, Bright refused, and still refuses, to stay overnight at the hotel where the fire took place, even when softball or basketball tournaments were headquartered there. In 2014, Reynolds and Bright returned to the hotel, now named the Hilton Chicago. Although they had been back to that hotel for various events, this time was different: they were going to confront their memories and visit the ninth floor. Bright says, “I had a sense of trepidation, and it was difficult to see that floor again. So much of the hotel looked the same, yet so different.” Reynolds echoes this, which is why he wants to create a film based on this experience.

“It’s the little things that jump out at you,” Reynolds said. “I still have my room key from that night.” For Bright, one of the small details was that he had borrowed his good friend Ronald Sipek’s suit for the weekend, which then was destroyed in the fire. 

Beranek, when asked how he recovered from the terrible events of that weekend, said, “It bothered me for so very long, yeah. It bothered me until that kid, what’s his name? Perry. Robert Perry drowned.” In August 1970, Perry, of East St. Louis, had gone swimming in a quarry with fellow survivor Frank Bazos of Aurora. Despite desperate efforts by Bazos, Perry drowned — just a day before he was to start a new job.

“When Perry died after having gone through the fire, I realized that when it’s your time to go, it’s your time,” Beranek continued. “There’s nothing I could have done.”

Kennedy and Zanger were the only two fatalities of the fire; the 14 injured ISD students included: Charles Bright, 17; Thomas Byrnes, 15; Michael Davis, 15; Freeman Harper, 16; Albert Jones, 18; David Newcum, 14; Scott Noyes, 14; Larry Peterson, 16; David Reynolds, 16; Danny Thomas, 18; Michael Tonner, 17; and Michael Ubowski, 14.

The cause of the fire was never confirmed; it was later revealed that there had been a fire on the same floor two years earlier.

Today

Beranek in 1970, with horn-rimmed glasses and in a suitA white man stands in front of kitchen cabinets. He is wearing a white t-shirt, and is smiling.

 

Zeke Beranek, who turns 86 in February, lives in Jacksonville, Ill., with his wife of 55 years. After 32 years, he retired from education and now works with H&R Block as a tax preparer when not walking his dogs.

 

Bright as a 17-year-old

A balding white man smiles as he wears a Superman t-shirt. To his right is a little girl, his granddaughter.

 

Charles Bright, 65, has worked for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for 40 years, and is considering retirement. He has two children and one grandchild, and makes his home with his wife Genevieve in Schaumburg, Ill.

 

Freeman Harper in 1970A brown-skinned man in a suit jacket and purple button-down shirt is smiling, his hair gray, in front of a blue cloud-filled sky and trees.

 

Freeman Harper, 64, retired from a career as an educator at the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, and resides in Iowa City, Iowa.

 

 

David Reynolds in 1970A brown curly-haired man sits in front of a moving river.David Reynolds, 63, became an educator and worked for years at the Indiana School for the Deaf before moving west to Fremont, Calif. He has three sons, and has an acting career, most notably as Dr. Wonder on Dr. Wonder’s Workshop.  He and his wife, Alyce Slater Reynolds, recently relocated to Riverside, Calif., where he intends to create a movie about the Chicago fire, among other films.


A white man is in his car, looking at the camera. He has a blonde/grayish goatee, glasses, and a baseball cap on.


Dale Saline, 62, retired from the U.S. Postal Service after 20 years. He now works at his family’s pig farm in Rio, Ill. and lives with his wife.

 

 

Click here for my thoughts on this story in ASL and English.

All photographs are taken from the Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, the Illinois Advance, and the interviewees unless otherwise indicated. Special thanks go to Joan Engelmann and Rosa Ramirez.

Filed Under: Blog, Childhood, Community resources, Culture, Deaf Community, Deaf education, Disempowerment, History, Humanity, Language, Media, Notable People

Reflections on “Nearly 50 Years Later: The Chicago Fire that Killed Two Deaf Students”

January 26, 2018

Video description: Trudy Suggs, a white woman with brown shoulder-length hair, is wearing a black cardigan over a black shirt with green and white dots.  She is seated in a corner with brown bookshelves on her right and a sea blue wall on her left.

Read the article here.

Earlier this month, my family and I went to the Great Wolf Lodge, a waterpark and hotel. That night, as I was about to go to bed, I realized that there was no accessible fire alarm in the room. I stood there for a second, wondering what I should do. My children were already out cold, so I didn’t want to wake them up and move them. My husband and I decided it would be okay since we had a balcony and sliding doors, and weren’t far up from the ground — we were on the third floor. But the irony of that experience didn’t escape me, because I was working on this article at that time.

This story was written based on firsthand accounts, interviews, and newspaper articles from 1970. My mother and stepfather both graduated from the Illinois School for the Deaf in 1970, so I grew up being told this story a thousand times. My stepdad didn’t go because he had been suspended from school, but he had grown up with almost every boy in the group who went to Chicago. My mother had attended school with many of them — namely Donald Zanger, who was from the same town as my mother. In fact, Donald’s sister Rosey was my mother’s best friend for many years. I grew up with Rosey almost as an aunt, and I remember always seeing a sadness in her eyes.  

When writing this story, I learned that the night before the fire, my mother and grandparents had stayed at the Zangers’ house until almost three in the morning playing cards. After only a few hours of sleep, my grandmother woke my mother up and made her get dressed. Mom didn’t understand why until they were in the car, when Grandmother broke the news of the fire and that Donald was one of the missing boys. It was later that day that the Zanger family learned Donald had indeed been fatally injured. Mom, who was as devastated as if Donald were her own brother, spent almost every minute at the Zanger household that week.

The newspaper articles printed on the days after the fire were also interesting to read. This was not the hotel’s first fire; another one had taken place two years and two days earlier, and also began on the ninth floor. The deaf boys had unknowingly been put on the service floor, which meant it was a high-traffic floor used by service personnel.

One article in the Chicago Sun Times reported that the hotel public relations director Alan Edelson said that ninth-floor occupants were informed of the fire by telephone and instructed to stay where they were. Obviously this didn’t work for the deaf boys. The words “deaf mute” and “handicapped” were repeatedly used. The language was very defective, portraying the deaf students as helpless, unintelligent, and pitiful. Times were different back then, indeed, but the challenges continue to this day.

I remember looking at the grainy photographs in the newspaper clippings when I was a little girl and being awed by the incredible difficulty of that experience. Even today, it’s hard for me to put together the Charles Bright I’ve known all of my life with the Charles Bright who fell from the ninth floor. You’d never know it by looking at him, because he’s such a cheerful person with a great sense of humor. He was always the person I ran to at community events when I was a child because he was just so much fun to talk with, and still is today.

As I began talking to the people featured in this story, and many others who I didn’t have the space to include here — many who I had grown up knowing — I was shocked at the details that emerged, details that never made it into the media: stories about the aftermath, stories about the survivors, and stories about how that made them hold onto their lives with so much more appreciation. As Dale Saline said, “Even today, many years later, that experience has made appreciate life, every minute, and I’ve cherished my time since then.”

This story has reminded me that each and every person really does have a story to tell.

Filed Under: Blog, Childhood, Culture, Deaf Community, History, Humanity, Language, Notable People

Nearly 50 Years Later: The Chicago Fire that Killed Two Deaf Students (Part 1)

January 25, 2018
Illinois School for the Deaf Main Building

Illinois School for the Deaf Main Building (Courtesy of 1969 Illinois Advance)

By Trudy Suggs

PART 1 (Click here for Part 2)

It was going to be a splendid trip. Forty boys from the Illinois School for the Deaf (ISD) were headed to Chicago to watch a Chicago Bulls game. In past years, they had gone to watch the St. Louis Hawks and visit the St. Louis Arch — both a mere 90-minute drive away — but the Hawks had moved to Atlanta, so Chicago it was.

The boys eagerly packed their suitcases. On Saturday, January 24, 1970, they climbed onto the school bus; it was nothing fancy, just your standard yellow school bus with green seats that bounced so hard at times you felt as if you might shoot through the roof.

The ride took nearly five hours up I-55. The boys joked and talked excitedly about what they would see. For some, it was their first time to the big city. They came from rural towns, and had only heard gangster stories about the city. For others, it was their hometown. Chaperoning the trip was Zeke Beranek, a teacher and coach who spoke crisply as he signed each word.

They arrived in blustery Chicago and checked into the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, a stately building overlooking Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan. The boys were abuzz with excitement as they explored their fancy surroundings, and went sightseeing. Beranek immediately chose older kids as leaders to help the younger kids. He collected each room’s key in the event of an emergency and so he could wake them up for church the next morning.

Four boys were assigned to each room on the ninth floor; Beranek roomed with the school bus driver. Most of the boys slept in one wing, with the remainder spilling over into another wing. Charles Bright, a 17-year-old sophomore, was with roommates Bruce Kennedy and Robert Perry as they flirted with hearing girls from Ohio in the fifth-floor lounge. When some hearing guys came up, unhappy with the unsolicited attention the girls were getting, the boys went back to their room and headed to bed.

David O. Reynolds, a 16-year-old sophomore from rural Kankakee, was having the time of his life fooling around with his friends in the hallways and elevators, as teenagers are apt to do. “I was a huge Chicago sports fan, and always read the newspaper every day,” he said, “and I was so excited for the game.” Reynolds decided to go to bed and get ready for the next day — but not before he read that day’s newspaper.

Bruce Kennedy

Bruce Kennedy (Courtesy of 1970 Illinois Advance)

The Beginning of a Nightmare
At 3:00 a.m., feeling unusually warm, Bright woke up. He walked to the window and opened it before walking to the door and propping it open. Even in the 1970s, this was still a bold move in the big city. The dangers of leaving the door wide open didn’t occur to Bright, a naïve small-town kid who was the sixth of eight kids from Moweaqua, 20 minutes south of Decatur. Bright noticed it was rather warm in the hallway as well, but climbed back into bed without a second thought.

Two hours later, the fire alarms finally went off. Back then, hotels weren’t required to provide visual fire alarms, so none of the deaf boys had any way of knowing unless someone woke them up or they smelled the smoke. Kennedy, who was hard of hearing, shook Bright awake, saying, “Fire! Fire!” Groggy from deep sleep, Bright saw the room filled with smoke. Seeing that Kennedy was ready to run from the room, Bright clutched Kennedy’s wrist and said, “Don’t go!” But Kennedy wriggled free and ran out, never to be seen again.

B+W photo of firemen looking at charred corridor

The ninth-floor corridor was the most damaged of all the hotel floors.

Bright, who had become deaf from spinal meningitis and had terrible balance as a result, began coughing and choking on the smoke. He later realized the room was so filled because he had his windows open, which sucked in smoke from the hallway. He saw Albert Jones, another roommate, running into the wall three times, desperately looking for the door. Although the sun had begun to rise, the room was pitch black.

Bright panicked. “I had never experienced a fire drill at school and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” he recalled. He ran to the bathroom to grab a wet towel, and crawled back to the window. He tied three bed sheets together to lower out of the window, thinking maybe he could climb down somehow. The sheets immediately dropped to the ground below, and Bright began to sob, fearing death was inevitable.

Room 909
Reynolds was soundly sleeping when roommate Mike Davis tapped him awake. Smoke had already seeped into the room. “I woke up coughing, and ran to the door to open it,” Reynolds remembered. “That was a big mistake, because there was a wall of blackness right there. I remember this clearly. There was just this black wall, and I was so confused. I stumbled backwards and fell down.”

Reynolds began crawling, recalling a movie he had watched at school about how to stay safe by crawling under the smoke. “I thought I could easily beat the smoke,” he said. “But even as I crawled, the smoke still came down on me.” He figured he would open the two windows, but they had been illegally sealed shut with insulation tape. After giving it a few tries, he knew it was futile.

“I fell back on the floor, and put a pillow over my face. I couldn’t breathe, and I could feel the smoke filling my lungs,” Reynolds said, lost in thought as he remembered the sensation. He had no idea where his roommates were, but became focused on saving himself. “I got up and went to the window again, and tried again to open it to no avail.” He desperately pulled down the curtain rod and tried to break the window with it. He succeeded, creating a baseball-sized hole. “I put my mouth to that hole, and it was the very first time I had ever given up. I remember thinking, Okay, God, it’s now my time. I have good parents and good faith. And then I passed out.”

Floor map of ninth floor where the fire started

Floor map

Donald Zanger

Donald Zanger (Courtesy of 1970 Illinois Advance)

The Second Fatality
In a corner room, eighth grader Dale Saline of Rio, near Iowa, was about to celebrate his birthday. He had gotten special permission from his parents to go on this trip, and roomed with high schoolers Donald Zanger, Michael Ubowski, and Dennis Lovstad. “At about 5:30 or 6:00, I woke Donald up,” Saline said. “Donald immediately ran out in a panic, and I woke Mike up as well. He did the same, and ran out.”

Saline, unsure of what to do next, put a wet towel by the door. Fortunately, Ubowski returned a short time later, and a lost Danny Thomas wandered into their room. “We weren’t that close to the elevators where the fire started, so it wasn’t as bad as in the other rooms,” he said. “We waited for the longest time and I was really scared. A fireman tried to get a ladder up to us, but it only went up to the seventh floor and we were on the ninth floor.”

Some time later, their door suddenly burst open. A fireman had arrived to lead them to safety. As they made their way through the hallway, Saline kept tripping over the many hoses on the floor. They took a service elevator to the kitchen where all the others had congregated.

B+W photograph of hotel with smoke coming out of the windows. At bottom is the concrete terrace that Bright jumped to.

Charles Bright jumped from his ninth floor room onto the concrete terrace, located at the top of the ladder in this photograph. Miraculously, he survived.

Jumping to His Future
Meanwhile, Freeman Harper, 17, of Quincy, was in another room with three other boys. Their room was near the elevator shaft where the fire originated, so their room filled with smoke quickly. “I suddenly woke up, terrified, and screamed in fright,” Harper said. Unlike Reynolds, he and his roommates opened two large windows and waited approximately 45 minutes until firemen rescued them.

When Harper was safely on the ground, he and the many others looked up at the hotel searching for survivors. He watched in horror as Bright climbed out of his window.

Bright, still sobbing, made a split decision. He scampered onto the ledge, and saw a woman on a lower floor waving, “No, no! No!” He lowered himself, his fingers tightly gripping the edge of the ledge, and hung on for dear life. He looked down and then back at his window that was emitting more smoke than ever. He could feel his fingers slipping, so he let go. “I blacked out and can’t remember anything after my fingers left the ledge,” he said. 

“I screamed, ‘Oh, my God!’ and watched his body fly down the four floors,” Harper recalled. “I remember his lifeless body on the balcony and fearing the worst.” Bright crashed into a fifth-floor concrete terrace and vaguely remembers waking up and trying to take a few steps before falling to the ground where he passed out for the final time.

Firemen eventually carried Bright into a fifth-floor room, where he waited for an ambulance to take him to the hospital.

A black and white photo of Charles Bright wrapped up in blankets on a hotel bed after his fall.

After Charles Bright fell four stories onto a concrete terrace, firemen carried him to a hotel bed. Miraculously, he survived the fall.

Fighting for Survival
Back in his room, Reynolds was regaining consciousness. He said, “I woke up, after I don’t know how long, because of the draft. I don’t think if I had stayed passed out for another minute, I would have survived.” The draft was coming from an opened window. Roommate Larry Peterson had ripped the tape off and then snapped open the window in a fit of super-strength. Reynolds scrambled to the window and leaned out. As he took deep, painful breaths, he looked in all directions, and saw others sticking their heads out of their windows as well. He also saw people making their way down fire escapes, and wondered if he could do that. He returned his eyes to his roommates, Davis and Peterson, and realized that their faces were completely covered in soot. He said, “There were lines going from inside their noses to their lips. It was surreal, and I knew I probably had them, too.”

The boys quickly talked about what to do. They also worried about where their other roommate, Mike Tonner, was. Tonner had cerebral palsy, and had run out into the hallway in a state of panic. Just then, the boys realized that the open door and open window created a cross-breeze that helped clear the smoke. The wind slammed the door shut, and Reynolds said, “Against all common sense, I ran to open the door. I could see that same wall of smoke, but the open door helped clear the room of smoke.”

Michael Tonner is shown in a hospital gurney surrounded by two nurses.

Michael Tonner, who had CP, was carried to safety by a fireman and taken to the hospital.

At that moment, Tonner returned, badly shaken up. The soot-covered boys grabbed him and brought him inside the room. The room was quickly becoming cold from the window, so Reynolds — at that point dressed only in his underwear — went to put on his clothes and his glasses. Since he could speak and hear a bit, Reynolds picked up the rotary phone and spoke to whoever was on the other end, “Please come get us, we’re trapped!” He had no idea if anyone was listening.

The boys stood at the window, screaming at people and waving to other people trying to get some help. By then, it was past 6:00 a.m., and daylight had almost fully arrived. Davis was confident that they would be safe by then, reasoning that Reynolds had called for help so people knew they were in that room. They waited for what seemed like a very long time when suddenly Peterson said, “I can feel footsteps!”

Sure enough, the door opened and a big, burly fireman came in, coughing. Reynolds immediately pointed to Tonner and said, “He has CP, he can’t walk.” The fireman easily swung Tonner over his shoulder, and told the boys to follow him. “As we went down the hallway, thinking everyone else had died, I noticed that the hallway carpet was frayed from the fire. There was smoke billowing everywhere,” Reynolds said. The floor was also covered in water from fire hoses.

They walked down the long hallway, and Reynolds saw a splintered exit door. Reynolds, Davis, and Peterson ran to the door as the fireman went in a different direction. “We never saw the fireman again,” Reynolds said. They ran down the fire escape to safety. Reynolds said the first thing he noticed when they got outside was how cold it was — this was Chicago in January after all — and then he thought, “I’m alive! I’m alive!” People were waving at them, and they had to jump a few feet from the bottom of the fire escape to the ground.

Fire trucks were parked everywhere they looked, their lights flashing like no tomorrow. Water hoses were blasting cold water in every direction. “It was like a movie, that’s the best way I can explain it,” Reynolds said. He stood there for a few minutes, taking in the stunning event he had just survived.

“We all had suddenly become men. And we weren’t ready for that.” – David O. Reynolds

Collecting Themselves
As Reynolds stood figuring out what to do next, he was directed to a mailroom where the other guests were. As he walked towards the ISD group sitting off to the side, he saw how every face looked exceptionally sorrowful and sad. Looking at each boy’s grim, shell-shocked face, Reynolds realized something startling. “We all had suddenly become men. And we weren’t ready for that.”

Word had already gotten out that there had been some fatalities, but nobody knew for sure. Many had been whisked off in ambulances to area hospitals, and the rest kept checking on each other, making sure they all were okay. Reynolds, still coughing up soot, declined a trip to the hospital.

Details began coming together. The boys began ticking off names, trying to figure out who was missing and who was accounted for. They wrote back and forth with emergency responders. Saline, who had roomed with one of the two missing ISD boys (Donald Zanger), was interviewed by emergency personnel with Beranek interpreting. Shortly after that, Beranek left.

Firemen examine the room where the fire is suspected to have started.

Firemen are shown examining the area where the fire supposedly started. Charred remains of furniture are visible in this photograph.

Information began trickling in. The fire had started in an elevator shaft on the ninth floor, and since that floor was undergoing renovations, there were furniture and other things piled up near the elevator, creating an extremely flammable area. Theories began piling up: Was it arson? Did the boys who got angry at Bright, Perry, and Kennedy throw a cigarette to start the fire? Or was it just an electrical failure?

“We were in deep shock, us boys. We couldn’t believe what was happening,” Saline said.

The boys sat there waiting for someone to tell them something and wondering what would happen next. Reynolds suddenly began to feel sick, and realized he probably should get some medical attention. He was quickly taken to an ambulance, where he put on an oxygen mask and was driven to a hospital.

There, Reynolds was told to put a tissue to his mouth and start coughing. He did, and was shocked to see piles of soot coming out of his mouth. His lungs had completely filled with soot, and his larynx had been burned by the smoke. He later would learn that he had blood in his lungs for several years because of this smoke inhalation, which caused him to have nosebleeds often for many years. After several hours sharing a hospital room with Albert Jones and Freeman Harper, a somber-faced Beranek appeared at their hospital room door.

Click here for Part 2. All photographs are taken from the Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, the Illinois Advance, and the interviewees unless otherwise indicated. Special thanks go to Joan Engelmann and Rosa Ramirez.

Filed Under: Blog, Childhood, Culture, History, Humanity, Language, Media, Notable People

A Quick Look at Everyday Disempowerment of Deaf People

May 10, 2016

A page from NADmag's Spring 2016 issue showing my articleThis article originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of NADmag; download a PDF version of the article.

Video description:  Trudy, a white woman with shoulder-length brown hair, is wearing a navy blue shirt with a red, white, light blue, tan, and navy blue striped scarf. She is seated in the corner with brown bookshelves on her right and a sea blue wall on her left.

Image description: The article as it appeared in NADmag is shown on a yellow page with the headline in yellow text, and the body text in black. Nancy Rourke’s painting of DEAF DISEMPOWERMENT is shown, in her trademark red, yellow, blue, white, and black colors; a woman resembling Trudy is shown in black with a huge hole in her chest.

The Deaf community certainly has come a long way over the decades, even if the pendulum constantly swings from one side to the other in terms of education, discrimination, access, and equality. It is so important that we all are aware of the rights we hold as humans who are Deaf. That itself is a given; nobody would argue otherwise with us. Yet, we allow ourselves to put up with everyday disempowerment, especially for small, seemingly innocent situations. In order to reduce this, we need to first understand what disempowerment is.

Everyday Acts of Disempowerment
The word disempowerment has quite a simple definition for such a powerful concept: to take away power. When we think of disempowerment, we usually think of things like not being provided interpreting services, watching films or TV without captions, being told not to sign, having our lives decided or even dictated by people with no knowledge of ASL or Deaf culture, or seeing hearing actors in roles portraying Deaf people. Yet there are smaller, everyday acts that hold just as much capacity, if not more, to disempower us.

How many times have you logged onto Facebook or Twitter only to find that your (hearing) friends, parents, relatives or even spouses have posted videos that aren’t captioned? Then when you ask them for a transcript, they say, “Oh, darn, I never thought about that,” yet they do it time after time. Another example is when hearing parents speak about their deaf children in front of the children, yet the children don’t realize the conversation is about them.

Countless examples of everyday disempowerment happen in the workplace, of course. Meetings that aren’t interpreted, water cooler conversations where the Deaf person can’t participate, the annoyance factor (when a boss rolls his eyes at a request for an interpreter), being underestimated because you’re Deaf, the office dialogue that takes place over cubicle walls as you’re sitting at your station working; the list goes on and on. Sure, there are accommodations, but it’s just not the same as direct communication access.

How about if you’re writing down something at a fast-food restaurant or even a store—perhaps your order or a question—and the employee, as you’re writing, starts working with another customer? This tells not just you, but also other people, that you’re not worth the wait. Maybe you’re talking with someone who knows that signing and speaking at the same time is combining two separate languages, making it difficult for you to easily access this information. Yet you know if you ask that person to turn off his/her voice or remove his/her speech privilege, that person might be offended. So you end up simply saying nothing as you struggle.

These are minor acts of disempowerment that we’ve become so accustomed to, and we usually don’t do much about them because it’s just not worth the battle. The cycle then continues, because by just accepting these incidents, we are in essence telling the other people that they can continue doing this, even though it’s really not okay.

Disempowerment Through ASL
Teaching ASL is another example of everyday disempowerment that many have come to accept as the status quo. There are thousands of ASL teachers in the nation. How many are deaf? No real statistics exist on this yet. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of certified Baby Sign Language instructors. How many are deaf? A very small percentage. Just go to the bookstore and take a look at all the baby signs books, or look up local baby sign language classes; the majority is taught by hearing people who aren’t necessarily fluent in ASL.

Are all the Deaf Studies and ASL programs in the nation run by Deaf people? No. How about agencies serving Deaf people, state commissions for Deaf people, and organizations focusing on things like baby signs? Are there more Deaf administrators than hearing in these positions? Probably not. How many deaf-run interpreting agencies can you name off the top of your head? What’s wrong with this picture?

A common response to why a deaf person isn’t at the helm of a program or agency working with deaf and hard of hearing people is, “We advertised the position and couldn’t find anyone qualified.” That certainly could be the case. Still, such situations have ripple effects: deaf people aren’t hired, and those outside of the deaf community, in turn, continue to have beliefs and perceptions shaped by hearing people. These hearing people then believe they can educate others about us, rather than bringing in appropriate Deaf community representatives.

If no qualified deaf person applies for a position, there needs to be a short-term and long-term remedy. One possible solution is to keep the position open for as long as possible until someone who is qualified and deaf is hired. Another potential solution is to have an interim director in place, hire someone who is definitely capable of doing the job, and train that person until she or he is ready to take the helm. Is that costly and cumbersome? Perhaps. Cost-beneficial and cost-effective in the long run? Absolutely.

Interpreters: An Imbalance
Interpreters have always been, and likely will always be, a great source of disempowerment. One challenge for many Deaf consumers is at medical appointments, when interpreters go into the hallway whenever the nurse or doctor leaves, instead of staying in the room with the Deaf patient. From an interpreter’s perspective, this is necessary given the many opportunities for ethical dilemmas. For instance, if the Deaf patient says something to the interpreter that is medically relevant, but doesn’t share this information with the doctor, is the interpreter bound to tell the doctor? Yet, is it really fair to keep the patient isolated in a room where there’s no visual access to all the sounds and conversations that a hearing patient could overhear? Many Deaf people say no.

Anita Buel, a Deaf community health worker (DCHW) in Minnesota, has an ongoing frustration. CHWs are certified, trained advocates who accompany patients in their own communities (in this case, the Deaf community) and provide advocacy, information, and clarification for patients who may feel overwhelmed by medical jargon, procedures, and the overall health system. DCHWs, however, are not certified deaf interpreters (CDI); they have as much of a need for interpreters as the Deaf patients. Buel says she gets frustrated when she knows interpreters are in the hallway waiting, and then they come into the room already deep in conversation with the doctor or nurse. This, to her, shows that if the patient already is at a disadvantage, because oftentimes interpreters build relationships with medical professionals and therefore aren’t always perceived as neutral parties. Interpreters, by doing this, also have a rapport established with the medical staff that patients often struggle to establish because of the three-way communication.

An Imbalance in Knowledge
Many people, both deaf and hearing, have appropriately lauded the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) for increasing its standards and professionalism among interpreters within the past few years. Yet there is one act of disempowerment throughout this progress that has been deeply, and easily, overlooked: the knowledge imbalance, which creates a major disadvantage for Deaf people.

The RID requires its interpreters to have bachelor’s degrees, among other criteria; this is a fantastic requirement because it ensures that interpreters are educated. Interpreters, to receive certification, must also have the necessary (even if minimal) training in all the aspects involved with interpreters. Yet, this creates a major imbalance in knowledge, and power. Think about it: do Deaf people have the same access to education as interpreters? No. Are Deaf individuals generally trained to work with interpreters, on advocating for interpreter quality, and on how the interpreting process ideally works? No, absolutely not. Deaf people have had to constantly educate each other on a grassroots level on how to deal with interpreting dilemmas.

Is there any training provided to Deaf people in elementary school through adulthood on how to work with interpreters in various settings, or on self-advocacy? Unfortunately, the answer is no once again. There is a deaf self-advocacy training curriculum available through the National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers, but even this curriculum is limited in its contents and availability. On the flip side, sometimes Deaf people aren’t fully educated on the interpreter’s role. Those individuals might mistakenly claim interpreters are oppressive or not doing their jobs, when in reality they are doing exactly what their jobs require.

Keep in mind that most interpreters receive years of formal, professional training in everything from ASL to ethics to business practices. Interpreters are also tested on their knowledge and skills, and then maybe certified. Interpreters are given the knowledge that Deaf people so greatly need and deserve. When Deaf people do not receive this same knowledge, this has deep-seated repercussions.

Whether we like to admit it or not, interpreters have an incredible amount of jurisdiction over our access to people, interviews, medical appointments, education, phone calls, and pretty much everything else. This isn’t necessarily bad, as long as they use this power appropriately and without malice. But this so-called jurisdiction can create even further potential for conflict and division. On top of that, this power imbalance can become magnified in small towns where interpreters might, by default, rule the roost because everyone knows everyone. This has happened time after time, where Deaf people lose jobs, are rejected for jobs, are perceived as unintelligent, and so much more all because they had conflicts with interpreters.

Understand, Analyze, and Act
The NAD has fought for equality among Deaf people for more than a century, and has produced some of the most remarkable leaders in American history. Yet each and every leader within the NAD, both at the state and national level, is guaranteed to have at least three stories of disempowerment running the gamut of minor to major incidents.

In addition to educating ourselves, we need to learn how to come together to prevent or reduce disempowerment in any form or shape. It’s crucial that we recognize that disempowerment doesn’t always happen on purpose; it’s often by accident. Even so, that doesn’t mean it’s okay. As renowned vlogger and blogger Franchesca “Chescaleigh” Ramsey says, “It’s not about intent. It’s about impact.”

What can we do, as Deaf people, to help lessen disempowerment ranging from simple acts to in- depth, intentional acts? First, we must understand what disempowerment is, how it affects us, and why it affects us. Even the seemingly small acts of disempowerment that we’ve become so accustomed, almost immune to, have major impact on our everyday lives as Deaf people. It is crucial that we, as Deaf people, become fully educated on acts of disempowerment, the interpreting process, on our roles, on our legal rights, and on how to deal with conflict or oppression. This kind of education should start at the earliest stages of our lives as Deaf people, so that we go throughout life knowing what we’re supposed to do. This would help lessen so much of the disempowerment that takes place. It would also help reduce the ingrained frustration that often comes from encountering such disempowerment, because we would have the tools to take the next steps. We must also be careful to remember that if a deaf person expresses frustration, it doesn’t necessarily mean she or he is angry, divisive or separatist. Rather, take a look at the situation, and figure out how all parties have contributed to the situation.

By understanding the gravity of each situation, small or large, we can then come to analyze the steps leading up to that situation and what we can do next. By understanding all the parties involved and their perceptions, and by figuring out what resources we have, we can then determine steps of action. Finally, we can then act on the disempowerment through appropriate steps. We must always strive for access to the same education as our hearing allies (interpreters, parents, friends, and other supporters). By working to minimize disempowerment, we can then have access to equality, to communication, and most importantly, to being human.

The original disempowerment article can be found here.

Copyrighted material. This article can not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the express written consent of the author.

Filed Under: Business, Community resources, Culture, Deaf Community, Deaf education, Deaf-Owned Businesses, Disempowerment, History, Humanity, Interpreting, Language, Media, Politics, RID, Stereotypes

Giving Credit Where It Wasn’t Due

March 25, 2016

Video description: Trudy, a white woman with shoulder-length brown hair, is wearing a deep royal blue sweater. She is seated in the corner with brown bookshelves on her right and a sea blue wall on her left.

I was the keynote speaker at a world languages ceremony at a public high school last year, and I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to highlight American Sign Language (ASL) as a bona fide language along with its history of being oppressed. I sent my speech in advance to the interpreters, and arrived early to ensure that I could establish a rapport with them, since they would be controlling my voice and how I would be perceived by hundreds of hearing parents and students in attendance—many of who had never seen or met a deaf person before. I had shared my reservations about the interpreters’ ability to voice for me with the sign language coordinator, but I wanted to believe they would do just fine.

As I sat through the first part of the ceremony, I was reminded of my years as a mainstreamed student: rather than integrating me into the activities, they were providing me with minimal access — and therefore I was isolated just as I had been in school. One of the interpreters sat at the very far left of the stage, even though I was seated near center right in the front row in a reserved seat. It was very difficult to see her in the dimmed lighting. I discreetly asked her to move closer to me, but she couldn’t understand me. After repeating myself twice, she responded that she wouldn’t move because she was fine where she was. I decided to let it go, since I was more focused on my presentation.

Once I got onstage, I began to sign, only to realize that the interpreter was immediately faltering. The other interpreter wasn’t involved at all, not even in a supporting role. Fortunately, the hearing (and fluent) ASL teacher Ms. Doe, who had invited me to the ceremony, was standing next to the interpreter. I quickly asked her to take over the voicing, so she did, and the speech went well in spite of this initial stumble.

At the end of the ceremony, the director of the ESL, World Languages, Bilingual Education and Performing Arts department came onstage to give closing remarks. As the interpreter signed, I did a double take, but decided to hold any reaction until I could confirm what had actually been said. I emailed that director later on to request a copy of her comments. As I read the copy a few weeks later, I realized with a sick feeling that I hadn’t misunderstood, nor had the interpreter misinterpreted. Below is a direct copy-and-paste from the director’s remarks, which she read from onstage:

Before I start, one thing I need to comment on is the power of Ms. Suggs’ presentation. Aside from teaching us so much about the history of ASL, she and Mrs. Doe performed a very beneficial role reversal for us tonight. So often, as speakers of the dominant language of our culture, we take for granted that we are going to understand everything that is told to us. The broadcast news is geared to us, with the little sign language translation box is in the corner —sometimes. Tonight, most of us were totally dependent on Mrs. Doe for comprehension. That brings about many emotions, maybe even negative emotions. Think about how you felt during that presentation, totally dependent on a translator. Were you bored? Frustrated? Engaged in the challenge of trying to decipher it? What about if Mrs. Doe had not been there to help us? Please remember what you felt tonight when you encounter speakers of other languages, in particular the over 800 students who are currently considered English Language Learners in our [town name deleted] Public Schools family. What you experienced tonight is what they experience every day. I would also like to recognize Mrs. Doe’s extraordinary talents. Simultaneous interpretation is one of the most demanding language tasks, and her interpretation was first-rate.

Her comments spotlighted Ms. Doe and the “helplessness” instead of focusing on the message I shared — which was the incredible history behind signed languages, and their equality to spoken language. Ms. Doe was made the hero of my presentation, instead of focusing on signed languages. To add insult to injury, the two interpreters’ failure to work together or adequately prepare for the presentation was converted into a “challenge of trying to decipher” what I was signing, rather than outright incompetency. And let’s not even talk about the “little sign language translation box in the corner” comment.

To be fair, the way the challenges were framed — “. . .bored? Frustrated” and “negative emotions” — were probably intended to remind people about the importance of respect. Yet these very words seemed to imply that signed language was “boring,” as if I didn’t communicate myself clearly and was difficult to “decipher.” If the interpreters had done their job properly, nobody would be bored, frustrated or negatively responding. Finally, “What if Mrs. Doe had not been there to help us?” is a perfect example of deficit thinking.

Deaf people have always found a way to communicate, and it’s our words that interpreters are voicing, even if haphazardly at times. There is no helplessness involved; there is no dependence involved. Unfortunately, this perception of helplessness remains, even among people who are fully educated on how ASL is a separate language and in no way correlates with helplessness.

How do we address this? I’m not quite sure, because it seems like everything we’ve tried in the past few centuries hasn’t worked. I do know that we must educate people about giving interpreters, or in this case, someone who happened to sign fluently, so much credit. We also must have them start shifting the focus onto the message, rather than the modality or translation process. If only the director had listened to what I said in my presentation: “All this stems from the mistaken notion that one language is superior to another . . . .and one way to combat this is as you continue to study languages, embrace their peoples, history, and cultures, and celebrate all that the language stands for.”

This article can not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the written consent of the author.

Filed Under: Blog, Culture, Deaf Community, Deaf education, History, Humanity, Interpreting, Language, Stereotypes

Speech given at a high school in 2015

April 1, 2015

The following is a speech I gave at a public high school’s world languages ceremony in 2015. Read the article I wrote about this experience.

Language, as we know firsthand, is at the very heart of every civilization, and has been ever since the beginning of humankind. Whether it be gestures or full-blown language, language has endured changes, evolution, abuse and even death, or linguicide — and nowhere is that more evident than in signed languages.

Allow me to back up a bit and give you a bit of background. I am second-generation Deaf, which means my parents are also deaf. My husband is third-generation, so that means our four deaf children are fourth generations — and we have over 50 deaf relatives on both sides of the family in terms of cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents and lots of other relatives I probably don’t want to meet. That translates to a long history of using sign language in our family, dating back to the early 1900s. In essence, we’ve had sign language for over a hundred years. As Deaf people, we recognize the immense value of language, and being able to connect with each other through words, spoken or signed.

Today, American Sign Language, ASL, like many other languages, is recognized on so many levels. It’s one of the fastest-growing languages in the U.S., and is believed to be the third most used language in the U.S. Sounds good, right?

Well, let me give you a bit of history. Although sign language has been around since primitive times, and the earliest recorded drawing of the fingerspelled alphabet dates back to the 1500s, it wasn’t until the 1960s that Dr. William Stokoe, a hearing man who wasn’t very fluent in sign language, did research that proved ASL was a bona fide language, separate from English.

I remember growing up telling people, and even writing in my research papers for school, that ASL was broken English, that it was abbreviated English. I can’t believe I actually said that, because this was during the 1980s and early 1990s. ASL research already existed. Why didn’t anyone tell me otherwise? Why was I never taught that ASL had its own rich vocabulary, syntax and other properties?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because for centuries, sign language has been looked upon as a language for animals, as primitive, as unsavory, and any other host of adjectives. This primarily has to do with the notion that spoken language is superior. This is only natural; anything different from us is considered strange, funny, fascinating, or even beautiful. We all experience xenophobia to different degrees. That’s why learning new languages is so important, so that we can learn about other cultures, other peoples, and each other.

The problem is that signed language is often not considered another language. Rather, people mistakenly believe it’s a basic form of gesturing, and a direct representation of English on the hands. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.

As students of language yourself, you know how challenging grammar in other languages can be. This is equally true for sign language, whether it’s American Sign Language or French Sign Language or any other signed language. As an aside, sign language isn’t universal, if you were wondering.

So, back to why nobody told me ASL was a stand-alone, distinct language from English. . . there is a long history behind this, and it involves Alexander Graham Bell. Yeah, that one. The same guy who invented our telephone, or rather, he was the first to claim the patent. It’s now known that he wasn’t actually the first inventor, but he got the patent first.

Bell was the son of a deaf mother, and is said to have been very fluent in sign language. He later married a deaf woman, who did not sign. Nobody really knows why, but Bell became very adamant that sign language was not the way go. He became a steadfast proponent of banishing sign language from all education. He also believed that deaf people should not marry, and actually was a huge supporter of eugenics, the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization in order to create a superior society. He even served as president of the National Eugenics Society.

Many people find that astonishing, and I do, too. How could someone who signed fluently, had deaf relatives and was such a brilliant man have such warped perspectives? Even if times were different back then, it’s still shocking.

Bell had a pivotal role in something that has had major ripple effects to this day. He was one of 164 delegates to the 1880 International Congress on Education of the Deaf, which was held in Milan, Italy. At this conference, it was voted that sign language would be banned from education in favor of teaching deaf children to speak. Out of the 164 delegates, guess how many were deaf? Only one.

So, as a result of this ban, Deaf teachers and other deaf professionals lost their jobs if they could not speak. Deaf children were raised without access to sign language, often being punished if they even as much moved their fingers, and this lack of access caused great delays in language development, in later-life opportunities and much more. The effects are being felt even today, 135 years later — all because of the notion that spoken language is superior to signed language.

Around the country, and in many other countries, deaf schools — which are not the stereotypical institutions you think of where you “abandon” people with disabilities or mental illnesses; they’re actually beautiful, flourishing places where culture, language and tradition are preserved from generation to generation — are closing down for many reasons, but especially because of the perceived cost. More and more school districts are favoring mainstreaming because they think it saves money, when in reality, it causes a lot more harm for so many children in terms of language access. I’m not saying mainstreaming is bad; it’s not always bad. It worked for me, but I wish I knew back then what I know today.

There is also a massive spoken language — in other words, no signs — movement underway around the nation. More and more doctors are urging parents to shun sign language and to focus on spoken language. Spoken language does work for some, but not for all. What happens is that in 20 years, many of these deaf babies raised without sign language, come to the deaf community with anger, frustration and struggles because they had limited language access. This has happened time after time, and despite the most massive efforts, signed language has persisted.

With my four children — who are ages 7, 6, almost 5 and 3.5 — I saw firsthand just how naturally their language developed. They began babbling in sign language at maybe three months, and then began making words when they were six months old. It didn’t change with each child; each child hit the same language milestones in their first year of life. I have many examples that support how bilingualism is really beneficial.

When my oldest was 17 months old, she told me about a dream she had about a wolf inside a pumpkin. I was astounded, because that was from a children’s book we had read a few days before. For her to be able to describe such an abstract concept — dreams — and be so detailed in what it was about was just mind-blowing. Yet, because she was not yet fluent in English at that age, she would have been incorrectly perceived as language-delayed. Today, she’s seven and reading and writing at two grades above level. My other children are the same; all are above grade level for language in both ASL and English. This is no surprise for those who are familiar with bilingualism with any two languages; bilingualism has consistently shown to help young children acquire languages and get ahead in many areas.

With the proliferation of sign language classes and programs around the country, it’s sadly ironic that more and more deaf people — specifically children — are being denied access to sign language, which is their natural language. All this stems from the mistaken notion that one language is superior to another. Signed languages are not the only victims of this, though. This is also happening with many other languages in the United States, all because of the belief that English should be the only language.

And this, my friends, is exactly why language access is so crucial for any child, deaf or hearing. Unfortunately, because being deaf is still looked upon as a disability instead of a linguistic minority or cultural minority, millions of children around the world are being denied sign language. We must cease the belief that any one language is superior to another, like English being superior to Spanish.

So, what does this have to do with you? Why should you care? The answer is simple. You are given the privilege of choosing to study one language, any language and making yourself bilingual or even multilingual. And you can do this using your natural language. This same privilege needs to be given to deaf children, just like I was given that privilege. There are many ways you can do this as a world language student.

Say you’re learning Italian or French, and you go to Italy or France and run into a deaf child. What would you do? Or maybe you have a deaf child yourself someday. How would you respond? May I suggest that as you study your language of choice, you also learn the sign language of that country? Learn about sign language, learn about the glorious culture of Deaf people not only in America, but in other countries as well, and help promote the fact that signed language is as important as your language of choice. By ensuring that signed language persists despite blatant modern-day efforts to abolish it and misconceptions, you are helping bring language access to every deaf person out there. Linguicide is not acceptable for any language, and one way to combat this is as you continue to study languages, embrace their peoples, histories and cultures, and celebrate all that the language stands for.

Thank you for allowing me to share the importance of preserving any and all languages without oppression or notions of superiority. Congratulations on this wonderful journey you have embarked on into world language learning.

This presentation can not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the written consent of the author.

Filed Under: Culture, Deaf Community, History, Humanity, Language, Politics, Stereotypes

Remembering Chuck Baird (1947-2012)

February 22, 2015

I first met Chuck Baird when I was 10. My parents took me to see King of Hearts, a magnificent production by the National Theatre of the Deaf. To this day, it’s the only theatrical production I ever really enjoyed. After the show, Chuck came out to mingle with the audience. I remember him as being gregarious; he didn’t talk down to me, and I walked away in awe of his sincerity.

Fifteen years later, I went with friends to the annual International Center on Deafness festival in Chicago. By then, I had become aware of Chuck’s notoriety as an artist, and was a bit star-struck when a friend introduced us. I told him of how we met nearly two decades before. He told me later that it was at that moment that he knew that we were meant to be soul friends.

Today, 30 years after I first met Chuck and three years after his passing, I think about him often. We became extremely close in the years after our second meeting, and I came to know him not as Chuck the deaf artist, but as someone who constantly found himself at odds with his own world views, beliefs, and values. He and I were kindred spirits, and he helped bring me out of a dark time. I took to calling him my heart savior, because he helped heal my heart with his wisdom and belief in me.

We saw each other frequently, usually at deaf events, and we were inseparable when together. We met up in Kentucky, California, Missouri, New York, Louisiana, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and so many other places. He was fiercely loyal to me as I was to him, and showed that in so many ways when we visited.

As I became busier, having four children in four years, and as he relocated to Austin, Texas, we didn’t talk as often. Still, we continued to meet up from time to time. A month after I had my first child, Chuck made a detour from a stay in South Dakota to see me during the 2008 Clerc Classic tournament in Minnesota. As always, it was like no time had gone by. We talked nonstop, and I remember him looking at my daughter in awe, a child who was an extension of me.

Chuck was truly a Renaissance man. He was also the perfect example of a starving, temperamental artist — always on the hunt for the next paycheck, the next place to live. That sometimes was frustrating for me, because I knew intimately his amazing talents and his mind-blowing brilliance. He was and is revered as an artist, yet he never made the money he deserved. We spent hours talking about this, along with our life experiences, Deaf history, philosophy, God, friends, books, and everything else under the sun. He gave me so many beautiful things: a book about covered bridges, a leather journal, his artwork, jewelry like a necklace with shapes resembling the ASL sign for “communicate,” and best of all, his time.

When Chuck told me he had cancer, I was heartbroken. I felt helpless because I was so far away, and pregnant yet again. As his time came closer, we became more spiritually connected, even though we didn’t talk often. He and I agreed that he would mail me all of my letters back to me, so I could read the many handwritten letters we had exchanged. I read each letter and cried and laughed at how raw and honest we had been with each other. I then destroyed them, as Chuck and I had agreed.

Chuck, or CCB as I always called him, became increasingly religious as he neared the end. He told me about how one night during of his many visits to the hospital, he was in bed praying. He said he began singing, imagining angels around him as he sang. “I didn’t care if anyone heard me or my deaf voice at the time. I just sang, and felt so incredibly connected to God,” he said. The radiance from his face as he told me this story gave me chills.

The last time I saw him was exactly a month before he died. We chatted for two hours via video as he ate soup and fiddled with the baseball cap he had on. Even though I had seen him a few times, it was still always a shock to see how thin he had gotten. I experienced so much joy that night, even as bittersweet as it was. I somehow knew this would be our last face-to-face conversation, but didn’t dare say it.

An e-mail he sent me immediately after our conversation contained his last words to me: “I loved and enjoyed our chat tonight. Love you in peace thru Christ, my true friend. ccb.”

I was among the first to learn of his death on the morning of February 10, 2012. I had slept fitfully all night, knowing he was going to leave us any minute. I sat up in bed, numbed by the text message I had just read. I knew a great spirit had left us, one who was often underappreciated yet was incredibly beloved. A mutual close friend warned me that people would come out of the woodwork once he passed away, and he was right. So many articles, posts and emails were shared about his “greatness” — mostly in reference to his acting and art. All I kept wanting to say was, “But you don’t know how he was so much more than his art. He was a tormented soul who found joy in the littlest things and had so much love for the mind, the soul and God.” It’s taken me this long to even feel comfortable talking about how extraordinary Chuck was.

Chuck Baird with Trudy SuggsWhen I think of Chuck, I remember how he had the chubbiest fingers and how I took pleasure in watching them create masterfully crafted words and art. I think of how we squabbled often, but always quickly soothing the other. I think of how I scolded him for being so tactless — he once said, when I showed him a picture right after the birth of my second child, “Oh my gosh, you look fat!” I think about how he got annoyed with me for being bossy, especially when I lectured him about his weight; our annoyances certainly went both ways. I think about how he had such a passionate spirit. I think about how shockingly salt-and-pepper his hair was and how his beard became the same. I think about how we always laughed at the littlest things.

Mostly, I think about how Chuck showed me what a deep, true friendship is: full of ups and downs, exasperation, delight, wonder, and love all coming together to create a marvelous connection. He was, and is, my heart savior — something that I can never repay him for.

Happy birthday, CCB.

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Filed Under: Culture, De'VIA, Deaf Community, History, Notable People

Preserving Deaf History in Wax: Don Baer

December 18, 2013

screenshot of Deafwax.comAs I entered the small exhibition area, I  jumped in fright. To my right, there was a person blankly staring at me. Don Baer laughed as I did a double take; I realized (slowly) that it was actually a wax figure of William “Dummy” Hoy that Don had created. The first thing I thought after I looked at the wax figure, “Wow, Hoy was really short.” Even though I had known Hoy was only 5’4”, I was amazed at how much taller I was than him. What was even more remarkable was how I felt as if I could reach out and start signing to Hoy right there and then. That was, and is, the best aspect of Don’s work in creating realistic wax figures: he helped bring Deaf history alive.

When I was Silent News editor in chief, the first public event I attended was the 2000 Deaf Expo in Long Beach, Calif. Everyone there told me I had to see Don’s wax exhibition at the exposition. As I introduced myself to Don, who was also small in stature, he lit up and named a few mutual friends. His wonderful passion set the tone for the tour, and we chatted endlessly as he guided me through the packed exhibition area. I gawked at how realistic the wax figures were, and marveled at Hoy, Juliette Gordon Low, Thomas Gallaudet, Alice Cogswell, and Laurent Clerc. Seeing the figures made my cherished heritage come alive for me. It was obvious from looking at Don’s face, as people continuously marveled at the authentic-looking figures, that their awe was the best part of his hard work.

In a June 2001 Silent News article by Glenn Lockhart, Baer said renowned sculptor Douglas Tilden heavily influenced his work. The article also reported that each sculpture’s process averaged three months of work and over $1,000 on average:

A clay sculpture that serves as a frame for the head is done following dimensions gleaned from the photographs, then a plaster mold is made from it. After the mold has set, it is then emptied of clay and filled with hot wax. After adding glass eyes and hair, some refinement sculpting brings sharp definition to the facial features and a coat of oil glazes the wax, giving it that realistic sheen. A trip to thrift stores to costume the waxen beings is the final touch.

When I learned last week that Don had passed away on Dec. 10 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — also known as Lou Gehring’s disease —  I was, of course, saddened. I have no idea if he would have remembered our visit, but the work he took on left a lasting impact on many people, including me. I hope his work continues to bring history alive for future generations.

Don’s work can be viewed at www.deafwax.com (link is no longer active). 

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Filed Under: Culture, Deaf-Owned Businesses, History, Notable People, Silent News

Where Have They All Gone?

January 23, 2003

This originally appeared at NAD’s Members-Only website area at www.nad.org.

Recently, I was preparing a press release for one of my clients who owns a deaf-run business. As the client and I were talking about where to send the press release, I suddenly had a startling realization.

There weren’t any deaf newspapers I could send the press release to.

I started ticking deaf publications off in my head. Silent News is apparently kaput. Newswaves – gone. Deaf USA is a trade publication now distributed by CSD. DeafNation quickly folded – temporarily, it said – in April 2000, and they show no sign of returning anytime soon. DeafCanadaToday closed down some time ago. The rest are either newsletters or organizational publications (i.e., NADmag), or feature magazines (i.e. Hearing Health – which, incidentally, has been sold to Deafness Research Foundation).

Deaf people suddenly have very sparse resources for them to share news, opinions and information within the deaf community. Where can we find in-depth coverage of sports? What about deaf events? Where will we find profiles of not only prominent deaf leaders, but of also ordinary deaf people?

The past five years haven’t been too kind to newspapers within the deaf community. What is happening? Why are they all disappearing?

I say it’s because of The Big Three affecting any publication in the mainstream, and especially affecting deaf-oriented publications: Money, mismanagement, and the Internet.

It’s all about $Moola$
Money is probably the biggest factor. Ever since I left Silent News in late January of 2002, I’ve been asked the same question by practically every person who asks me about the decline of newspapers in the deaf community: “Why don’t you set up your own newspaper?”

My response is always the same: “You got the money for me?” I haven’t gotten a “yes” yet.

People don’t quite realize how expensive it is to run a monthly, even quarterly, publication. For one thing, printing costs have skyrocketed – not only for small community newspapers like Silent News, but for major publications and university materials, too.

And then there’s overhead costs… staffing costs… and the costs of the lifeblood of any publication: the photographers, illustrators and writers. Usually advertising and subscriber rates cover these costs, but declining subscription numbers – a problem for almost all publications today – and struggles with getting advertisers to pay up or place ads have not helped.

Advertising is a Catch-22 situation: Companies or people like to advertise, but don’t always want to pay for it, so they often resort to advertising via e-mail or via websites. Using e-mail or websites is a much cheaper, sometimes free, method than paying for printed advertisements. This, obviously, hurts publications that rely upon advertisement income. Another frustration is when companies try to negotiate a barter ad, where they get free ad space in exchange for listing the publication’s name as a sponsor. The publication makes absolutely no money this way, and the free publicity usually isn’t very beneficial.

I’ve also had many people say, “Well, how expensive could it be to start up a newspaper? I’d be willing to do work for free, and I know many others would, too.” Sure, of course – but for how long? I actually started writing for a deaf newspaper for free many years ago – but it seemed unfair when the newspaper started making money off my work and didn’t pay me.

Keep in mind that many of these start-up businesses – much like the dot.com craze – flop after a few years. The Small Business Administration says the majority of small businesses fail eventually, and 50% of them fail within the first year. Why should start-up businesses within the deaf community be any different?

I’ve seen the same delusions of grandeur with many other individuals, mostly inexperienced, who want to start their own business within the deaf community.

Mind you, I’m all for dreams and visions. But I’m also interested in solid, actual business plans and numbers. We’ve seen publication after publication close down because of money. You gotta have money to make money, and you gotta know how to handle money.

This brings me to the second reason: mismanagement.

“I’m The Boss, That’s Why!”
The key to any successful organization is its leader. With a bad leader, you’re going to have chaos waiting to erupt. I can safely say that many of the leaders at the newspapers I worked at had minimal business experience, and a lack of understanding about how important the writers were. The successful publishers and editors are the ones who believe that reliable writers are the heart and soul of their publication.

In my 16 years of working for publications within the deaf community, I’ve seen one constant: a lack of appreciation for writers and contributors. Writers are often expected to write for free – something that would rarely happen with mainstream publications. I once was approached by an online publication that asked me to become the editor for little pay. I immediately asked, “How will you pay the writers?” Their response was, “I don’t understand. Why would the writers be paid at first? They should prove their work to us before we pay them.”

I quickly declined their offer.

Publishers must understand that even if operations and staffing costs are running them into the ground – which wouldn’t ideally happen if they were well-prepared and well-budgeted – they must get rid of their expectations that people will write for free. With no writers, they have no stories. With no stories, they have no subscribers. It’s really quite that simple.

Websites and the Dreaded Forward Syndrome
The third reason is the Internet – which is both a blessing and a curse for the publication world. The Internet is wonderful for finding information and contacting people. USA-L was a valuable tool I utilized more often than not when I was editor over at Silent News. Yet, at the same time, publications have been stunted by the immediate nature of news appearing on websites – especially deaf newspapers.

When the Gallaudet murders happened, the whole world knew about it within 24 hours. When, a month later, Silent News published an in-depth story, the murders were pretty much old news. Yet, for many other stories (like the Errol Shaw shooting in Detroit), we were able to provide in-depth information that weren’t available on many of the sites, thanks to exclusive interviews and information gathering.

Publications have addressed this by providing an online version of their printed newspaper or magazine – but what if you’re a small deaf newspaper with limited funds? Then you’re probably going to be affected by the Internet.

There are also so many websites that try to be a site for “deaf news,” when in reality they’re a compilation of all the news articles about deaf and hard of hearing people that appear in the world’s newspapers and magazines. Search engines and newsgroups easily do this. Where are the original, in-depth stories, written by deaf people and published by deaf people?

Let’s also not forget the annoying Forwarding Syndrome within the deaf community. Anyone can type up an e-mail containing jokes or actual news, and forward it to someone, who will then pass this along to about twenty other people, and these twenty people forward it to forty others.

With this Forwarding Syndrome in place, who needs newspapers anymore?

Subscribers Are the Backbone
One thing bothered me when I was deluged with e-mail after word of yet another deaf newspaper’s demise got out: Why didn’t these subscribers take matters into their own hands, rather than complaining about losing their respect for deaf publications? Why didn’t they demand an answer from the publisher of the newspaper, rather than leaving the paper’s fate to rumors of a buyout? At least three of the now-defunct deaf newspapers did not even have the respect to at least send out a letter of explanation to their subscribers and advertisers or post a message on their websites. If I were a subscriber or advertiser treated this way, I’d be hopping mad and trying to find out answers, fast.

The subscribers could’ve easily filed a class lawsuit to get their money back, filed reports with the Better Business Bureau or filed complaints with the state’s consumer affairs division. Why didn’t they? I’m not sure. Perhaps they expected someone else to take care of matters; perhaps they simply didn’t know their rights as consumers; or they just didn’t think the subscription fee was worth the trouble.

So what do we do? Do we set up yet another newspaper? Hope that some benevolent corporation will save the newspaper? Resort to reading these canned-news websites that cannot offer experienced and qualified editors? Put faith in one of the many new magazines popping up?

Quite frankly, I don’t know.

All I know is that I used to have three deaf-oriented newspapers coming to my house each month. Today, I don’t have even one to look forward to anymore.

Copyrighted material. This article can not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the express written consent of the author.

Filed Under: Community resources, Culture, Deaf Community, DeafNation Newspaper, History, Language, Media, Silent News

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