As proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, today is the International Day of Sign Languages.
We spoke to Lecturer of Communication Disorders, Eric Cardenas via a phone interpreter. He tells us about the importance of celebrating this day.
“Definitely because it’s very important. Deaf awareness week, we spread the knowledge, we spread the word that there are deaf people out there and its okay to be deaf or hard of hearing.”
According to the UN this day stands “In order to raise awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realization of the human rights of people who are deaf.”
Biology Freshman Jennifer Crossman tells us why she thinks sign language is important.
“I think it’s very important for everyone to make the effort to learn sign language, because we can learn how to communicate with them, but they can’t learn to communicate with us. Like, only we can make the effort to like, eliminate the barrier.”
Cardenas said he is excited to see the community grow and awareness be spread.
“Oh yes, we are hoping that in the future that parts of Mexico, they are our neighbor, and because they have their own sign language. We would like to bring some people from Mexico to show their type of sign language here in the US.”
Story by Samantha Garza
