By Raena Hunter Doty Arts & Features Editor Rosa Guzman, a Puerto Rican Deaf social worker, spoke about her life experiences in a presentation Sept. 24 in the Dwight Performing Arts Center at an event put on by the Center for Inclusive Excellence, American Sign Language (ASL) Department, and the ASL club. Everyone who spoke during the presentation spoke exclusively in ASL. Interpreters were available over Zoom to make the presentation accessible in English. The event happened during Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 and Deaf Awareness Month in September. Bruce Bucci, professor of ASL, said he wanted the audience to learn some soft skills during Guzman’s presentation. “Soft skills are not related to content,” he said. “They’re more related to perseverance, resilience. “The skills and the traits that she’s going to talk about - I hope you will internalize them and bring them with you in your future,” Bucci added. Meriam Bouttisant, junior ASL major with a concentration in Deaf studies, explained the international sign language flag that had been put on display at the front of the room. She said the flag, invented by a Deafblind person, was created to represent international sign languages that includes people who use Sign but aren’t Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Bouttisant said the light blue in the flag represents sign language, yellow represents hope, and dark blue represents Deafness. Guzman said she was invited to speak at FSU after she was approached by Bucci at her K12 alma mater and current workplace, the Willie Ross School for the Deaf. She said she loves educating about Deaf culture and policy, so she agreed to present here for Deaf Awareness and Hispanic Heritage Month. She said her motto has always been “Turn your ambition into action,” and she doesn’t like sitting idly. “I don’t just talk the talk, I walk the walk,” she said, and added she is always working toward a goal until she achieves what she wants to do, at which point she finds a new goal. Guzman said discrimination against Deaf people is common. She added, “I hope my experience overcoming discrimination and obstacles will also help you and inspire you. “Being Deaf should not be the reason to limit you or prevent you from reaching your goals,” Guzman added. She said she was born to hearing Puerto Rican immigrant parents who moved to Massachusetts because they wanted the economic opportunities available to their family. She added when she hadn’t developed speech by age 2, her grandmother began to worry, and only then was she diagnosed as deaf. Guzman said this was very difficult for her parents, who had limited connections in the area and no understanding of Deaf culture, but her doctor recommended they place her in the Willie Ross School for the Deaf, and she started school at the age of 3. She said her mother began to take evening classes to learn ASL, but her father couldn’t do that because he worked the graveyard shift for many years. Guzman said growing up Deaf caused her to face many forms of discrimination, and because it was such a constant part of her life, “it was just normal.” She added this discrimination motivated her further and shaped the person she is today. Guzman said she graduated high school two years later than most people and this lowered her self esteem, but looking back on it, she thinks this makes sense given how many Deaf people - like her - face language deprivation in their youth. “We’re playing catch-up,” she said, describing this experience. She added it doesn’t matter if Deaf students graduate late. “What matters is I’m receiving the education that I need to meet my goals - and I wanted to go to college, I wanted to live a good life, I wanted to be financially stable,” she said. Guzman added she wanted to go to Smith College for their social work program, and one of her interpreters in high school discouraged her from going - but this only ended up motivating her more. “I’m thankful for that person who didn’t believe in me,” she said. She said she didn’t go to Smith College right away and did a program at Holyoke Community College first, and she was further challenged because she got pregnant right before her first year. Guzman said her parents doubted she would be able to handle college and raise a child at the same time, but she did manage it - though she took three years to graduate instead of two. She added her hearing sister, who’s a year older than her, entered college and had a child at about the same time as her, and despite the fact that Guzman faced more barriers in her life and schooling because she’s Deaf, both she and her sister graduated at the same time. Guzman said she finished her bachelor’s degree at Western New England University and then eventually went to Smith College for a master’s program in social work. Guzman added her mother was very proud when she completed her undergraduate degree - where she was on both the dean’s list and president’s list - but she “didn’t have much to say otherwise.” She said at Smith College, she had to deal with a professor who reported to the disability services office that she didn’t belong in the graduate program because she was struggling in one class and requested tutoring, even though the tutors were available to all students. Guzman said she had to face a panel of administrators at the school who judged her qualifications for staying in the program, and the only person on the panel who seemed to think they didn’t need to scrutinize her place in the program was a Black woman. She added when that professor who reported her for underperforming congratulated her at graduation, she walked away from him without saying anything. “Sometimes silence is the best answer,” she said. Guzman said after she received her graduate degree, she spent time experiencing as many different things as she could, including skydiving, completing a Spartan race, running a half marathon, winning Miss Deaf Massachusetts and competing for Miss Deaf America, and competing in high-level amateur fitness divisions. She added none of these were paying jobs, so she had to work - and take care of her daughter and eventually her son - throughout this time. Guzman said today, she’s working on starting a therapy practice, because she believes it can be hard for Deaf patients to connect with hearing therapists, and said the two times she’s tried to go to a hearing therapist, it was awkward. She said she needed to have an interpreter and she “didn’t like that third party being there because it was a waste of time and it wasn’t intimate. There was no connection.” Guzman said Deaf people are more likely to experience trauma and discrimination, and often this is at the hands of hearing people, so it could be challenging to have a hearing therapist. “I want [a therapist] who culturally understands my experience of oppression growing up. A hearing person has power and privilege,” she said. Guzman said she twice failed the test for licensure to become a therapist, in part due to the fact that the written English test isn’t in her first language, and this can create difficulty understanding the exact meaning of the test. But, she added, she passed the test on her third try in January, and now she’s trying to find the right space to open up a practice that will serve Deaf clients. “Hearing clients have more access, choices for what’s out there,” she said. “Deaf people are barely getting by with what’s out there because it’s not accessible.”
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