A Few Good Reasons to Learn Sign Language

Infographics function much like body language, sharing ideas across languages and cultures. My work uses charts to communicate urgency, frivolousness, or humor. In this case, I wanted to explore the human reasoning for learning signed languages rather than spoken. I am conscious of how my identity is political, so I further politicized my relationship with people in my life by making these drawings.

I’ve seen how much attention sign language has attracted in the past ten years: Deaf roles in movies, demand for sign language classes in schools, and visible press conference interpreters. I am feeling somewhat optimistic that people are growing less anti–sign language and are seeing that Deaf identity is one huge, beautiful spectrum. I hope we’re going in a direction where more of us will tell our own stories without being filtered through a hearing lens.