My Experience at Gallaudet
By Madan Vasishta
I arrived at Gallaudet on September 14, 1967. I was two weeks late and missed the orientation. I was tired after two days of airplanes and layovers. The cab driver dropped me off at College Hall where about 30 students were milling around signing very fast. I stood there with my Air India carry-on bag at my feet. My efforts to get the attention of someone and ask where I should go to get a room or whatever were ignored. All of them were too busy and had no patience to read my slow fingerspelling.
Finally, two pretty girls who were going somewhere stopped near me and looked questioningly at me. I finger spelled W-H-E-R-E and one of the girls took my hand and turned it around to face her. I was fingerspelling toward myself as I had learned from the ABC card someone had given me in India—I was spelling toward myself.
Learning that I did not know signs, the other girl spread fingers of her left hand and touched the tips of her pinky and ring finger with the right index finger and pointed at me. I did not know which finger I was and shrugged my shoulder. They led me toward the stairs and asked a boy to take me inside. The girls were MAP and Dee Kennedy—my first contact at Gallaudet. A belated thank you to MAP and Dee after 53 year for saving my life!
The boy signed slowly for me, but I could not understand, so he wrote on a notebook: “Are you a Prep or a Freshman?” I did not know what prep or freshman meant and did not know which I was. The next day, Dr. Phillips told me I was “the ring finger”—a freshman, so after one night in Fowler Hall, I was moved to Ely.
Learning about American culture and signing (we did not use the term ASL then) was a slow and tedious process. I was always puzzled. Who was coming home for “Home Coming” and who were we thanking on “Thanksgiving”? And I started my new life as a student at age 26. It was a nice feeling, as I had quit school at age 11 when I was in 6thgrade.
It was a great adventure to learn American ways and expressions. They do not play “football” with their feet, but hands. They do not sell garages at garage sales. The toilet is called the restroom. There were many more to learn.
I dressed in a suit and a tie for classes and was shocked to see kids wearing shorts. Students smoking in front of teachers was another surprise. In India, a professor is a highly respected position. But, here, they were like friends.
Long story short, the first few months were very frustrating and also fun. There were 11 foreign students including me. We all became friends and hung around together during the first year as we had common problems and concerns, but we got assimilated soon and made our own American friends.
While I learned a lot in the classroom, the actual learning happened outside of it. American deaf people were not afraid of signing in public and they were not embarrassed about their deafness. I learned about leadership by participating in various organizations. The next six years were pure fun while I picked up my two degrees. All these prepared me for the world and a great career. Just like all of you, those years were the best years of my life.