Do Deaf people hate ASL students? Let's talk about it.

Vlog | Destiny Yarbro | August 6, 2025 | 8 min watch

Good morning! So, today I was thinking about how I'll often have someone come up to me and say, "Why do Deaf people hate ASL students?" Hate? Well, actually, sometimes, yes, it seems like that. And so, I thought maybe you and I could discuss more in depth why this might be the case.

0:21 When a Deaf Person Doesn't Want to Chat

So, maybe you've experienced this before: You're an ASL student. You've been learning sign. You're so excited. You want to meet Deaf people, and you happen to go into a restaurant one day, and you spot them. Deaf people! Maybe it's a group of them or a couple that are sitting there just talking together, and you think, "Okay, this is it." You're nervous. You start to feel nauseous. You're like, "I've been practicing my ASL up until this point. I've never talked with a Deaf person before." Uh, okay. I'm ready. I'm going to take the opportunity. I'm going to go talk with them. So, first of all, let me just say, you impress me. You surprise me. Like, honestly, to have that bravery inside of you to go and meet a Deaf person out of the blue? Kudos.

But maybe what happens is you go and meet that person and that Deaf person does NOT want to talk with you. Maybe the couple don't want to talk with you. Maybe it's a whole group of Deaf people that are just like, "Um, 'kay, scoot along. Get along little ASL student." And you just really feel disheartened, right? Maybe you just walk off and there might be a lot of reasons why this happens, but maybe you just feel like, "I don't want to talk with Deaf people anymore. I prefer talking with ASL students." And believe me, I totally understand that perspective. But let me just see if I can switch your perspective just a little.

1:42 Deaf People Have All Kinds of Personalities 

So, just so you know, Deaf people come in all varieties. Just like hearing people, there's friendly hearing people, there's angry hearing people, there's some hearing people who are just really time-conscious, like hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. "Ain't nobody's got time for that" type of person. You have some people that are very chill. Some hearing people that are very shy, right? It's the same with Deaf people. Some want to converse with others. Some are super shy. Some just seem to be angry all the time. There's just all kinds, right. So that's first. If you think, "They just don't want to talk to me," maybe that's the reason: Personality.

2:28 Private Conversations: It Might Just Be Bad Timing

Right? So second, maybe the two of them are having a private in-depth conversation about something. So maybe they're talking through how to set up and prepare for a funeral. Maybe the two of them are trying to discuss their kids that are struggling with addiction. Maybe, let's see, maybe they're trying to keep their finances and set up a budget. That's a stressful topic. And maybe the two of them are talking about how they want to get married someday. And so, it's a really exciting conversation and they don't want to be distracted by anything else. So, if you think about it, there's a lot of reasons why they might kind of seem standoffish. So maybe it's just bad timing for you to come and meet them, right?

3:15 Too Many "My Name Is" Conversations 

I think it's important to recognize this next one. Third, maybe they have this kind of conversation every day. Maybe they have ASL students that are always coming up to them again and again and again. And the conversation looks something like this: Hello, my...uh...name. Wait. Uh, yeah. Name. Is what? And then they proceed to fingerspell and it takes forever. Maybe they're doing their full name or they're struggling and making mistakes so they keep restarting. So, you know, the Deaf person nods like, okay, this is taking a long time. And it happens over and over and over. So maybe this Deaf person is very friendly, but maybe they reached their quota for the day. They're like, I can't have one more ASL conversation like this: "Hi, how are you? My name is..." one more time, right? I don't want to scare you or to stop you from trying to have conversations with Deaf people. At all. No, no, no. But it's helpful to recognize that maybe if they seem a little off, maybe that's why. Maybe they're just feeling like, "I'm done today. Tomorrow I'd be fine having this conversation, but today I'm done."

4:30 The Irony That Makes Deaf People Seem Distant to ASL Students

Another reason maybe that a Deaf person might seem like they hate an ASL student is that they might actually hate hearing people in general. And this is because of trauma. So, most hearing people don't really recognize how many traumatic experiences a Deaf person has with hearing people. And it starts from when they're a newborn baby, when a doctor tests their hearing and they're like, "Uh, you failed." And it goes through, having people that are always staring at them. They try and struggle for years to learn how to talk, to speak, just to have someone say, "I can't understand you." So, when someone hearing comes up to this person, they might just feel like, ugh. Right? And so it's hard for a hearing person to understand that. It's not every deaf person's experience, right? But it's hard for a hearing person to understand.

Another thing, and I don't remember if this was the fifth point, sixth point, I don't know, but it's important to realize that maybe it's not so much hate, but more like it's just ironic. So think about it this way: They grew up, you know, maybe they grow up where it was forbidden to sign in school. Maybe the doctors had told them over and over, "Don't sign. You'll never learn how to speak." Maybe their parents and their family never learned even one sign, which unfortunately is very common. So maybe that Deaf person is feeling like, "Oh, sure. It's so easy for ASL students to learn, but there's tons of ASL students who have learned and my family refuses to learn how to sign. It's just ironic, right? Kind of ridiculous and honestly sad. So, maybe you arrive in that moment when they're feeling like, "This is so unfair!" and honestly they'd be right. So, maybe respect that.

6:24 Missing the "Good Ole" Days" of Signing in Public

Last thought, I think some Deaf people miss the good old days when you could have conversations in any public space at any time. You weren't worried about people understanding what you're signing or watching you. You could just converse about everything — about a funeral, about a relationship, about anything — because chances are in a public space, no one would understand them, right? So, they could just talk openly. And that's a recent change. That's not like we're talking forever ago. That's recent past. But everything has changed. This world has changed. You have ASL students by the thousands.

7:21 The Upside of Today's ASL Learning Boom

It's the most popular "foreign" language in school, right? The most popular. So that means there are thousands, tens of thousands of ASL students who are learning ASL. So honestly, I think this is amazing. This is a new day. So now when I see, wow, all these ASL students and all of them are learning how to sign and if they have a Deaf baby, they immediately can start signing with them, right? And they know how vital it is to learn ASL for their child. So honestly, this is a new world and I'm just giddy to be a part of it!

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