Twenty million Americans have some type of hearing loss, ranging from hard of hearing to profound Deafness. But, an estimated half million cannot hear or understand any speech at all.

Being Deaf can set one apart from the hearing world, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that person is alone.

A Deaf person has their own culture, history, and an articulate, eloquent language in American Sign Language, and the naturally built-in pride that keeps it together, values being instilled as people cross bridges.

Being a Deaf person can stereotype you as an immigrant with little or no English, because there are certain groups of people that view us as such instead the politically correct term, “disabled.”

Again, we have a language and a culture of our own, just like any person of a certain ethnicity.

Building communication bridges between the deaf and hearing community are extremely important, if you agree, because we need the services of others while they need our services, also, and to keep us out of the water, from drowning in obliviousness.

The Deaf schools are the pulse of the Deaf community, because hearing schools can see that we can do the same things they can do, building bridges for both not only to connect, but to cross over.

The goal for Deaf people is to become a part of their own culture, with the freedom exercised in revealing their thought process, how they perceive things, what their feelings are, and how they carry out discourse through blogs, vlogs, and the various other mediums.

We learn new things by interacting in the Deaf world, and applying the acquired knowledge in crossing the bridge over to the hearing world. ASL is a fully accessible language, to everyone — Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Hearing people.

Speech is not fully accessible for Deaf people, not even with a cochlear implant, despite the many success stories told in various publications such as the numerous blogs currently embroiled in the cochlear wars. What is being stressed here is pure accessibility.

Building communication bridges between the Deaf and Hearing community is the foundation that makes a bridge a valid crossing place, because we are a group of multi-talented people that can do anything but hear. If we utilize the skills God gives each person, we can lay each foundation in building a bridge.

We have to educate people and use mediums such as the Internet to do so. Nowadays technology connects Deaf people to the hearing world, through instant messaging and e-mails, and lately, through blogging and vlogging. It is hard enough to be friends with someone you can’t communicate with verbally or even through sign language, but instant messaging and e-mails affords you that ability.

There are different ways to bridge the Deaf community, and they are through literary, through blogs, through Internet websites created by Deaf people, through online dating sites, and especially by attending the Deaf awareness events, the Deaf center events and the DeafNation Expos nationwide.

Exchanging ideas builds bridges.

In the old days, the Deaf community gathered in Deaf clubs as the need for social belonging has obviously brought people into one place, but we have more choices available nowadays through technology, which is the very thing that makes public places more Deaf-friendly.

As telecommunications grow and expand, it will strengthen the Deaf clubs and organizations, rather than dissolve them.

Building a bridge isn’t easy. Deaf people do not mention the hearing cultural issues because they already have their own culture. Same here, hearing people may not be as prone to mentioning Deaf culture, unless they have had a taste of Deaf culture one way or another. Building a bridge can or may require finding common ground, or even a common denominator.

Says Dennis Bacon, a professional angler who is Deaf, “Doctors, audiologists, and other professionals hardly mention Deaf cultural values, effectively excluding the issues of the use of American Sign Language to new parents of Deaf babies recently born.”

Concluded Bacon, “Thus, this is one of the reasons why we need to build a bridge between the Deaf and hearing worlds. Building bridges is offering them opportunities to learn more about the Deaf community.”

People build bridges by touching and tasting their culture and foods. For Deaf people, the tool is communication.

Using communication as a tool in creating an inclusive environment where Deaf and hearing people can understand each other will help narrow the gap between the two different worlds.

The goal of every program that caters to Deaf children and adults is inclusiveness, where hearing people can learn our beautiful language, while we learn to be patient with them in facilitating communication with them.

Becoming a member of an organization that advocates Deaf culture means you support ASL as a language. When we use our memberships to build a bridge to the hearing world, or for the hearing person to build a bridge to the Deaf world, it is where we have to be delicate over what mission statement to go with, because it can build a bridge, or burn bridges.

What is your mission statement?

DeafNation’s mission statement is simple but says it all:

Language, Culture and Pride.

Yes, that is right. We cherish our language, the culture where we learned from and shared with others, and the pride that grows with building bridges.

Let us not only connect, but cross over in this new bridge we built — together.