As residents across Maine sat riveted to their TVs on Oct. 27, waiting anxiously for updates on the manhunt for a gunman who had killed 18 people, state officials opened their news briefing with a stern directive for the cameras in the room.
“For the consideration of the four Deaf victims and their families, we are requesting that the ASL interpreter is in all frames for language access,” Michael Sauschuck, the state’s public safety commissioner, said after a flurry of complaints from Deaf viewers about broadcasts cutting the interpreter out.
“They are grieving and have a right to know the latest information.”It was a stinging reminder of the heavy toll borne by Maine’s small Deaf community, which counted four of its own among the dead and three more among the 13 injured in the shootings on Oct. 25 in Lewiston.
And it reflected its ongoing fight for access and recognition, a struggle rooted in a history of trauma that, amid their pain, has fostered solidarity.
Closely connected by a shared language and culture, and a statewide web of social ties, many Deaf residents of Maine first met and forged friendships at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, on Mackworth Island near Portland, long the only public, residential school for Deaf students in the state and a beloved center of Deaf society.
Persons:
Michael Sauschuck, Governor Baxter
Organizations:
Governor, Governor Baxter School
Locations:
Maine, Lewiston, Portland