The Daily Beast: "ABC Family?s Switched at Birth ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest"

Almost 25 years to the day after the student protest at Gallaudet University began in 1988, ABC Family?s ?Switched at Birth? features a storyline about a deaf student uprising in an episode, airing March 4, that?s told almost entirely in American Sign Language.



At The Daily Beast?, you can read my latest feature, "Do Not Adjust Your TV: ABC Family?s Switched at Birth ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest," in which I offer praise of ABC Family?'s extraordinary Switched at Birth?, which presents a nearly all-ASL episode on Monday, a landmark installment that connects both to Deaf culture/history and to the seminal 1988 Gallaudet student protests (DPN). Not to be missed.



A generation has passed since the weeklong act of protest known as Deaf President Now, and its influence on deaf culture is likely a distant memory for the hearing community. That may change, however, thanks to a pivotal and landmark episode of ABC Family?s Switched at Birth, which will present a television first: an installment that is enacted nearly entirely in American Sign Language (ASL).



For the deaf community, the Gallaudet University students? uprising was a metaphorical crossing of the Rubicon, just as vital and significant as Stonewall or Rosa Parks. It was a momentous act of revolution that has remained a critical cultural and social touchstone, reaffirming deaf identity, culture, and pride.



In 1988, Gallaudet, the world?s first higher educational institution for the deaf and hard of...

Read the full article at Televisionary (http://www.televisionarytv.com).

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