I know: Harry Potter is just a fictional set of books and movies, and learning magic at Hogwarts is probably never going to happen to us in real life.
But imagine a story where you always felt different from your family and other people throughout your life. Whether your family is caring or not so warm and fuzzy, you feel out of place a lot of the time. Sometimes at night, you dream and wonder about another place. A more exciting and welcoming place where you get the opportunity to meet other people who are exactly like you, find and explore different things and classes, make and share new and exciting memories in your life. But the most important thing of all is you’re allowed to find and be yourself there.
Sounds like a nice fantasy, right?
Well, I actually discovered a place in real life that feels very similar to this dream place recently during my university reading break last November.
Welcome to Gallaudet University, a liberal arts school in the lovely city of Washington, D.C. Now this relatively small school that started in the 1860’s may look like just your average U.S. private university, but one thing sets it apart from every other university and college in the world. Gallaudet is well-known as being the only liberal arts university that have all their programs and services designed for deaf people all over the world, considered by many Deaf people to be their “Mecca.” And yes, some deaf people actually compare Gallaudet to Hogwarts, because both schools allow students who feel different from the normal population to come together to find happiness and thrive in a common environment. My deaf friend who goes there said it was a popular idea that Gallaudet is basically the Hogwarts for deaf people.
Now, when I grew up, I knew several people who went to Gallaudet and came back more self-confident and self-assured. Growing up going to a school for the deaf, and then moving away to an area with little to no young deaf or hard of hearing people around, I was a bit curious about Gallaudet. But I never really showed a strong desire to actually go there when I graduated from high school, even if some people tried to persuade me to. I could explain it as maybe I felt more comfortable staying in my hometown and going to a much closer local university, or more comfortable with living close to my family, or that I didn’t really want to make a drastic decision and go there when I was a teenager who had just graduated from high school. Most likely, it was because of the steep price tag that came with going to an expensive private university in a different country. These reasons felt valid for me to go to a local university in my town rather than Gallaudet for my first degree.
Still, I always had a bit of a desire to meet and make new friends, especially with other people who were deaf and hard of hearing, and knew the same struggles as I did. So when I was going through my third year in university and trying to figure out what to do after I finished my degree at UVic, I was a bit lost. I knew that I wanted to leave Victoria and explore different places and meet new people, but where would I go? I still wasn’t sure about applying to medical or law school, and I was feeling like I couldn’t find anything. When my parents suggested that maybe I could go to Gallaudet, I was a bit apprehensive, because it was really far away, and I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere. But over the first few months into my fourth year, I started to realize that just maybe moving to an environment with other signing people could be the future for me.
So my mother, my brother and I decided to take a five-day trip to Washington during our break from university. After a relatively long journey there from Canada to Washington (about two flights), we stayed at the Kellogg Hotel on the campus. I really loved staying in the hotel, since it was unique and had a lot of artwork on the walls that were inspired by sign language and deaf culture. After not even a full 24 hours in Washington, I had butterflies in my stomach. I was here, I was actually on the campus of Gallaudet University. I had heard and read a lot of stories about this school, and now I was actually on the campus.
On the first night right after we arrived on the campus, my friend came by and took me and my brother to the Learning Center (basically the Student Union Building) to get something to eat. When we entered the food court to sit down and eat, my brother and I were a bit blown away by everyone around us signing away in the room.
It really felt surreal, because growing up in a hearing house and sitting in mainstreamed classrooms, I was very used to noisy settings and people around me talking loudly. Here? Total silence but for a huge sea of waving hands surrounding us. It felt like the world turned upside down for me and, instead of sitting in a sea of noise and missing out on trivial conversations between other people, I suddenly could “overhear” many different conversations.
During the next few days at Gallaudet, I met with several professors associated with different graduate programs, went on a school tour (led by a wonderful and very helpful guy!) and explored the campus. In just four to five days, I learned a lot about this very unique school:
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The campus felt so small. Like, really small. Then again, I admit that I may be a bit biased, since I come from a fairly large university with about 20,000 plus students enrolled, so a private university with about 1,700 students enrolled would be likely to appear very small to me. But being small isn’t a bad thing, because the community at Gallaudet felt much closer and secure compared to my university, where being connected to over 20,000 students and staff is pretty much impossible.
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All the classrooms had teachers who communicated through both sign language and English! I had the amazing opportunity to sit in a class when I was there, and the classroom was so small, but it felt like a more connected atmosphere. The material being taught felt much clearer to me compared to sitting in a huge 300-student room.
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Abraham Lincoln actually signed to have this particular school to be chartered in the 1860s! How cool is that?
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I noticed that, in several different buildings, they had some booths set aside with screens set up, which are basically phone booths, except they use screens for the deaf people here to communicate with sign language! I thought these were very cool devices!
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Everyone signed or understood sign language. Even all the staff in the hotel, cafetaria and the Union Market right next to the school signed.
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Sure, I admit to feeling awkward and uncomfortable sometimes when sitting with other deaf people who were more skilled and faster at signing, but I never felt excluded. Rather, it was more interesting seeing all the different people sign.
Compared to my school, Gallaudet is totally different, excluding the obvious being a school for deaf people. It was like night and day for me. While my school gives off a more modern and busy atmosphere, Gallaudet gives off a more historic and closely connected atmosphere.
Visiting Gallaudet brought out an assortment of emotions inside me such as excitement, wonder, amazement, sadness and wishfulness. I felt so happy seeing all the people around me signing because that usually does not happen often in any other place, and I felt really happy that I finally got the chance to understand what everyone else was talking about. For example, the fact that I could finally order a latte from the Starbucks on campus without having to resort to typing out my order on my phone made me legitimately happy. Was it just a minor and trivial observation that anybody wouldn’t really make in any other setting? Yes. But did it mean a lot to me and help me realize that Gallaudet offers so much? Absolutely.
When I came back home, I felt a bit weird. Going from an environment with completely accessible communication to an environment where communication barriers occur every day can bring out feelings in someone for sure. The next few days after I came back home, I felt really empty, disconnected from other people and slightly frustrated. After yet another embarrassing moment coming from a communication barrier after I got home from Gallaudet, I suddenly realized that I felt unsatisfied and unhappy living here.
Don’t get me wrong: where I live is beautiful, I have some lovely friends and family here, and a lot of people would kill to come and live here. But I do admit that I would feel much happier if I moved somewhere more exciting and inclusive, and also had more people who signed like I do. I even wondered for a brief moment if deciding not to go to Gallaudet for my first degree and staying home to go to school instead was not a good idea and if I would have turned out differently (especially socially) had I chosen to go there instead. But I can say that visiting Gallaudet brought out a fire inside me to work harder and excel in my classes so I can get the best chance to go back there, hopefully as a graduate student.
Maybe one day I’ll get to be Harry Potter and go to the modern Hogwarts in D.C.
//Photos: from myself//