LGBT event provides second chance at prom

Arts & Entertainment

TECHNICIAN

PAGE 10 • MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2018

LGBT event provides second chance at prom

Elanor Davis

Correspondent

The GLBT Community Alliance (GLBTCA) hosted the Second Chance Prom in Witherspoon Ballroom on Saturday to promote inclusion in high school proms and dances. The event has come back after a one-year hiatus, and GLBTCA hopes to make the prom an annual event.

Brandon Coates, a fourth-year studying psychology and member of GLBTCA, spoke on the details and message of this event.

“The GLBT Community Alliance has been doing it for a number of years now, and basically the real purpose for this event [is focused on] any queer kids or queer people who didn’t get to have a prom that was something for them,” Coates said. “So they could be themselves or bring the partner they wanted to bring or just expressed themselves the way they wanted to, so we decided to create an event that would fill that role and be able to be a prom event that someone could present, dress and bring whoever they want to bring without fear of being judged or anything like that.”

The prom had an outer space theme decided by a vote within the GLBTCA. Witherspoon was filled with spacethemed decor. The food included fun items like savory star- and moon-shaped sandwiches while the drinks presented an even wider selection of funky, astronautlike beverages.

The drinks, food and festivities all took a backseat to the feeling of inclusion and happiness felt by the promgoers as they danced and talked freely.

Melana Sachpatzidis, a second-year studying communication, talked before the event about how the Second Chance Prom resonated with her.

“I’m hoping to see a lot of people showing up with the partner that they want, do what they want, dressed how they want, to be more diversified then the original prom,” Sachpatzidis said. “I want everyone to feel included. It’s a safe place for everyone.”

Sachpatzidis said the event gave her opportunities her high school prom never did.

“I grew up as a lesbian in a really heteronormative setting and no one told me ‘okay you have the choice to wear a suit,’” Sachpatzidis said. “So all three years of prom I was wearing a dress, but now it’s like this Second Chance Prom told me ‘hey, I can dress how I want, bring whichever partner I want and you know you can do anything. If you want to be traditional you can, and if you don’t then don’t.’ This is what this [event] is for. I feel like that’s really nice that, in fact, I’m going to come up in a suit for the first time ever. It’s like remaking the memory the way I want it to be remade.”

Adrian Chamberlin, a first-year studying fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology, volunteered at the event. Chamberlin said she approved of the idea that Second Chance Prom should be a place to not worry about labels.

“It should be able to be a fun event that everyone should be able to come to and just have fun,” Chamberlin said. “Prom is for everyone. That prom shouldn’t be something that you have to put on appearances for [or that] you have to put a part of yourself away for. Prom is for everyone.”

Graduate linguistics students talk sign language, deaf culture

Aaron Sanchez Guerra

Staff Writer

The world of nonverbal language matches the complexities of its verbal counterpart. The linguistic variances that spice and diversify all speakers of verbal language also exist in the users of sign language.

Facilitating a discussion on this topic were the Linguistic Diversity Ambassadors of the linguistics department of NC State, who held an event titled “American Sign Language: Dialects and Deaf Culture” on Thursday in Winston Hall.

The dialogue connecting this to American Sign Language was led and explained by Alison Eggerth, a graduate student studying linguistics. She explained the struggles faced historically by users of sign language.

“There was a method invented by Alexander Graham Bell called oralism,” Eggerth said. “It said that if you signed, you won’t be able to learn English as well. It called for deaf people to sit on their hands and be forced to read people’s lips.”

Prior to ASL, oralism was a method used in deaf education that forced oral language comprehension and production.

“ASL wasn’t even recognized as an official language in the United States until the 1960s, so it creates a dichotomy between the people who were raised in the oralist method who said ASL was bad and didn’t use it, versus now, now we have TV shows and movies that celebrates ASL and deaf culture.”

The event covered the benefits, basic facts and myths surrounding ASL. Important topics like that ASL is a linguistically complete language with its own grammar and that not all deaf people can read lips were covered.

Eggerth explained the details of ASL further, moving her hands with her words expressively as she demonstrated the different signs of the alphabet.

“ASL grammar would ask the question, ‘Where is my car?’ like ‘My car where,’” Eggerth said. “The tone that people communicate in signing is determined through non-manual signing, like facial expressions and movements.”

Deaf culture was explained in the event by graduate linguistics student Katie Conner, who explained the practices of deaf individuals in different situations. She outlined how rude it would be to break eye contact while communicating through signing, and how it was important for hearing people to explain and contextualize noises to deaf people instead of expecting them to react to them. “You can’t always rely on lip reading,” Conner said. “That’s not necessarily a quality every deaf person is innate with.” A comic strip was shown of a boy explaining that he was leaving a party with his deaf father, which meant an extra 45

EMMA DIMIG/TECHNICIAN KellyNoel Waldorf, a graduate student studying English and a language diversity ambassador, explains that there is variation within American Sign Language during a panel called “American Sign Language: Dialects and Deaf Culture.” The panel took place on Thursday in Winston Hall.

Arts & Entertainment

TECHNICIAN

PAGE 11 • MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2018

From here and there: visiting Duke professor talks about diaspora through deportation

Aaron Sanchez Guerra

Staff Writer

Jill Anderson, who holds a Ph.D. in English with a specialization in MexicanAmerican literature from the University of Texas, sat in a Mexico City restaurant and overheard English being spoken. Upon recognizing the English as similar to her own, she approached a young waiter who was speaking to someone else and found out that he was originally from Chicago.

That waiter had been one of hundreds of thousands who had arrived illegally in the United States as a child, part of a demographic commonly known as “Dreamers,” who had been deported to Mexico or were essentially forced to migrate back. Since those encounters early on, Anderson sought after a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Autonomous University of Mexico where she was able to do research in documenting the experiences of duality of young people that had been deported to Mexico or were returned migrants.

Anderson spoke at NC State on April 11 in an event titled “Deportation Diasporas: Removed to a Country that was Never Home” that was sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Her work, which culminated in a now out of print book titled “Los Otros Dreamers,” which translated to “The Other Dreamers,” tells the in-depth bicultural and bilingual stories of the Dreamers of the other side, some of whom have criminal histories with minor or major infractions.

Anderson’s book states that these individuals matter, too, and that they are disproving the incorrect assumption that a criminal conviction constitutes an identity.

“We’re bringing together all of these stories,” Anderson said. “The reason for the inclusion of deported youth with former gang activity and criminal activity is to challenge what people think a Dreamer is.”

Anderson is the co-founder of Otros Dreams en Acción (ODA), translating to Other Dreams in Action, a nonprofit that has facilitated and documented the literary and artistic development of Dreamers in Mexico. It is part of a network of organizations that responds to the new Latinx diaspora caused by deportations from America.

A hyper-militarized border and a perilous immigration system has sent young people with much potential across the border to find a living in a foreign nation to be dropped off at one of 12 “repatriation” points in the country after being deported.

ODA is one of the organizations that welcomed deportees in Mexico City to give them resources to help them as they are received by their birth country and are faced with starting new lives.

“Under Trump, the number of deportations haven’t gone up but the interior removals have,” Anderson said. “Those are the numbers of people who are deported crossing the border and are deported after living here after a very long time.”

ODA has also assisted the Dreamers with applying for visas to enter the United States again.

“In the book, Luis talks about how he was deported, found a payphone, called his mom back in the United States, and asked what to do,” Anderson said. “His mom told him to go to Guerrero, and he asks, ‘Well, where’s Guerrero?’”

Anderson detailed how a handful of the people she has worked with have faced robbery, extortion and kidnapping from cartels concentrated along the regions near the United States border.

Poch@ House, a space for returnees and deportees in Mexico that Anderson helps operate, works to help them re-establish themselves. Poch@, coming from the word “pocho/a,” a derogatory term for Mexicans who mix Spanish and English, is reclaimed and used for good in this place.

Genesis Torres, a third-year studying psychology, commented on the importance of student activism related to the work of ODA.

“It’s an injustice, and we’re called as fellow humans to look after one another in this way,” Torres said. “As students, as ‘estudiantes,’ we need to get involved and take action in our communities to care for immigrants and fight against local legislation that can harm them, undocumented or not.”

Anderson sighed after speaking for a prolonged time on the topic of deportation diaspora and challenges of trauma and mental health issues that are associated with deportation and forced migration.

“Poch@ House and ODA want to create programs that will create opportunities to become English teachers or be part of the tourism industry,” Anderson said. “We’re trying to work with alternatives to exploitative jobs the Dreamers encounter.”

ELIJAH MORACCO-SCHELP/TECHNICIAN Marchers make their way to Halifax Mall to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) on Oct. 1 following President Trump’s decision to end the program. Speakers included those who depend on DACA and Congressman David Price, who condemned the president’s actions. The event was organized by two NC State students and took place on the major streets of downtown.

This article is also available in Spanish at technicianonline.com.

SIGN

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minutes. This humored the reality of deaf people having to sign to individual people in gatherings when saying goodbye, which would in turn, take longer than simply being able to communicate a goodbye verbally.

KellyNoel Waldorf, a graduate student studying linguistics, covered the dialects of sign language. She explained how people who are hearing but sign may sign at a different rhythm than deaf people that sign, and they may not always understand each other.

Sign language, like oral language, expectedly varies greatly by national regions and other nations. She explained how ASL was more similar to French Sign Language than to British Sign Language and Australian Sign Language. The nuances of African-American Sign Language were detailed as well.

“Features that are included in African-American Sign Language are bigger manual sign spaces, and you get similarities to spoken African-American English, such as ‘He trippin’,’ and other words,” Waldorf said. “You can see some of those linguistic characteristics crossing over.”

Claudia Pollex, a second-year studying communication and psychology, expressed disappointment with the lack of courses teaching sign language at NC State.

“NC State is the biggest university in North Carolina, and there are rather large deaf communities in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Raleigh, a lot of the big cities” Pollex said. “I think it says something by the university not having American Sign Language classes to the 200,000 plus residents in North Carolina who are hard of hearing or deaf. I think it’s important as the biggest university that we allow hearing people like me to have access to ASL and be able learn it.”

Like all the traits that make people diverse members of their communities, linguistics holds a range of unique qualities that make it an agent for diversity, and they are also an avenue for discrimination, although a more succinct form of it. This is the reason for the imperative part they play in multidisciplinary education of diversity across university campuses.