The Role of Sign Language in Native Communities

This interview is also available in video format with ASL interpretation on YouTube here.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

This episode was created by Quinn Hodgson as a part of Goucher College’s Micro-Internship Program.

Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody is a Cherokee Deaf Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona in the Department of Disability & Psychoeducational Studies. She earned her doctoral degree in linguistic and socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. She has studied critically-endangered Indigenous Sign Languages in North America since 1994 and helps different tribes preserve their tribal signs. She also specialized in Indigenous Deaf studies and interpreter training incorporating Native culture, North American Indian Sign Language and ASL. She is also an educator and advocate for Indigenous interpreters and students in educational settings. Besides, North American Indian Sign Language research, she had taught ASL classes in several universities, schools and community for over 42 years. She is one of eight founders of Turtle Island Hand Talk, a new group focused on Indigenous Deaf/Hard of Hearing/DeafBlind and Hearing people.

Related Links:

• Melanie’s Doctoral Dissertation “Memory Comes Before Knowledge- North American Indigenous Deaf”
• Vox Video “The Hidden History of Hand Talk”
• Turtle Island Hand Talk
• Native American Code Talkers Article

Do you have a question for Judy? Send a voice memo for our Ask Judy Segment to media@judithheumann.com.

Intro music by Lachi. Outro music by Gaelynn Lea.