To the left...Or the Right?
The world is designed to accommodate right-handed people. Which is to be expected, considering only about 10% of the world’s population is left-hand dominant; however, doors, computer mouses, a firm handshake, and even the small desks in the Umass classrooms are made for, or in terms of a handshake - done with, your right hand.
Growing up I tried to learn how to play the guitar, and as much as I enjoyed it, I held the guitar differently from my teacher, and everyone in my class, making it feel almost uncomfortable. Fast forward to high school, where I was told I could not be a pole-vaulter on the track team because the coach did not know how to teach lefties (in reality, I don’t think she could have been bothered to try), but regardless, there are obstacles I have faced throughout my education and extra curriculars because I am left-handed that even I never thought would be a barrier.
American Sign Language has always fascinated me, so when I saw that the college I attended my freshman year had multiple levels of ASL classes to take, I signed up right away hoping to broaden my horizons when it came to ways of communicating. My professor was a TA, fresh out of graduate school, jumping into teaching this class almost blind, but it was a beginners course so how hard could it be for either of us, right? I want to say that I was the only lefty in the class, but honestly, I don’t even think I paid attention to what hand people were using because like everyone else, I did what came naturally to me. I started to realize that instead of reflecting the signs that my professor was teaching us, I was mirroring him, since we were facing each other while using different hands. I didn’t change anything I was doing, and there is nothing wrong with doing American Sign Language left-handed, but something about the way it looked when I was signing, compared to other people in my class, felt odd to me.
I passed the class with flying colors, finishing the semester with the ability to sign “The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle from start to finish, and I still remember a lot of the beginner-level signs. I was originally studying to become a Speech-Language Pathologist, so I needed to take higher leveled ASL classes to meet my major requirements, but with a pandemic sending us home and my decision to transfer universities as well as switch majors, that ASL class remains the only one I have taken at a college level, (but I do hope to continue to practice and learn it).
I wish that I could say that I corrected the mistake I didn’t know I was making while I was still in the class, however the truth is I did not pick up on the fact that I was basically signing words backwards until almost two years later when I decided I wanted to practice and see what I still knew. One of my best friends, Lauren, was born hard of hearing and has always had hearing aids. She can hear and speak fluently, but she is also fluent in American Sign Language with the hopes of being an interpreter one day. I tried to sign (I don’t remember what) to her, and she could make out most of what I was attempting to say, however she noticed that when I would spell out words with my fingers, it was backwards. Sign Language is not particularly hard to learn, especially since once you know the alphabet you can finger-spell every word if you had to, however it does take consistent practice (like most things) before it becomes muscle memory.
I had mastered the ASL alphabet since I was in the third grade and there was a section on basic signs in the back of the dictionary we all got given, and probably never used more than to look up what the longest word in the English language was. Having this background knowledge you would think I wouldn’t struggle with finger-spelled words, but for some reason my brain could never remember which way to slide my hand, and I would often switch directions, sometimes in the middle of words. I don’t even want to think about double-lettered words, because instead of making the letter two separate times, you simply make the letter and drag it to represent both, but again, which damn way do you drag it? My friend has offered to help me practice, and ironically she is also a lefty, so hopefully that will be an advantage in terms of my ability to learn. ASL will not only benefit me in my eventual career as a teacher, but it opens doors for me in other aspects of my major and life in general, so having to put in a little extra effort to make that possible is worth the temporary frustration and potential embarrassment.
As I have been reflecting on this, I have come to the realization that I was making it too complicated and I should have thought about it like writing with a pencil on paper. However, I do also believe that certain things come more naturally to people, like myself with math, but American Sign Language is something that I feel as though I am always going to have to think about it for an extra second before I sign a word, no matter how long I have been doing it. For lefties even writing in a notebook is still not easy because of the ringed-spine and the pencil marks that stain the outside of your hand since it drags across the page as you are writing, so in a way I already was thinking about ASL as I think about writing in a notebook - it’s not easy.
American sign language may not come as easy to me as elementary school math did, or even my AP English classes in high school, but it is something that is worth the effort it takes to learn it. For as long as I can remember, I have had a tendency to give up on things (potential hobbies, for example) if it did not come easily to me. I have always wanted to learn how to draw, or play an instrument, or become some-what fluent in another language, but those are not things that I am naturally good at, and it would take what seems like an eternity to actually learn, so I do not have an array of talents or hobbies that would look nice on a resume or impress someone at the bar. Now do I think that if I was right-handed I would have all of these different hobbies and be able to do them almost perfectly after little practice? No. However, when it comes to sign language, or writing in a notebook, or trying to be taught something by someone that’s dominant hand is opposite yours, I do feel like I have a disadvantage over right-handed people and I need to think a little harder about things, or sometimes even improvise to make it make sense for myself and feel natural at the same time.
I view sign language as more than just a hobby, but even after experiencing the feeling of embarrassment and frustration once I realized I am basically back at square one with my physical ability to do ASL, I still have the motivation to want to get to a point of almost fluency. I believe that a big part of my dedication to learning sign language has a lot to do with how interested, or one might say passionate, I am about it. This experience made me realize that if I only put this much effort and passion into everything I did, even schoolwork I find pointless, tedious, or hard, then I may have been a little more smarter, and a little less boring. Being left-handed in a world designed for right-handed people comes with its own difficulties, but it does not make things impossible, it just requires a little more effort and consistency I have to be willing to give.