Same As Me - Angela Theresa Egic (best ereader for graphic novels txt) 📗

I was no longer an alien.

I played with my people. My world was new. I could share my journey with others like me.

(The mood slows as both actors look in the same direction. Behind the audience. A brief sadness as one watching someone fade away.)

V FREDY
(D FREDY: in ASL): As I was prepared to run and thank my mother for finding my people, I saw her crying and walking away from the front of the building.

I didn’t want to leave my new friends. My people. I was happy to be here. I smiled at my mother and inside my heart, I know I was thanking her for finding my home.

I would live in this deaf school; the only one in Central America, for the next 12 years. I went home on holidays, summer’s, of course; and was with my wonderful family.

The little deaf girl, Juana Ruth, would, years later, become my wife and the mother of my son, Juan Miguel.

For now, though, I welcomed the new adventure; which would prove to be difficult and teach me how the hearing, to this day, do not really understand us . . . the deaf.

This is why you scream at us, talk more loudly when you learn we are deaf. It is why you, the hearing, think it an easy decision to have surgery and get cochlear implants.

You do not understand. We are not sad that we are deaf. We are proud!

In fact, at my school, they only accepted, technically HOH; that means hard of hearing students.

You see, the deaf school in Guatemala, in those days, refused to allow sign language! We were forced to live in the hearing world. If we invented our own sign language, and we did, and we were caught, they would beat our hands with rulers or tie them behind us.

I became quite incorrigible and the school never caught on that I was profoundly deaf. Perhaps my first six years of being with only hearing people made me a better actor? I am highly intelligent. I am certainly not stupid.

That’s another misconception you hearing people have about deaf people. That we are “dumb”. We are just like you. Many of us have high IQs, some average and some lower. It depends on the person. That’s all.

I graduated the deaf school, fluent in Spanish. We were taught to speak aloud, read and write in Spanish. We learned some Spanish Sign Language, too.

Yes, let’s talk about another misconception about the deaf. At least, in America! Hearing people of your country are under the impression that American Sign Language is universal.

LOL! Then, when you find out it is not, you tell us “it should be”.

My best friend, Angela, she was my hearing girlfriend for six years; she will ask people: How can sign language be universal?. Think about it: Do German people use the same word for toilet as Americans? Do Russian or Japanese people use the same exact word for toilet?

Here’s the sign for “toilet” in American Sign Language. We use the letter “t” and move it around like this.

(Both actors sign “toilet”)

V FREDY
(D FREDY: in ASL): Well, if you do that, let’s say in Japan. Their word for “toilet” starts with a “b” . . . and their alphabet is different. How would it, or could it be universal?

Only if we taught the world to speak American English, then we could make it universal.

The only countries that use ASL, American Sign Language, are America and Canada.

Now, I want to talk about my journey to manhood.

When I graduated high school with honors -- I went into printing. I was always an artist and dreamed of moving to America one day.

V FREDY
(D FREDY: in ASL):I imagined owning a car and living in the U.S. My family and friends thought I was crazy.

My family never learned any form of sign language; which worked fine as I was fluent in Spanish.

My deaf friends and I learned sign language; there were just starting to teach it to the deaf in Guatemala. The sign language presented in Guatemala was a mix of ASL and SSL. I dreamt of learning ASL. I was intrigued to know there were deaf people who spoke fully in their own language! A language just for the deaf!

Wonderful!

I applied for a program that would take me to America, Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., for two years. I would learn ASL and learn a trade. I would be able to bring these skills back to Guatemala. Perhaps start my own business!

A deaf man with his own business! I would be the first in my country to do that!

I was dating Juana Ruth. She was the only deaf woman in our village. Everyone; her family and mine, expected we would marry.

I loved her, but I wanted to do the program in America and come back and marry her.

I was accepted into the program! Our families insisted we marry before I left Guatemala. So, not quite ready, I did what they asked.

Juana Ruth and I married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse in Guatemala City.

The program had a strict policy, which I didn’t know about, until after the wedding: The participants could NOT be married or have children.

I was dropped from the program.c I was devastated.

(D Fredy collapses to the floor. H Fredy goes to him and lifts him up.)

V FREDY
(D FREDY: in ASL): My mother, who never could bear to see me hurt, contacted her brother, my uncle. He was a lawyer. He made some calls and found a program for me. It would still take me to America for two years. I would learn ASL and learn business. It would take me to Los Angeles, California. Alone.

I wanted it badly and left behind my pregnant wife. I promised to return for the birth.

I wrote her regularly and had plane tickets prepared for the due date of our child. I sent her all the money I received from my new job at McDonalds. I was excited to tell Juana about ASL and learning to read and write in English!

My uncle had to do some things to get me here.

First, due to my past in Guatemala, when I was 19, I was involved with a gang who were anti-government. We wore masks and would threw rocks at the soldiers. Although I never shot anyone. I witnessed people shot to death in the street. It was a war.

Due to this past, my uncle was able to get me a work visa under the law of “asylum”. I have been able to stay in America for nearly 20-years on “asylum”.

Around 2004, the immigration department merged with homeland security. No matter what country one was from, they refused to renew any “asylum” cases. My work visa expired. Immigration, to this day, has refused to send me back to my mother and family in Guatemala. I cannot find work.

The day before I was to fly back to Guatemala, in 1990; when I still had my work visa; for the birth of my son, Juan Miguel. I was riding my bicycle in Long Beach, California and was hit by car. I was in a coma for a week with brain swelling. The hospital did not know who I was or that I was deaf.

When I awoke, a week later, someone had discovered who I was and my deaf roommates were there.

It took a while to recover, and in that time; Juana told me only a little about my son. She never said she missed me and seemed angry I was injured. She asked me for money in her letters, refusing to move to America because she heard she “would be raped” by the American men.

I learned, in my small village in Guatemala, the people have many misconceptions about America.

I finally met my son, Juan Miguel, when he was 3-years-old, though. He was hearing and very smart!

Juana Ruth made sure the boy respected and loved me. I was happy for that.

Juan adored me! I started to teach him English and ASL at the same time.

(H Fredy now does a scene with D Fredy: H Fredy becomes 3-year-old Juan Miguel. D Fredy sits on the bench. H Fredy, as a boy, sits at his feet and smile up at his padre!)

D FREDY
(out loud w/ASL): 1 . . . 2 . . . 3.
(points at Juan)

V FREDY
(copying): 1 . . . YOU . . .

(to audience)
My son knew that in Spanish “tu” means you. He did not understand that “2” was “dos” in English. I tried again.

D FREDY
number in ASL): Uno . . . Dos . . . Tres

V FREDY
(copies him perfectly): Uno . . . Dos . . . Tres

V FREDY
(in English & ASL): Uno . . .One, Dos . . . Two, Tres . . . Three

V FREDY
(as Juan): One . . .Two . . . YOU!

(D Fredy hugs V Fredy and they go back to the positions where D Fredy addresses the audience in ASL, and H Fredy continues his story to the audience)

V FREDY
(D FREDY: in ASL): That was the last time I saw Juan Miguel in person. It was the last time I saw my mother and my family in person.

In these years since, Juan ended up being raised my Juana Ruth’s mother. Juana has married or become engaged to another man and has a baby. We never divorced.

At least, that I know of; nevertheless, the marriage was over after that.

My son has contacted me. He is an adult now and teaching physical education in Guatemala. He still loves me.

It is strange how he and I share something in common. We both lost our father at a young age. I have also been in touch with my biological father. I love him as Juan Miguel loves me.

Fifteen years ago, I had an affair with a deaf woman from Poland. We lived together in California. After she became pregnant with my daughter, Anika, she moved away to Pennsylvania.

I didn’t hear from her until my daughter was 5-years-old, when my ex-girlfriend, Jolanta, filed for child support. Later, Jolanta would lose Anika to foster care.

In 2004, Angela and I moved to Pennsylvania to attempt to gain custody of Anika. She had already bonded with her foster parents.

The saddest day of my life, in private chambers, after one year and a half of visitation, my 8-year-old daughter asked me to sign the adoption papers; to sever all parental rights.

I did, telling my daughter how I may never be able to see her again. She wanted me to sign.

Despite the foster parents’ verbal agreement to let Anika and I visit twice a year; once they adopted her: I have not seen my daughter since 2005, only a month before her 9th birthday.

Soon after, I granted my daughter’s wish. Angela and I decided to be friends. We are best friends. She returned to New York.

(Both actors move center stage. D Fredy sits on the bench. V Fredy stands behind him.)

V FREDY
(D FREDY: in ASL): April 24th, 2010, I turned