I get this question a lot:

"How'd you learn ASL?"

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Well...

I am a CODA, which stands for Child Of Deaf Adult(s). Both my parents are Deaf. My parents were born and raised in Cuba. The education there at the time in regards to Deafness was focused on getting the students to speak. Therefore, my parents had a lot of speech therapy. Especially, my mother. My father and I weren't close while I was growing up. I grew up in an apartment with my hearing, hispanic grandmother and my deaf, hispanic mother. My grandmother was told by medical professionals that if she learned sign language, it meant she was giving up on her child. Naturally, she decided to always speak to my mother. This allowed my mother to develop a grand sense of reading lips. That plus her extensive amount of speech therapy, allowed my mother to not develop the "Deaf" accent. 

 

In short, I grew up learning the basics of ASL and just communicated with my mother by spoken language. After high school, I wanted to learn the full language and didn't know what I wanted to study. So, I began taking classes at Miami Dade College and before I knew it, I was on the interpreter path. Even though, growing up I always said I wouldn't be an interpreter. I graduated in 2016 and went straight to work. 

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That's how I got started in interpreting.