Results from the march, June 16

Our Deaf Rights march, which had been a long overdue, finally happened and effectively has awakened the Houston Deaf Community and its surroundings that we can voice our needs and address our lack of accessibility-related issues with a local government board like City of Houston.

The march went peacefully and well cooperative with Houston Police Department – Criminal Intelligence Division, who met with us at the starting of our march. They sent us one police officer in a police car followed us while on a track of marching for our protection.

About 45 of us were involved in our cause this past Tuesday, June 16 (many deaf individuals of diverse colors, two professional interpreters (bless their hearts for supporting us), two deaf individuals from Austin, a deaf couple from College Station, one deaf individual from Texas City, a hearing mother of a deaf adult son, ASL/ITP students, a social worker for the deaf, and friends). At least five of deaf individuals, who experienced discrimination by the city services including HPD and municipal courts, were there. While we marched, we learned that a new case has been filed with Department of Justice against HPD by another deaf individual.

When we arrived at City Hall as an end of our march, there were about 10 more people to join us before we entered the city council meeting. One participant, who was an ITTP student, brought us one Starbuck’s “keg” of iced tea and another one “keg” of iced coffee while we waited outside City Hall before the meeting started.

Not only our issues with the city had been successfully addressed and heard by the city council members, but also this cause had been empowered many deaf and hard of hearing individuals, who were involved in the action.

When we attended a city council meeting, we learned that June 16, the day that we marched, was the city mayor’s birthday! That’s so ironic.

Our spokesperson for our deaf community, who is deaf, was Danny Warthling, one of our co-leaders of the June 16 march. The issues that had been delivered to the city council were 1) a brief re-introduction of the 1998 Department of Justice settlements, 2) Deaf citizens have ongoing complaints that our law enforcement routinely failed to provide effective communication, 3) municipal courts routinely rescheduled 2nd, 3rd, or 4th because of no interpreter, which cost the deaf citizens’ work time 4) City of Houston’s 311 service is not accessible to Videophone users, CapTel users, or TTY users, 5) the city’s emergency preparedness not adequately meet Houston Deaf Community’s diverse modes of communication, 6) things we wanted done from them are a) have HPD and City of Houston review the 1998 DOJ settlements at least once every year, b) ADA/cultural sensitivity on deaf/hard of hearing with qualified instructors becoming a part of Police Academy’s curriculum, and c) we want a deaf person to be on board of City of Houston.

Immediately after the city council meeting, several city council members came to us, and wanted to have a meeting with us to discuss our issues. One of them claimed that she has a hard of hearing Houstonian cousin, who was among the participants of our cause.

Unfortunately, no media showed up, even though several medial companies had been contacted about our cause. We had no idea why none chose not to show up.

We plan to have a post-march meeting sometime for a follow up in July. Anyone is welcome to join us, regardless of an “agreement” status.

Our march was fairly small, but it was successfully out of a first step. For a long time, many deaf citizens or individuals routinely complained about a lack of accessibility provided by a local government or law enforcement, but we either did not know what to do about these complaints or simply ignored them because we were afraid to express them. Some of us filed a complaint with a local legal assistance organization or Department of Justice, but the problem is that is not enough. A large number of filing complaints by deaf and hard of hearing individuals or having our Deaf community involved in an action like an ongoing march or constantly addressing issues to a local government is a key to improve their communication accessibility to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Like most of you already have heard, two deaf individuals had filed a lawsuit with Department of Justice, National Association of the Deaf, and Advocacy, Inc. against City of Houston especially law enforcement and municipal courts. (link at http://www.nad.org/gordonsettlement) Why was it not effective enough for the City of Houston? It takes our deaf community to continuiously do something like we just did on June 16. And, we need to continue some form of action at least once every year.

On Saturday, May 16, 2009, there was a Houston deaf community meeting for a second time. We realized that there was a seriously ongoing problem that City of Houston routinely has been not very accessible to the deaf so we decided to make an action directed based on other disability organizations’ suggestions. Eventually, we proposed to have a march before we face the city council to address our issues.

We are aware that many deaf citizens claimed that they were not informed ahead of time about our march, but the problem is that it always has been a difficult time to reach every deaf or hard of hearing person throughout the city or county. A couple of weeks ago, when a subject of having a march for the Deaf rights was brought up over the deaf social network. it did work by having waves hitting every corner of scattered deaf communities in Houston area! Our journey to gather all deaf communities from every corner in Houston area to work together to make City of Houston more accessible to individuals, who are deaf or hard of hearing has BEGUN, whether we support or oppose an idea of having a march.

Again, our next meeting (for a post-march/follow up/review) will be held sometime in July.

Brian Determan
Kimberly Mitchell
Ovi Velasquez
Kathy Walters
Danny Warthling