As the sound of the school bell kicks off the first day of class, an unbreakable silence falls over Andrea Romano’s room of students. This time, back-to-school jitters aren’t the culprit. Romano, Central Kitsap High School’s American Sign Language (ASL) teacher, welcomes in her new students while strategically immersing them in a sign-only environment.
Quickly, the students have to adapt to this unfamiliar classroom setting, motivating them to think creatively about alternative ways to communicate without speaking. Soon, gestures, whiteboards, and scraps of paper are being utilized as tools to express thoughts and questions non-verbally. Romano, in turn, is acting out scenarios and animatedly signing, and though the room is silent, it’s full of life.
“I actually love teaching ASL, and there’s lots of reasons, but one is I really like to see students grow step-by-step in their language learning,” Romano said.
Many years ago, Romano found herself in the same position as her students after making the decision to take an ASL class at Purdue University. Initially intending to study French in college, Romano’s positive experience in the class helped her discover her passion for sign language, and ultimately inspired her to pursue a career in ASL interpreting instead.
“I am a language nerd for sure,” Romano said. “In my master’s work, I looked at studying linguistics, and in my undergraduate work, I worked with an ASL linguist — how fortunate to just come upon this person — and so I love language. I love French. I enjoy English too, but of course my real passion is sign language, because it’s visual. There’s something about that that just lights me on fire.”
After earning her bachelor’s degree in Speech-Language-Hearing, Romano moved to Chicago and was encouraged to begin interpreting, driving her to go back to school for two years to become a certified interpreter. Throughout her 20 years of experience interpreting, Romano has had the opportunity to service Deaf and hearing communities in multiple cities across the country, including Seattle.
“There’s a lot of variety,” Romano said. “In the morning you’re at Microsoft, and then in the afternoon you’re at the hospital, which I love. I don’t mind driving around and I love people. I love people and I love language, so it’s a dream job. It’s hard, for sure, and because I was commuting from Kitsap County to Seattle, I would have to drive my car over because I’m going to Redmond in the morning and I’m going to downtown Seattle in the afternoon, so there’s a lot of travel.”
According to Romano, one of the best parts of her career was being able to see deaf people advance to be part of their workplace, school, and general community. Throughout the years she’s worked with the Deaf community, Romano has noticed progress towards inclusion, including in the interpreting field itself.
“It feels like deaf people are really blossoming and having more agency,” Romano said. “There’s even deaf interpreters. It used to be that the hearing interpreter was always on the camera, and now those [roles] are reversed. I might be off camera, signing to my deaf interpreter professional, and they would be on the camera showing their native language to the world.”
While interpreting work can be tremendously rewarding, Romano noted that it isn’t without challenges. Interpreters must follow a strict code of ethics, such as ensuring that they are accurate and impartial while translating, regardless of their own beliefs or the nature of the content being translated. In addition to this, consistently interpreting for prolonged periods of time can prove strenuous both mentally and physically.
“When I moved here, I did a few years, and I got hurt,” Romano said. “I was working in Seattle full time as an interpreter and I was using my arms too much, and I think I had done some previous damage in Chicago. I didn’t realize I was doing a lot of Deaf-Blind interpreting, and I think in those days interpreters just weren’t aware of the cumulative trauma, they call it, that you’re doing to your body, and so I think I did some unseen damage. Then when I was working a lot in Seattle, it started to show up, and so I stopped working for several months, and then I started looking at teaching more.”
Romano began her teaching career at Seattle Central College working under pioneering ASL teacher and actor Lou Fant, teaching the last year of his two year program following his retirement. In order to teach at a college level, Romano knew she would need to pursue a master’s degree, so she attended Seattle University and earned her Master’s of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESL). Romano has had experience instructing and working with several college interpreting programs, including teaching part-time at Olympic College for eight years, before finally settling in as CKHS’ ASL teacher. Now, Romano has been teaching at CKHS for 13 years, and instructs four levels of ASL courses.
Marilee Donohoe, a retired hard of hearing ASL teacher, now serves as a volunteer for the CKSD advisory board, where she is able to provide input and observe the progress of the district’s ASL programs. Donohoe has had the opportunity to visit and interact with Romano’s classes, and affirmed that Romano’s firsthand knowledge and experience as a certified interpreter is valuable, including in helping students who may be interested in pursuing a career in interpreting.
“I’m just thrilled that Mrs. Romano is teaching at Central Kitsap High School with her wonderful background in interpreting,” Donohoe said. “She is an outstanding interpreter and also very understanding and insightful in relating to deaf and hard of hearing people. She has excellent signing skills and I’m just so pleased that she can offer that to the students there, and they will learn so much from her.”
CKHS junior Li-Mei Co was inspired to take ASL so she could learn to communicate better with her hard of hearing friend, and is now nearly halfway through her second year of the program. Co noted her immersive experience in ASL class has been unlike any other language class she has taken before.
“I recommend every single student that hasn’t taken a language yet — or even students who have taken a language — I tell them to take ASL, because it’s American Sign Language and we have a big Deaf community in Silverdale,” Co said. “There are deaf people everywhere, and it’s just really beneficial. One of the best things about ASL — or maybe it’s just Mrs. Romano — is that she teaches you so much, and ASL is such a versatile language that you can have a conversation with someone just after a year of teaching, and you can’t really do that in any other language.”
Like Co, Romano has noticed a growing number of students joining her class to learn how to communicate with hard of hearing or deaf friends and family members. In addition to this, more students who are hard of hearing or deaf themselves have been enrolling in her class.
“I’ve had more hard of hearing students lately,” Romano said. “Last year I had several. Some are quite hard of hearing, but they’re not culturally Deaf yet, so they’re taking sign language because they don’t know sign language, but yet they can’t hear very well. So, I think that’s something that them and their parents at home have to kind of figure out, and as the young person grows up and tries to figure out their identity, it’s a big part of being hard of hearing or deaf: ‘Where do I fit in? So am I with the hearing world? Am I with the Deaf world? Can I bridge both worlds? Can I be in both worlds?’”
“I think it can be a real struggle for people to try and look at that within their own heart, like ‘where do I belong and what do I want out of my life? And wow, I really can’t hear, and sometimes hearing culture does not accommodate me.’ Even here at school, teachers write on the board and do their best to have the person lip read them, but even I forget and I’ve been doing this for a really long time. I think sometimes it’s hard to be hard of hearing or profoundly deaf, but be in the hearing world. Sometimes I do think being in the Deaf world can be comforting if you know sign language — and welcoming — and hey, we’re the same, look at us. We share a lot of the same hardships. So let’s talk about that, and let’s bond over that, and let’s create a world where we can be ourselves.”
