Gallaudet University, Deaf Starbucks, & National Museum Of The American Indian

Do you know there is a university designed exclusively for the deaf and signing community? It started more than 150 years ago and is in Washington, D.C. Gallaudet University. https://gallaudet.edu/about/ I was so excited to see this place. I became 100% deaf four years ago and the eight or so years before that I was hard of hearing. The current mission of the university is this: “Gallaudet University, federally chartered in 1864, is a bilingual, diverse, multicultural institution of higher education that ensures the intellectual and professional advancement of deaf and hard of hearing individuals through American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Gallaudet maintains a proud tradition of research and scholarly activity and prepares its graduates for career opportunities in a highly competitive, technological, and rapidly changing world.” 

Across the street from the entrance of the university is a flashing sign that says “deaf pedestrians”. Neat to see. We didn’t see a sign for a visitor center so we just walked around looking at the buildings. Then we saw a security booth and went there. A guy came out and I signed to him “visitor center” and he showed us a map where to go. Each building around here looks different than the others; nice, not cookie-cutter. We walked into the Edward Miner Gallaudet Memorial Building and was greeted by a very friendly lady, in ASL. She asked if we would like to do a tour, it starts in about 20 minutes. Oh yes, please.

When I told her that my husband is hearing, she said they would have an interpreter for him. HAHA I LOVE that! He has to have an English-voiced interpreter. Tables turned. 😃 The man in the picture, on the left, was Kevin’s interpreter. The man on the right was the Deaf tour guide.

We looked around are learned some neat information. One thing is that the buildings are open, lots of windows to let natural light in (love this!) and the couches and chairs, etc are usually blues and greens in color. That is the best colors to be able to see hands. Also, classrooms and any seating areas are in a circle so you can see others better for signing. There were two other people in our tour. 

Afterwards, we went to the bookstore. I wanted some swag! We bought two camping chairs that have the university name on the back. We need new ones. We started walking to the deaf owned pizza place called Mozzeria off campus. This had been on our list for a long time. Suddenly I stopped and said we should see if they are open today, Tuesday. The walk would be about 0.7 miles. Good thing I checked, closed. We turned around and went back in the building to the cafeteria. This was about 2:45 p.m. They had great food stations with lots offered but we ended up doing the salad bar. Delicious. Since school is out, we just saw a few people around and they were mostly staff. The TVs in the eating area had captions on the news, a graduation video playing, and an information video in ASL. I just think I am in another world, heaven! 

From there we wanted to go to the deaf Starbucks that so many deaf friends have told us about. So we walked there. We walked past houses and then to a street with businesses that went to Union Station. At this Starbucks, the outdoor canopies have hands fingerspelling Starbucks plus it is also in English.

Inside is a sign, “This store is dedicated to people united by sign language and Deaf culture.” LOVE! Immediately a worker did the sign for “sign” and Kevin said he signs a little. The rest of the order was all in ASL. Yeah!!! If you don’t know ASL, there are iPads there at the order counter to use. When your order is ready, your name appears on a screen. Since I don’t like coffee, I ask the guy what he recommended. Whatever it was called, it was delicious. A summer drink with berries. So neat to look around at all the people, employees and customers, signing. From there we thought we would go back to the train station but our walk south to the Starbucks had us on the street to Union Station. So we started west. Up and over the railroad tracks. Easy way to grab a Metro train. Lots of great walking this day.

The next day we went to the National Museum of the American Indians and we are so glad we did! This museum is so well done. It can be easy for a place to be one-sided, and we see that often, but there wasn’t any of that here.

Most of the display boards had a statement at the top and then Viewpoint Native Nations and next to it Viewpoint United States. They covered all areas of life.

We read about “termination” and assimilation and so much more. So many stories.

Again, we are appalled how some people chose to treat other people!

So many stories and lives affected. We, as people, need to learn from the past and be better.

I had read about the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe in the building. Mitsitam means, “Let’s eat!” The chef is Native American. We had a late lunch there and goodness, it was fantastic. We both had Navajo taco with bison stew on top. I couldn’t tell the different from bison and beef. Lots of flavors. We also ordered chips and guacamole. The lady grabbed an avocado and made it right there for us. Oh the flavors. We laugh and said we each were trying to figure out a way to stay there long enough to have it again for dinner. HAHA The cafe windows look out over flowing water feature and was very peaceful. As we left, it was raining. The rain was gentle and straight down so the walk to the Metro train wasn’t bad. By the time we got home (footnote 1) the rain had stopped.

1. “Home” is where we park it. Home is our 2022 Alliance Avenue, 36 ft, 5th wheel.