Walking into Mrs. Diaz’s classroom, students wouldn’t know anything was different until they engaged in conversation. Amy Diaz is a the newest high school American Sign Language (ASL) teacher. She is also deaf.

“This is my first year, and so far most of the students are cool,” Diaz said.

Mrs. Diaz says that working in an almost 100% hearing environment doesn’t bother her; she has had several successful jobs before teaching.

“From the time I graduated high school, I’ve always worked in the hearing world… I’m used to working in a 100% hearing environment [from being] in the legal and banking fields,” Diaz said.

But for Mrs. Diaz, getting where she is now was not easy. It took many attempts, but she didn’t stop.

“I had to interview for many, many, many, many different jobs and many of them I never got,” she said.

Part of teaching ASL is teaching the history of the language and learning about the less obvious differences between the hearing community and the deaf community.

“They’re very different, they’re not the same, they’re two different communities,” she said. “Deaf is more descriptive but hearing people provide limited information, it’s very surface level. Deaf people tend to express everything.”