BURBANK : U.S. Honors the Deaf With 2 New Stamps

For easing loneliness and tearing down walls of misunderstanding, American Sign Language and the deaf community that uses it were honored Monday in Burbank with two new U. S. postal stamps.

“We invented it,” said Dick Babb, a board member of the National Assn. of the Deaf, during an hourlong ceremony. “We use it, and now we are giving it to the whole world. It’s our culture.”

The stamps feature sign language symbols for “I love you”: a hand with thumb, index and pinky fingers extended. In one version, a mother is giving that sign to her baby.

As part of the ceremony, Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin signed the “Star-Spangled Banner” to the crowd of about 800 at the Starlight Amphitheater.

By recognizing sign language, the U. S. Postal Service was recognizing a culture built up around visual communication.

“We’re storytellers,” Kathy Buckley, a hearing-impaired comic, said in an interview. “We like to explain everything, so you can taste it, you can feel it. It’s a beautiful language.”

Burbank was chosen as the site to launch the new stamps because an innovative education program for deaf students, Tripod, is based here.

Megan Williams, a founder and board president of Tripod, said her son was 8 months old before she learned that he was deaf. It was devastating to realize that he had heard none of the lullabies she had sung to him.

“Sign language took away that pain,” said Williams, whose son is now a high school football player.

Barry Fischtal, a hearing-impaired postal worker in the Van Nuys office, said that although the post office might be issuing new stamps to commemorate the deaf, the agency still needed to work on its own internal image of people who can’t hear.

“The struggle continues,” said Fischtal, who was just made a window clerk three weeks ago after years of trying to convince his bosses that he could do the job.

Still, Joseph J. Mahon Jr., vice president for labor relations for the U.S. Postal Service, said the post office was working on providing visual fire alarms and telephone devices for deaf employees.

Buckley, who grew up reading lips, admitted to the crowd that her own signing ability is less than stellar. But she said she hopes that if any sign ever becomes universal, it will be the “I love you “ sign.

“I wasn’t raised with signing,” said Buckley, who lived most of her life straddling the hearing and deaf worlds. “And I never felt like I was at home.

“I’ve realized there’s nothing wrong with being deaf,” Buckley continued. “But everything (is) wrong about not being able to communicate.”