About Us

Mission

Asian Signers is a Deaf-led and nonprofit organization promoting the recognition of diverse Asian representation with a commitment to culture, literature and education in American Sign Language.

Video opens with “The meanings of Asian Signers Logo”. Introduction transitions to signer. Yudan is a light fair skin Chinese woman who has medium black hair, wears black framed glasses, and a black shirt.

Hello, have you ever wondered who designed the Asian Signers logo? Long Nguyen and Zione Hong are the designers who designed the logo. Together they worked for a year putting in different ideas, doing rough drafts, made a couple of changes, and finally made the logo.

Video transitions to new signer. Nozomi who has long black ombre hair with half up with white earrings. She wears a black shirt.

If you look at the logo, there are A and 5. Are you wondering what’s up with the handshape A and 5? At first, we discussed whether we should go with A and S. Meaning A stands for Asia, and S stands for signers, but it felt English-based. Instead, we wanted to use handshape A and 5, more Deaf way. If you look at the circular movement for Asia, it can be signed inward and outward. Movements can be interchangeable; that flexibility is reflected on the logo.

Video transitions to Lee Ann. Who has medium black hair and wears black shirt. The logo’s color is beautiful and mesmerizing. Do you wonder why we chose a particular color? The teal has green and blue mixed in. The teal color represents a community, not just one community, communities in large. The iris has blue and purple mixed in representing diverse involvement, meaning we welcome adoptee, biracial, gender identity, Deaf disability, CODA(hearing children who grow up signing). Overall, gradient color represents cultures, not just one but many cherished cultures, because signing communities have been associated with an Asian identity. Thank you.

EDIT: Diversity and Inclusion.

History

“The Race for the Chinese Zodiac” was the first Asian Literature in ASL produced by Lee Ann Tang as the signer and Nozomi Tomita as the video editor. It was originally posted for the Lunar New Year, but also became a groundbreaking movement for us.

Nozomi Tomita and Lee Ann Tang recognized the lack of involvement regarding Asian Deaf in various settings: education, community and professional. We were aware of common stereotypical characters, for example, passive, disinterested, or shy. We reframed the misassumptions due to an invisible representation of diverse Asians and Asian Americans in the media.

The diverse Asian and Asian-American population was tiny (and it still continues today), especially signed language: American Sign Language (ASL). We believed in providing cultural literature in ASL by Asians for our next generations to connect to oneself’s ethnic identity, for instance. Yeh Kim joined the boat and we three founded this organization, Asian Signers, in early February of 2020 in Washington, D.C.

Unexpectedly, the COVID-19 pandemic appeared that adapted the way we originally envisioned Asian Signers. In addition, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement went on its rise and also challenged us to include racism in our literature. Now with the “Stop Asian Hate” hashtag, we were proud to foster and acknowledge important racial issues within the communities.

Asian Signers became officially registered as a nonprofit under section 501(c)(3) in May 2020. We proudly produced our very first Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) in ASL. Note that APAHM is an annual event in the month of May. We spotlighted diverse Asians and Asian Americans sharing their stories, journeys, skills, cuisines, passions, and ethnic identities. The rest is history.