 Say it loud. I'm black, I'm deaf, and I'm proud. Say it loud. I'm black, I'm deaf, and I'm proud. Whoop. Say it louder. I'm black, I'm deaf, and I'm proud. Say it louder. Say it louder. I'm black, deaf, and proud. Y'all, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Deaf Woke. I am Amtwan Hunter, also known as Purple Fire Crow. I am so happy to be here with you today, on February, Black History Month. I'm black, and it's all good. But really, black history is every day. It's all year round. And my goal is to celebrate different individuals. But before we start, I'll provide a visual description. I have an ebony color locks. My hair is pulled back. It's almost three feet long. I have a bushy beard. I have dark chocolate, milk chocolate. Got it from my mama, my skin. I have a black shirt on, with yellow embroidery. Says deaf, hashtag deafwoke. I'm here alone, solo, with a blue background on. Here in Oakland, representing the Black Panthers. I'm really excited for today. Today, February 12th, Valentine's Day is right around the corner. I hope you and a special person have something fun to do. But if you don't have anything, if you don't have a person to celebrate, well, you can celebrate with yourself. You can love yourself. You could go out and have some fun activities, or just chill. You can love yourself. You don't have to do anything expensive. It's something that's cost-free, self-love. Now, before I start, I would like to introduce two of our beautiful interpreters. What's up? This is interpreter Jay. And this is Kaylee. You guys are awesome. I want to thank you guys so much for working with us today. I'm excited, y'all. I want to read my guest bio. This beautiful person. Incredible to be here with us on February 12th. Discussing life as a deaf person. Our guest is deaf, but does not allow that barrier to stop them from achieving, working hard, having a family. Our guest wanted to add more deaf representation. So our guest is Kiana Tate. From Michigan, she's an author of a book. She's the author of Signing with Kai. Now, I don't want to get too much into me explaining the book. I want to allow Kiana to talk about her book and how she's developing ways to knock down barriers. So I'm going to go ahead and cut me short and bring up Miss Kiana. Come on, dance a little bit with me. Kiana, dance for a little bit. Welcome to Deaf Woke. How are you doing? I'm good. Yeah. From my understanding, you were born in Michigan. What does Michigan look like? Yeah, hi. So I'm Kiana. This is my sign name. Like you were saying, I'm from Michigan. I'm in the 12th grade. And I go to Michigan School for the Deaf. Before, I went to the Detroit School for the Deaf in elementary school. I went to Bush. And then I transferred to the school for the Deaf and Blind. And then I stayed in that school for a while. That was a mainstream school. And then I went to MSD, the Michigan School for the Deaf. And I'm going to graduate soon. Oh, you're a senior. So after a senior year, what are you going to do? You going to college? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wanted to go to a college called Henry Ford. That's in Detroit. So that's kind of close by. I remember that you mentioned that the school that you were thinking about was kind of far, but you wanted to stay local, stay home. Family's important, yeah? Yeah. In our pre-meeting, you had said you had brothers and sisters? Mm-hmm. I have a sister, another brother, Melange. We call them MJ. And then they're signing because they're shy. And they're learning sign language, both of them. You're teaching your family signs? So hopefully, they're looking up to you. You don't just teach your siblings, but you're teaching around the world and using your book to do so. And how did that come about? Yeah, I met one of my cousin's friends. And I realized that there wasn't a lot out there for us. So we got together, my cousin and their friend, and we got together in January and wrote this book and had it distributed. And this is what it looks like. Beautiful. That's beautiful. Who are the people in the book? So inside the book, it's my sister, my brother, my cousin, my cousin's friend. I wanted it to be people who are important to me to help the hearing community learn ASL, people who had no idea about the deaf community. Do you see that there's other ASL book representation? And you didn't get the opportunity to see as much ASL in books. Right, you never see black people in the ASL books. There's no representation in them. And that's why when we thought of this book, we really wanted to show black and brown people. Because we're so underrepresented. So that's why we got together and decided to make this book, because it's always the ABC book, which is all of white representation. And so that's why we wanted to make this one. When you published your book, what were the reactions? Did you get positive support or disdain? Yeah, my sister couldn't believe it. I had a Fox News interview. Really, some other interviews that really highlighted the book was a really great experience. How long did it take to create the book? Was it simple one day? Well, a couple of weeks turned into about a month or so. It definitely wasn't overnight. It took hard work and capturing all the photographs and typing it up. I had Amber help me. And so that was helpful. I know you have various individuals taking family members. Did you have a photographer, or did you take those photos of yourself? So the one of myself, my mom took. Oh, can you see me? Go again? So my mom took the photos of me and my brother. And there was some photos of my cousin. But she lives in another state, so I had to ask somebody to take a photo of her. So they were happy to do that. And so it was a couple of people piecing together the different photographs. Yeah, so it was a family team collaboration. Yeah. I love that. You know, a book made with family love. You know, where can we find your book? Oh, sorry, can you say that again? That was the question? Yeah, where can we buy your book? Oh, you can get it on Amazon. Or you can order it in person, so either one. Yeah, you know, I need to go buy one. It is a beautiful book. Oh my goodness, look what I got. You probably didn't know I already had one. No, I didn't know. That's awesome. Thanks for supporting me. Yes. No, thank you for creating this book. It's one of the most beautiful books I have read. It really just touched me. It's just beautiful to see black and brown people signing. It's important that we have that representation of our language, yeah? Do you plan on making more books in the future? Oh, yeah, definitely. Of course, I want to make more books. One of colors, one of numbers, and one of the different stories of me growing up in my family. Well, when should we expect that? I don't know. I can't give a date to it. OK. I love your shirt. Unapologetic. Who made your shirt? Oh, my cousin made it for me. Yeah, they make t-shirts. And so they made this one for me. Did he make it? Is that the only one he made, or your cousin made? No, they made shirts. They make all different sort of, all different kind of graphic apparel. Basically, I can just show them a photo of something and I ask them, can you make it? And they can. Does your cousin have a business set up? Where can people buy different t-shirts? Oh, honestly, I don't remember. We'll follow you. Don't worry. Oh, Anton, you're froze. Could you say it again? You froze. Can you see me now? OK, yeah, I see you now. That's better. What are you planning to do or become after you graduate? College. Sorry, I actually got interrupted to say it wasn't my cousin who made the shirt. I was wrong. I was mistaken. It's a deaf woman, actually, who makes these shirts. So it wasn't my cousin, my bad, my bad. Yeah, this is her name sign. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I know them, yeah. Yeah, you can contact her online and get orders made. And her name is. What's your mom's name? Oh, well, my mom's name is Khadija. So your sign name is right at the cheek. Your mom's name is right at the eye. Why is your sign name? Because I'm happy, you know, so I like to smile. What makes you happy? Family jokes, you know, just people teasing me. So I'm always laughing all of the time. Yeah, family can be funny sometimes. Where do you hope to travel in the world? Maybe London, UK. Where would you like to travel? I really want to go to Paris. Paris? Yeah, I do. Why Paris? Well, you just see the architecture and the museums. It just looks so beautiful. Just the culture looks really beautiful. I want to go. So culture is important to you. Clearly, it's representing in your book. And that's exactly what your book shows. We'll have another book titled Sign with K, part two. Yeah, I think the other one will be about colors. The cover will probably be a pink cover, so I'm excited for that. Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm hoping. And I love me some animals. Sharks, horses. Yeah, I hope you make one with animals. Oh, you don't like sharks? What? No. Sharks are cool. Well, you do love animals, though, yeah? Yeah, yeah. What animals do you love? I love cats and dogs, horses too. OK, I like that. So, you know, let's go back. How's school going? We all got, we have straight A's. I know school isn't the easiest. Are we going to be opening a bookstore? Oh, could you say that again? Yeah, you're going to be opening a bookstore after college? No. I think I might want to open up a deaf restaurant, though. You know, I like publishing the books and making the books, but I don't think I want to make that a career. What do you look up to, you know, your role models? Definitely my mom, Saini, Carol, you know, Khadija, my mom, you know, she has just helped me so much to grow into an independent person. She's taught me so much and encouraged me all along the way, you know. So I am the person I am because of her. Carol, she's taught me a lot of how to really become successful to, you know, run businesses and things like that. And then my godmom, Saini, she's just so funny and such a good performer. And she's deaf and just really supportive of everything that I do. Yeah, you've named some beautiful people. Now, you mentioned some people who have been fooling you to become courageous. Oh, sorry, I'm freezing a little bit. Let me back up a little bit. My godmom, Saini, so she also went to the school for the deaf and graduated from Michigan School for the Deaf too. Wow. So you have some strong independent people in your life. I know you had mentioned your name in some people, which gives me an idea. So we're going to play a little game called Name These People. You ready? OK. Woo! OK, for everyone watching, what I'll do is I'll provide a visual description. Now, Kiana, if you have the name and know the name of the person, you can answer it that way. Or what they do, maybe an actor, actress, musician. Yeah, you can name who they are or name what they do. This visual description. This is, she does makeup, and she's wearing silver earrings. She's doing a pose at the camera. And she's Lauren. And her last name is poorfall? What's her last name? OK. Yeah! Yep. This is Lauren Rodolf. She's deaf, native of Chicago and Illinois, is an American actress known for her roles in the TV series The Walking Dead and the film Internals. Her breakthrough role was a leading performance in the Broadway play Children of a Lesser God. She's acting coming from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, DC. Lauren is the first acted in a film if you could hear my own tone. This is Ms. J. Bryant, who, funny enough, is designed to t-shirts. Yeah. Hold on, wait, wait. So the visual description, a picture of an African-American male, stands in his black hat and a black leather jacket, opening to show a white shirt going with a pair of washed-on blue jeans. Who is he? Oh, this is Shaheem. Shaheem. Yeah, Shaheem, yeah. OK, yep. Shaheem is deaf, native of Los Angeles, California, is choreographer, creative director, and actor. Recently, Shaheem acted in the Oscar-winning Sound of Metal on Hulu. And another big news is he was a guest on The Ellen Show, or will be in three weeks. Oh, OK. Visual description of a picture of an African-American male appears in his low-cut black hair. He wears a white hoodie jacket with black stripes inside and a white top. Chris Brown. Oh, not Tyler James Williams. That was close. They do look the same, yes. Yeah, the eyes look kind of similar. Yeah, this is Taylor James, hearing, native of New York, actor. He's best known for playing in a sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, at the Disney Channel, Let It Shine, and on AMC, The Walking Dead. Visual description of a picture of an African-American female wears a tan-head wrap on her head with the dark blue-locked bangs. She has four lock jewelry on her lock bag and blue eyes, brows with long eyelashes. You think she's hearing a deaf? OK, so she's deaf. I know she's deaf. And I think I met her at a camp last year. It was like an online event. I think her name starts with a jet. Maybe Jaleese? It's close. What do you think she does? It's her profession. She's a musician. I forget. She's an actress. Oh, she's a performer. Yeah, she signs. And she does some educational things. And she performs. Yeah, Raven. Raven signs. OK, this is her signing. Yeah, she has a book as well. She's deaf, native of Alabama. Is a dancer, ASL performer, and a huge deaf advocate. This one's a hard one. This is a picture of an African-American male appears in his black curly afro haircut with shaved sides wears a pair of black-framed eyeglasses. Who is he? What do you think his profession is? In movies, related to me. Is he hearing? Hearing, mm-hmm. I think he's hearing and. Do you think he's involved in movies? Is that his name, maybe? It's close, close. This is Jeremy Lee Stone. But he is deaf. Oh, oh. Lives in New York City. He's an American Sign Language Instructor, social media platform, platformer, ASL storyteller, and a poet for an ASL slam poetry on Instagram. A picture of an African-American male sits putting his hand on his left cheek and dimples, smiling at the camera. He has a deeply gray, sunny hat with strings wears a blue shirt with a pair of gray shorts and a black-brown beaded bracelet. Who is he? I don't know who this man is. I think he's deaf. Look at him smiling, giving you a hint. I think the picture doesn't do him justice, but this is Matt Maxey. He's a company called Definitely Dope that does ASL music. He's a performer, advocacy, activism, teaching sign language and context creation. I may introduce you guys. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. OK, OK, I know this one. Is a picture of an African-American male appears in his olive green cap with a black short afro popping in front of a silver pierced nose black trimmed mustache. Who is he? I remember him from YouTube and does some TikToks. Yeah, he's doing this move. Deaf, for sure, deaf. This is his favorite move right here. This is Harold Fox. Visual description of a picture of an African-American female appears in her black braided crown hairstyle. She wears a full makeup, a pair of silver earrings and light blue. She hugs herself, looks at the camera calmly. Who is she? Yes, she's a cool actress. She's a poetry and an activist. Last year in 2021, Amanda delivered her poem, The Hill We Climb at the Inauguration of the US President. Oh, yes, she did a poem. When President Biden was being inaugurated, right? She stood right beside him. Yeah, she was doing her rendition. And she invoked some ASL while she was singing. It was beautiful. I think time is getting close. The visual description of a picture of an African-American female appears with a medium, a long thick black curly hair. She wears a long sleeve beige jacket, looking at the camera smiling happily. Do you know who she is? Because you may know, I don't know. From a movie called Star on Star. I don't know if you know it. I think she's hearing, but she does sign. And she was on a thing that was on the news, but what she did, I don't remember. Right, her name's Gracie Bears. Yep, she's a coda. Her parents are deaf. Yeah, you got that right. That was really good. And she's in a drama television show called Empire. This is a visual description, a picture of an African-American male appears in his black, thick, afro hair. He wears a multicolored shirt, looks at the camera smiling happily. Do you think he's an actor or a painter? Which do you think he does? I'm gonna go with painter. Yep, this is Tyler Gordon. He likes to identify as deaf and hard of hearing. He's a native of San Jose in California. He has, he's pretty popular and self-taught in painting. Nah, aw. How? With, yes, several celebrity portraits. I don't, same as you. Yeah, yep, same as you. This is, we'll do this one, this last one, a picture of a Kenyan-Mexican female appears in her black, short, low-cut hair. She wears a white, short, multi-diamond earring and non-sleeved ivory floral top. She looks at the camera, smiles happily. Oh, she was in Black Panther. Yeah, I know she was in Black Panther. And I think she's hearing. I think she's a coda, are her parents done? Oh, this is Lupita, last name, N-Y-O-N-G. Yep, she was in Black Panther. You got it, you won. Come on, dance with me, come on. Woo. Okay, now I've had my opportunity of interviewing you. So now we're gonna give the audience some times to ask some questions. All right, audience, all right, people. This is time to ask Kiana questions. You can ask your question using the comment box. A question is, how long did it take for you to finish the book? Did it take you one year, a couple of days, maybe two years? I think it was actually more like two months. Okay. Because it took, we started about November, discussions of the book in November with me and my cousin and our friend. And then in December, is when we actually started producing it. And then we were finished by January. Ooh. Oh, wow. Okay, that was quick. You were serious, you were. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, they said love your t-shirt. Take Bonnie from Jade Bryan. Comment is, I have your book, Strong. Questions, do you dance? Yeah, I do. I actually love to dance. What sort of genre do you like dancing? Ballet? I would say. Like worship dancing. I forgot the name of it, but it's like you kind of have like your face paint. So it's like mine? Yeah. So I do that. And then what is the other one? Like the dougie? Yeah, I said teach me how to dougie. And whip and nae nae, that one. Questions, what do you want to do when you grow up? I mean, before I wanted to become a teacher, but I definitely changed my mind on that one. Yeah, no, not anymore. So I think I want to become a chef. Well, I thought I wanted to become a chef. I changed my mind again when I got a little bit older. But now I think that I want to become either like a hairstylist, like, you know, doing locks and stuff or own my own restaurant. So not the chef, but own the restaurant. Okay, I like that. Maybe designing lights, like DEI, restaurant, hair, books. Now let's hope we don't find any hair in some food now. Right. Let's be sanitary. We'll have the hair nets. Yeah, safety first. I would go to your restaurant. Again, where can we purchase your books? You can either get them on Amazon and it's called Signing with Kai. Yeah, on Amazon. So the title of the book that they can search is Signing with Kai. Yeah, so it's called Mime Praise Dance. Is that what you were referencing? Yeah, Mime Praise Dance. So this question is beautiful. Kai, you were involved with Mime Praise Dancing in your church? Yeah, I was doing the Mime Dancing and then the other kind, but I forgot the name of it, but I do different kind of dances, different kind of genres. What messages do you wanna share the young females to become successful? You know, following in your steps. What do you wanna tell them? Now, this book that you made is hard work. Absolutely, yeah. No, it wasn't easy. It took a lot of work and learning how to go about the process of making it and making edits, because there's like a business behind it and a lot of different ideas that came together to make it. You know, how can people support? I think that they can become a member, share things on social media to increase the support. We got you, we got you. And not just the one time thing, do it consistently. Right, you know, promoting, you know, reaching out, getting the message out there. That's right, exactly. I like that, thank you. Wow, you're an incredible leader. Time is running out, y'all. So, we have any more messages from the people? Where did I go? What? What just happened? I just disappeared, I'm back. Here's our last question. Who's your role model? My mom and then my god mom, and then Carol, Carolyn, their full name. Beautiful, beautiful. Have you all enjoyed yourself so far? Chat with Kiana? Let's see those likes, let's see those hearts. Come on, let's see those clicks. I see some coming in. Now, if you all wanna follow Kiana, you can follow her on her social media, IG is at ITSS.KHY, K-H-Y. Kiana, Kiana. Yo, please go follow and gaze, chat with her. And of course, go buy her book. Go buy her book. Don't look at me, look at this book. Look at this book. Now, Khy, what's the last thing you wanna share with the people? What's something important that you wanna let them know? What was the question? Yeah, what's important you wanna let the audience know? What would you like to let them know before you leave? Well, really, I just wanna thank them all for their support, their support of me and my book. You know, the goal of it was really just to inspire community building and teaching the hearing community how they can sign and converse with us. And I'm just really thankful for all of the support from the audience, from my mother and from just everyone around me. Thank you, Anton for having me here today and for letting me interview. Oh, thank you. Thank you for, you know, bringing your story or creating your book, sharing your experience. I've learned so much from you, thank you. Guess what? You're the first teenager that I've interviewed, the first one, first black deaf woman teenager. Now you gotta dance with me, come on. I love it. Thank you so much for coming. I hope you have an amazing rest of the year. Well, I'll wave to everyone, bye. Bye. That's kind of a beautiful person, beautiful spirit. Looking at her, a strong and independent spirit. But she got her love from her family, that family support, friends as well. You know, family, friends, that support, ooh. And you can see the light shining and resonating off of her. Now, if you wanna make a book, you wanna create something, you know, pull in that family. You know, when adults see young people having a dream, having a vision, no, we don't have to wait to become an adult to have that dream. No, start now if you have it, whether you're deaf, hearing, black, brown. Beautiful book. Look at this, this is a beautiful book. I can't show you too much. Go and buy her book. Again, you can buy it on Amazon. You know, this is serious because there's not enough representation. You know, she's one of our leaders in the future. Maybe she'll become president. And she did say that, you know, she's maybe open up a restaurant, engage in hairstyling. But you never know what dreams can come later. But my point is, there's no dream that's too small. All dreams are important. You know, out of three dreams, maybe you have to be established on one. No, you can dream, dream big. Thank you all for watching. Yeah, go follow Kiana. Thank you to Kiana. Thank you to the interpreters. Thank you to the audience. Thank you to HowlRound, Drop Labs, GFTA, and you. Thank you for watching. If you wanna donate to Keep Deaf Woke Going, you can donate at realurbanjazzdancecompany.com. I really enjoyed myself today. Now it's time to play a little music. Oh, before I go, here's our next episode of Deaf Woke, February 15th. So come on, you gotta be there. We'll have an incredible guest. Peace, love. I'm out.