Professor reconnects with island roots through scholarship and advocacy

Dr. Danielle Thompson, G-’01 & ’03, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, estimates there are close to 30 signed languages across the Caribbean. Despite being geographically close to one another, the islands are home to many historically

isolated communities with high incidences of genetic and generational deafness. Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom colonized the region, and slavery and indentured servitude forced people from Africa, India, and China to the area. All of these influences mixed into the culture and language.

But Thompson says that this rich diversity hasn’t received the attention it deserves. “There’s a lot of decolonization work to do in re-valuing and having pride in our own languages,” says Thompson, an Associate Professor in Early Intervention Studies, who is the first and only Deaf person with a PhD from Trinidad and Tobago (as well as from the wider grouping of English-speaking Caribbean independent islands). This sense of pride in deaf Caribbean language and culture is central to her work as a force connecting and empowering deaf people throughout the region.

Thompson is the first Deaf person with a PhD from Trinidad and Tobago. In banner photo above, she advocates for national language recognition.

Thompson helped organize the tenth gathering of the SIGN conference, an international conference of sign language researchers, advocates, and educators, hosted in Trinidad and Tobago for the first time. She ensured that organizers and hosts worked together collaboratively and equitably. “This conference was different because we really focused on Caribbean issues,” she explains. Before the SIGN10 conference, deaf people from across the Caribbean participated in 5 days of free training in developing local advocacy skills. During the conference, sessions on both international and local Caribbean sign languages were offered. 

Thompson was a keynote presenter at SIGN10; her topic was about legal recognition of sign language and communication access for the deaf in the Caribbean, an issue she is especially passionate about. “Because I’m from there, I get more inspired and want to push to get language recognition for Trinidad and Tobago,” she says. “No English-speaking Caribbean island has achieved sign language recognition yet, so it’s a struggle to get support for services in schools, hospitals, and for mental health provision, for example. Governments see no reason to provide those services for deaf people; that’s the attitude right now.”  

The two deaf schools in Trinidad and Tobago only serve elementary-aged children, with the expectation that students will be mainstreamed beyond that point. But Thompson says there are problems around training, skill levels, and a dearth of interpreters. Other local issues include high unemployment among deaf people and meeting the needs of new deaf migrants coming into the country from Venezuela.

Thompson’s vision of what things could be like there for deaf children significantly differs from the way she grew up. As a deaf child on the island of Trinidad, Thompson recalls spending most of her time at the beach reading. She socialized with hearing kids, but recalls, “I’d go out with them and swim a little and then they would continue chatting with each other. It was hard to communicate, so I read a ton.” During her childhood, she never met another deaf person and experienced a deep sense of isolation.

Thompson was mainstreamed and experienced hours of speech therapy provided by A.G. Bell, which was present on the island with its clinic and services; the approach was to do whatever was needed for Thompson to adapt to hearing society. “Looking back, I see this as a strategic design on its [A.G. Bell’s] part to keep deaf people apart, and not see each other sign, share information, or learn signed languages,” she says. “There was no real way to meet one another.” 

She learned ASL for the first time during her junior year at an HBCU, Clark Atlanta University. Encouraged by her deaf teacher Robert Green, ’79, she then enrolled at Gallaudet, obtaining a Masters in Developmental and Child Psychology and then in School Counseling and Guidance. She worked in mental health and school counseling, taught languages, and ran a non-profit as her journey took her to Massachusetts, California, Japan, and Hawaii. 

Sign10 conference attendees experience the Caribbean’s rich linguistic diversity

Thompson wasn’t involved with deaf communities in the Caribbean until later, but the seeds were planted around 2007. Thompson was working on her PhD while working at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind when her best friend, Maria Tanya D. Viera, G-’03, invited her to go to the Philippines to join an event connected to the fight for national recognition of Filipino Sign Language (FLS). There, she noticed the progress of native deaf Filipinos’ work being hindered by divisions stemming from ideas of the superiority of ASL and of Western countries. “I saw that happening and realized that’s the same challenge in Trinidad and Tobago –  outsiders looking down on us,” reflects Thompson. In 2018 FLS was recognized as an official language. Thompson says, “The community really came together and supported one another. That really stuck with me. That’s when I started to wonder if the same could happen in Trinidad and Tobago.” 

After a chance encounter with another deaf person in Trinidad when she was visiting family, Thompson decided to act on her latent desire to reconnect with her birth country. She became involved with their work at a school for the deaf in Trinidad. “I felt it was my calling, and I’ve been involved in the community ever since,” she says. Thompson encourages deaf Caribbeans to be proud of their identities and value their languages, pointing to her own dual citizenship. “People think I gave up my Trinidadian passport, but no way! I value both,” she adds.

Thompson, who has been at Gallaudet since 2015, hopes to establish a Caribbean Deaf Center at Gallaudet to research its history and variety of signed languages, and to push for national recognition of sign languages throughout the region. She also envisions establishing a Caribbean Foundation for the Deaf and increasing the number of Caribbean deaf students studying at Gallaudet.

For now, she’s actively involved in organizing the Deaf Educators of the Caribbean Conference planned for November 2025 in Trinidad, which focuses on improving the quality of education for deaf and hard-of-hearing babies and children from 0-18 years old in the English-speaking Caribbean islands.