Samuel James Supalla

Dr. Samuel James Supalla was born in Pasco, Washington on December 4, 1957. "Although, I really think of myself as being born around December 23rd with the help of my brother, Ted!" His brother Ted had helped with the creation of his name sign, which Samuel did not have till three weeks after his birth. His name sign is signed with "the /S/ handshape moving from one side of the chin to the other" At a very young age, he began appointing name signs for others. Both of his parents were deaf and he had three brothers, two deaf and one hard of hearing. In result, Samuel grew up in a signing and culturally enriched Deaf environment. Sam Supalla is exceptionally notable for his storytelling performances in American Sign Language (ASL), particularly for his narrative in The American Literature Series: For a Decent Living. He is as well an accomplished filmmaker. Dr. Sam Supalla is a Deaf linguist “whose interest lies in the research and English development issues concerning deaf children” and stresses the importance in acquisition of a natural sign language.

Before enrolling in school, Samuel’s father would often go to the Deaf Club bringing the whole family along to attend. Samuel himself remembers the old stories and plays that were performed in ASL. The audience at the Deaf Club shared a common fascination for these ASL stories including him. The school that he enrolled into and graduated from was the Oregon School for the Deaf. Throughout all of preschool and elementary, the program itself enforced strong oralism amongst deaf students where signing was not allowed. At that time, oralism was commonly popular in the schools where oral language became the primary mode of instruction over sign language. Although the children were not allowed to sign, they would do so in their dormitories. “I had become a signing model for my peers during the early formative years.” At the Deaf school, children would sometimes go home on the weekends, while some stayed at their dorms. When Sam would go home he would make up stories about an imaginary white horse he had and when he would come back to school he would story tell about it to his friends. But once the students would come and visit his home “they would ask where the white horse was. I would have to lie and tell them that the white horse died. They were disappointed that they never got to saw the white horse”. It was this bogus and imaginary story that had led to the start of his experience in telling stories and had paved the path to his future success as a prominent story teller.

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