The American Sign Language Club was started this year in the month of August by students in various levels of education across the current ASL classes offered by New Mexico State University.
Jacob Cordova, Vice President of the American Sign Language Club, discussed the club’s initial challenges, including administrative hurdles that led to the cancellation of a movie night.
“We’ve had some issues with a couple of the events we wanted to do,” Cordova said. “We were told, you know, certain things that we were not able to do, that it seems like other clubs were able to so, you know, we’re kind of fighting with administration on that.”
Cordova noted that a couple of the events we wanted to do ran into restrictions that didn’t seem to apply to other organizations, leaving the club feeling as though they were fighting administration just to participate equally.
Despite setbacks, the club organized study sessions and a fundraiser for Nov. 12 from 12-3 p.m. at Corbett Center.
There, they sold iced coffee and agua frescas. Scout Lightfoot, the treasurer of the ASL Club, said the club’s goal is to raise money for better structuring, T-shirts, tabling events, and outreach.
The club started with the initiative of student Alexis Morales, who offered the mic to her fellow officers to speak, and in turn spoke highly of her.
“She takes care of a lot of that for us, and she really is the one putting in the work, reaching out to everybody,” Cordova said. “I get CC’d in a million emails, and she’s really putting in the effort to, you know, discuss that stuff with the people in the higher ups.
As the ASL Club lifts each other up, they promote NMSU’s new American Sign Language Minor with six available courses.
The available and upcoming ASL courses include ASL 1-4, Deaf Community, and Deaf Culture. Cordova emphasized the importance of community involvement, particularly in bridging the gap between the hearing and deaf communities.
“The final class, deaf community, is not going to be offered until fall of 2026,” Cordova said. “Anybody who’s interested, that’s what we’re going to be doing at the tabling in front of Corbett.”
Cordova emphasized a desire to bring together the hearing community and the deaf community in Las Cruces. He said the ASL Club’s goal is to support the Deaf community and platform them as people to listen to.
Cordova pointed out that deaf residents are responsible for keeping the Deaf culture of Las Cruces alive and that ASL language and experiences are essential to understanding. Cordova hopes to extend involvement beyond those just taking ASL for a class. He said many people who have deaf family members, deaf friends, or deaf co-workers emphasize that using sign language improves communication and connection in both the hearing and Deaf communities.
Ultimately, Cordova wants to create more events that are for Deaf and hearing people to congregate together. He believes these interactions would strengthen the community of the city.
Future plans include attending Deaf Night Outs and organizing a Deaf Drag Night to foster inclusivity and cultural exchange.
Deaf Night Out (DNO) is hosted by NMSU professor Jospeh (JoJo) Lopez and his friend Raquel Pierre. DNO is hosted once a month at local Las Cruces restaurants on Friday nights.
Ellie Mayer, a student pursuing ASL, researched and designed the ASL Club logo to help solidify the club as a whole.
“We had an original design, but we’ve kind of wanted it to, like, pop and catch people’s eyes,” Lightfoot said.
Alise Gallego, the Media Chair for ASL Club, offered advice and encouragement to NMSU students interested in expanding these skills, noting that the process can feel intimidating.
“I know a lot of my classmates are kind of intimidated, and like, ‘that’s not something I really am gonna do in the future,’ but it’s definitely, like, you can come out and still try to support us,” Gallego said. “You can see all of us are still learning and working together. So, I hope they know that it’s not as intimidating as it seems.”
Other events hosted by the ASL club throughout the remainder of the year include a study session on Mon. Dec. 1 in room 243 of the communications building at 1-3 p.m.
Students who are interested in attending ASL events can check their Crimson Connection page for updates.
Students are encouraged to attend all their events. As the ASL club most anxiously awaits the ASL Potluck. Non-students must pay a 10$ fee while students have free admission. The club encourages students to wear their ugly sweaters and bring homemade and store-bought dishes.
For more information about upcoming events, you can find it on the ASL Club’s Instragram page.
