Deaf Literature: Discovering what it means

Currently I am in a Deaf literature class and we are constantly asking ourselves, "what is it literature?".  This is really a prevalent question within the class because the Deaf community is consistently being challenged that they don't have literature.  Literature comes in so many forms and to restrict it to just text would be boring.

Last week in class Deb assigned us to start searching for material online and bring it to the class, challenging each other with the question, "is this literature?".  This is a poem in ASL that uses both ASL and SEE (signing exact english) so my challenge is, is this still ASL literature?  It uses a different form to express different perspectives in Deaf culture....so my question is, does it have a positive impact with the choice of mode he uses?  My opinion is that this is Deaf Lit but not ASL Lit.  It uses different parts of signing to create a connection between all Deaf people.  Although it may use both SEE and ASL to express its point, it shows that all Deaf people are connected through their heritage no matter how much variety in language there may be.






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0VBvKNd6hE