January 20, 2022 - Emily Smith Lundberg grew up in Brainerd, MN. She was born early and had a twenty percent chance of survival. As a result, Emily stayed in the hospital for two months. Before releasing Emily home, the doctors ran several tests to make sure she was okay, including a hearing screening test which was not routinely done back in the 1980s as it is nowadays. That was how they found out Emily was deaf. Her parents were hearing and didn’t know sign language, nor did they have any exposure to the Deaf community. They were already grieving over the loss of Emily’s 1-month old sister from a year prior, so finding out their second child was deaf was not difficult to process as they had experienced the worst of the worst of losing a child. In the end, they were just grateful that Emily was a healthy baby, “they knew I was a fighter from day one.”
While Emily was in the hospital in St. Paul, as Brainerd didn’t have the resources for Emily, her parents wanted to know what Deaf adults would appear as, so they visited the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Division (DHHSD). The staff at DHHSD were surprised to see her parents there, as it wasn’t often they had parents of newborn deaf babies visit. They armed her parents with support and resources and encouraged them to sign to communicate with Emily. “They started learning through the brown book, ‘The Joy of Signing’, which was popular back then!”
Emily started learning through the 0-3 program where a teacher would visit the home and teach the family sign until Emily attended preschool full time at age 2, where she was in a classroom with other D/HH children. Upon entering kindergarten, Emily was mainstreamed, with a class that stayed the same from K-5. Her classmates picked up ASL and Deaf Culture through Emily and another classmate who was also Deaf. She was mainstreamed through high school, armed with interpreters and teachers of the deaf. “My mother was an ardent advocate for my equal access to education. She expected nothing less from me.” They made sure their daughter had access to D/HH peers and adult role models growing up, including going to Deaf events in both the Twin Cities and Brainerd. “One of those, my mother helped set up, was to have the National Theater of the Deaf (NTD) come to Brainerd and perform.”
Emily attended the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) upon graduating from high school. “I was so ready for the college experience, but I found myself lacking something during my time at RIT. Then I attended Gallaudet’s homecoming weekend during my first quarter at RIT. It was an awakening moment for me when the carful of friends and myself entered campus - there’s no place like Gallaudet like you know ‘there’s no place like home?' That was Gallaudet.” Dan, who she would marry in the future, was her boyfriend at the time and gave her a tour of Gallaudet's campus. “That was when I knew I needed to be here.” The following semester, Emily transferred to Gallaudet. Emily recalls that her RIT experience felt too much like her education journey growing up in the mainstream and didn’t feel there was room for her to grow. During one of her first classes at Gallaudet, a history class, she noted the classroom set up with all students arranged in a semi-circle, facing each other instead of the traditional rows of seats. Not only that, but the class was also small enough for intimate discussions. There was no interpreting needed, which was a significant change for Emily, as the professor could communicate directly to the class. “For the first time, I was getting information directly from the teacher and not through a secondary medium such as an interpreter. That was a life-changing moment for me.”
Emily received her bachelor’s degree in Deaf Studies, followed by a master’s degree in sign language education, and strived to follow in her mother’s footsteps and continue with advocacy work, focusing on youth. She shares a story: “When I was 10, I was sent to the grocery store to buy milk. I fretted about the communication needs, and my mother pointed out that I knew everyone there, and they all knew who I was. She handed me cash, and I went. The cashier overcharged me, but I was just happy enough to have made my purchase. In the car, my mother asked to see the receipt. She made me go back in and confront the cashier for overcharging me. I used paper and pen to communicate with the cashier, and they fixed the error, giving my correct change back. My mother told me, ‘good job.’ I then found out that she set the entire scenario up. She had called the store and gave them a heads up and planned the whole thing to make sure I could learn to advocate for myself.” Due to that experience, Emily wants to ensure that D/HH youth also experience opportunities to learn how to advocate for themselves.
Upon graduating from Gallaudet, Emily continued as a camp director for 20 years, which she started during her second year at Gallaudet. She first started with Camp Sertoma and then moved onto Camp UBU, You Be You. “That was an amazing experience for me, seeing D/HH youth interact with one another. It was vital for them to be able to meet peers with similar experiences. They also had D/HH role models as their camp counselors. So that overall experience was important.” She recalls her years as a camper at Camp Courage enriching experiences and wants the same for other D/HH youth. Her roles include marketing, developing the curriculum, hiring and training staff, registering campers, and overseeing the weekly activities - pretty much everything!
Emily also works with Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, which she accepted the position of director of the Deaf Mentor Family Services this past June. She works with families of hearing parents of D/HH children who want to learn ASL from a Deaf mentor trained to use the SKI HI Deaf Mentor Family curriculum. “We’d have D/HH mentors come to the family’s home, teach them ASL, early visual cues, such as if someone rings the doorbell and the hearing family responds to it while leaving the deaf person oblivious. We work with the family to get in the habit of responding to those early visual cues by first informing the deaf person and then responding to the sound. That way, they can respond to it together, as a family.” Deaf culture and advocacy skills are also taught. Families can choose to be part of this program for one year or two years, meeting every two weeks with the Deaf. Mentor, and there is flexibility in how the sessions are built. Emily’s responsibilities include ensuring the program runs effectively, making sure the needs of the families and mentors are met, budgeting, and so on. There is no cost to families. The program is funded by DHHSD through the Department of Human Services.
What Emily loves about her two jobs is seeing the budding relationships and growing confidence among campers. “Seeing conversations taking place without barriers. Being accepted as a full person.” She adds that she loves seeing camp counselors serve as role models and influence the lives of their campers for the better. “I’ve seen it come full circle when my campers become counselors themselves and seeing the circle continue.” She loves getting messages from parents who have seen a positive change in their child after attending camp, noting increased positivity and self-being awareness. “Camp is their happy place.” With the Deaf Mentor Family service, she loves seeing the relief and content in families when they know they have someone to help them navigate the journey of raising a D/HH child. “For them to see Deaf adults and realize their child has the full potential in life to succeed like them. That there’s no limit to what they can do in the future.”
Emily is lucky to have an understanding staff and CEO with LSS who believe that all D/HH employees should have access to resources to succeed in the workplace, including bringing interpreters in when needed in the lines of service, “Access to language and communication is a no-brainer.” They have a small group working with LSS to ensure that every step of the way is accessible to their employees. All events hosted by LSS- whether an event, a presentation, or a board reporting - are accessible through interpreting. While she appreciates the open-mindedness of the staff regarding communication access needs, she does find herself repeating over and over why it needs to be done. “But that’s okay. Instead of looking at it as a barrier, I see it as a teaching opportunity.” She has encountered in previous employment where hearing individuals were not open-minded nor willing to adapt to alternate means of communication. Some of those individuals think that ‘hearing knows best’ and make decisions for the D/HH. “It became so bad that I decided that it wasn’t healthy for me, nor was it healthy for the D/HH community either.” So she left those environments.
Emily shares the following advice: “Be open-minded. Be willing to communicate. Learn how to explain things in the workplace in a way that the person can understand. Be a good communicator, a listener, Be an advocate for yourself. Persist, and your hard work will pay off when you hit your dream job.”
Outside of work, Emily and her husband Dan have been married for over 18 years (though they have been together for 22 years). They have two children together, and they enjoy spending time as a family, going camping, using an ice-skating rink that her father and Dan built, playing hockey on it. She loves gardening (both flowers and vegetables) and cooking (especially soups). She also loves to travel and meet new folks.
Emily encourages folks to connect with the D/HH/DB community in order to reach out to folks, connecting and supporting one another and stresses the collective experiences as being rich. “Always remember that you are capable of doing so much. Every individual is unique. Never think less of yourselves - you can do it. Preserve, and you will succeed in anything you set out to do in life.”
The #CanDoAnything campaign showcases people who are deaf, deafblind, or hard of hearing at work, giving them an opportunity to share what they do at their jobs and explain how communication access works for them. This campaign shows what our community can do, which is anything!
