Kim lives in Swarthmore, PA with her husband, mother, and 12-year-old daughter, Brielle, who was born deaf. Kim describes her daughter as talkative, social, and kind. For Juneteenth 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Kim led a peaceful march for the historically black neighborhood where she grew up in Swarthmore. Her daughter Brielle was one of the featured speakers.
“Reading lips and masks obviously don’t work together.”
Kim: So, like everyone else, she started the school virtually. Her teachers are very nice, they are really, really good. But it was more or less to a point where I feel like I have to work from home, because I need to be there when she has questions. While the teacher, the school, you know, she gets up, she goes on Zoom, and she’s there every day on Zoom. She honestly likes it better, because she can hear better. Because she, um, when it came to the point of wearing face masks, that was something that as a person who’s deaf and reads lips, that was a stress for her, a stressor. So reading lips and masks obviously don’t work together. So she likes to be home because even though her teachers have masks on with the use of her FM and everything she feels like she can concentrate more and she can hear better.