Interview with Aaron Small
Alex (Daily Moth): Hello, Aaron Small! You’re an American Olympian who is a kayaker. How are you?
Aaron Small: I’m good. Thank you for having me.
Alex: The Paris Olympics was a month ago. What are your favorite memories?
Aaron: Wow, there are many. All of Paris was cool. The opening ceremony was amazing. There was a light show where the Eiffel Tower had rays of lights that were red, green, and blue. It was amazing. I remember one time when we finished a race in the semifinals — in order to get into the final, we had to finish in the top four. After we finished the race, we were wondering if we were in the top four. I looked at the big screen and it had the names of all the competitors. I saw the number one, number two, number three, and I was waiting with anticipation. The number four came up and it said, “USA.” That was so awesome! That was cool.
Alex: You’re now training for the LA Olympics in four years. What are you doing now with training?
Aaron: Right now, I have a little break. For two weeks. But I will start practicing again soon. It’s four more years of training. Wow! But I enjoy it.
Alex: It was cool for the Deaf community to see you post a video of yourself signing in ASL on Instagram.
[Video clip from Instagram/small.aaron. Aaron is signing, “My name is Aaron. I am a kayaker with Team USA. And I am hard of hearing and wear hearing aids. I’m here in Paris for the Olympics!]
Alex: How did it feel to see people comment, react, and share the video?
Aaron: I didn’t expect that. I’ve never posted something like that before. But I think I have a lot of support from the Deaf and hard of hearing community. I want to say thank you for all of the support. So I posted that video and wow, I was not expecting that. But thank you!
Alex: Can you describe your experiences with signing, growing up? You’re deaf / hard of hearing. How do you identify yourself? Can you share?
Aaron: Yeah. I’m hard of hearing. I didn’t use sign language growing up. But in high school, I took Spanish. But because I’m hard of hearing, I struggled to understand. So, my high school had an ASL class. I thought, “Oh, that’s cool. I could try that.” I loved it. I took three years of ASL in high school. I then went to the University of Washington and took two years’ worth of ASL courses there. Then I didn’t practice it for a while, but I’m trying to learn it again.
Alex: Thank you so much for your time, Aaron Small. Congratulations on making it to the Olympics!
Aaron: Thanks.
Alex: Good luck with training for four more years!
Aaron: Thanks.
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