Comedian And Advocate Jessica Flores On Breaking Deaf Taboos

Jessica Flores is debunking myths about deaf people in a video series.

As a deaf advocate and comedian, she says she grew up knowing few people like her.

She stated, “So for a long time, I always felt really alone and isolated. I’m not gonna get into my whole life journey, but it was hard. And it was not an easy road to go down. It took me years to realize that I was not the only deaf person facing all these communication barriers and challenges every day. I seriously figured all this out like 3 years ago. Once I realized this, I wanted to do something about it.”

Flores says the deaf and hard of hearing community is diverse and she wants to help people understand everyone’s individual limitations and abilities:

“We have deaf people who sign and don’t talk, we have deaf people who talk and sign at the same time, we have deaf people who just talk and they don’t sign. We even have those who read lips, and those who don’t read lips. And those who wear hearing aids.”

She also started a vlog series in September 2016. Since then, her videos have reached at least a million people.