Standing in an empty field along a wind-swept highway, Marvin T. Miller, who is deaf, envisions the town he wants to create here: a place built around American Sign Language, where teachers in the new school will sign, the town council will hold its debates in sign language and restaurant workers will be required to know how to sign orders.

Nearly 100 families – with people who are deaf, hard of hearing or who can hear but just want to communicate in sign language – have already publicly declared their intention to live in Mr. Miller’s village, to be called Laurent, after Laurent Clerc, a French educator of the deaf from the 1800’s.
If you don’t like it… don’t live there!

As Town for Deaf Takes Shape, Debate on Isolation Re-emerges