In November 2021, a young Afghan girl, Mahbuba, and her family resettled in Chicago. Mahbuba is deaf: in Afghanistan, she had no exposure to language, and her family, not able to communicate with her and having no access to resources, saw a bleak future.
But as Elly Fishman reports in this uplifting piece, Mahbuba has made incredible progress in Chicago, thanks to her school’s deaf education program. With the help of a few people—notably her teacher and a refugee youth program manager—in just a few months Mahbuba has learned to sign simple sentences.
Hoffman spent the first few days sitting with Mahbuba on the floor of her classroom and playing games — mostly Jenga. She showed her toy houses where Mahbuba could play with plastic dolls and animals.
“I was really just trying to help her feel safe,” Hoffman recalls. “I could feel her fear.”
Over time, the teacher started to introduce numbers and colors. They slowly worked their way through the alphabet, both written and in sign. She used cards to begin to teach Mahbuba everyday objects, food and words to describe her day at school.
But before any of that, Hoffman introduced Mahbuba to a concept both simpler and far more profound: her own name.
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