what I mean: there was a post going around talking about how someone didn't know as a child what Martha's Vineyard was, and I was like haha, I still don't know and I don't wanna know, why should I care about some US-American rich people thing? but then I checked myself, thought, hmm is this the anti-intellectualism talking? and decided to at least look up Martha's Vineyard on wikipedia. and I was absolutely amazed and intrigued, immediately pulled in by everything I learned.
I learned that Martha's Vineyard was originally Wampanoag territory, the Wampanoag call it Noepe, they have lived there for over 10,000 years and had a population of around 3,000 people around the time the first Europeans colonized the island. today, around 300 Wampanoag live on the island, their numbers reduced drastically by diseases contracted from the white settlers, and by white people murdering them over land ownership.
I learned that Martha's Vineyard is one of only five place names in the US with a possessive apostrophe in it, and the "eighth-oldest surviving English place-name in the United States".
and I learned, and I thought this was very cool and fascinating: at a certain point in time, up until the 1950s at least, the island had a much larger population of deaf people than the US mainland, its own sign language that differed from ASL, and most likely highly influenced ASL in its beginnings. most of the population of Martha's Vineyard spoke it fluently, resulting in much higher employment rates for deaf people, more mixed marriages between deaf and hearing people, and a generally very high acceptance of deaf culture (compared to mainland USA). only through the rise of tourism in the 20th century, this culture got lost, because tourism offers much less deaf inclusive jobs, less people lived on the island in general (I assume due to gentrification making space for rich tourists and raising the costs of living for people living on the island) and so, the hereditary deafness of the island eventually died out in 1952. some people in the 1980s still knew MVSL (the local sign language), but it has fallen out of use, though there are some attempts to reconstruct and revive it.
see? this is what I mean. I decided to care for just five minutes, and even on the surface level that wikipedia provides, this information has enriched my day. I highly recommend to care about everything deeply, and never, ever think that something is boring, pointless, and not worth your time.
