For this month’s #NADhandwave, the NAD introduces Carlos Aponte-Salcedo, a Nuyorican (a Puerto Rican from New York)! Carlos is a Mental Health Center coordinator at the Lexington School for the Deaf. Carlos works with many Lexington students but has worked diligently to expand on services and resources for Latino families and students. At the school, Carlos volunteers his time by being involved with the Diversity Committee, Lexington Strong (a club that promotes school pride), and the Parent Staff Association. In addition, he helped set up a phone tree to provide access in spoken Spanish, and providing ASL as well as English/Spanish versions of various flyers for parents. Through it all, Carlos works tirelessly for the community.
Carlos graduated from a local high school in New York City, and went on to get his Bachelor from California State University at Northridge (CSUN). While at CSUN, he started out by becoming involved within local university organizations. During his internship at the California School for the Deaf – Fremont, he volunteered to help coordinate the children program for the “Black Families Day” event. That event help kick-start his true passion for working with children.
Carlos is a passionate fellow who really believes in equal access for deaf people, particularly for those in the Latino community. He also got involved briefly as the Downstate representative with the Empire State Association of the Deaf (ESAD, which is the New York state association of the deaf) and currently serves as a LEAD-K NY Core Team member. He is dedicating his efforts now to promoting linguistic access for all deaf children in early education and within the Latino community. Today, Carlos is most proud of his involvement with Council de Manos, which impacted and transformed him when he realized its tremendous impact towards empowering Latinx youth and adults. Carlos truly has one of the biggest hearts for our community. He reflects the NAD spirit: youth, diversity, empowerment, advocacy, education, and leadership.
He is also a recent newlywed, married to Ramon, and together they have two beautiful dogs.
The NAD gives monthly #NADhandwaves to people in our community. This is a great opportunity for the NAD to recognize exemplary people or the work they do. With such great people, the world continues to progress. If you know someone who deserves a #NADHandwave, submit your suggestions online!
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The NAD was established in 1880 by deaf leaders who believed in the right of the American deaf community to use sign language, to congregate on issues important to them, and to have its interests represented at the national level. As a nonprofit federation, the mission of the NAD is to preserve, protect, and promote the civil, human, and linguistic rights of deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States. The advocacy scope of the NAD is broad, covering the breadth of a lifetime and impacting future generations in the areas of early intervention, education, employment, health care, technology, telecommunications, youth leadership, and more.