TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
(clockwise from top left) Maria with her parents at a baptism in a local Romanian church.
In December 1989, just weeks before the revolution that resulted in the communist dictator and his wife being executed on Christmas Day. Maria, around four years old, is shown here in her school uniform. During Communism preschool children were called “Falcons of the Motherland.”
shooting. As a six-year-old, I remember telling my parents that I heard noises that sounded like shooting. We found a safer place to wait for our train.” Growing up with deaf parents meant no communication between home and school for Sanson and her brother, Gabi, who is three years younger. Her parents would encounter situations in which communication was a major barrier, and they needed complex concepts translated into simple ideas on the spot. She quickly became their advocate and their voice in a world that often failed to understand them. “Most people in town could understand my mom when she went shopping, but during challenging times, I was the voice for the rest of the family,” she explains. This responsibility thrust upon her at such a young age shaped her into the empathetic and solution-focused person she is today. “I remember going to pre-surgery doctor’s appointments for my mother and being her voice or buying tickets at the train
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COMMUNITY & CULTURE
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