El Paso’s twin taekwondo fighters share special bond

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Pasoans Jesus and Angel Jasso are twins. They turn 18 this upcoming October, and they are both national champions in taekwondo.

But they share a special bond outside of being twins. Jesus was born hard of hearing, not fully deaf, but enough to use hearing aids and communicate through sign language.

"They train basically seven days a week, sometimes for four hours a day," said Claudia, Angel and Jesus's mother. "We miss a lot of events to be there, but it will be worth it at the end."

The two communicate with each other with their own version of sign language. It's based off American Sign Language, but it's customized for the brothers.

"It's been hard. You know, growing up, people being mean to him, bullying him," said Angel. "But he's he's a tough guy to push. And eventually when we got older, our bond grew tighter, I started learning sign language more and we became very close."

Jesus was chosen to fight for Team USA in the Deaf Olympics. He won two national championships in open brackets. He'll continue his journey in Tokyo at the Deaflympics in November.

"It's a bit hard when my friends don't understand me, but I'm clear with my brother and he helps with what I'm saying. He'll always help me."

ABC-7 will have the full story on The Taekwondo Twins this Thursday.