VIEWS February 2020

VIEWS Issue 37 | Volume 1 | Winter 2020

DIVERSITY

fromwithin DISTANTISM NATIVE SETTINGS language dysfluency DIVERSITY powerDOWNAWARENESS PROTOC gatekeeping MAKING SPACE mental healt digenous methodologies reciprocity deafcommun ATIVE SETTINGS cultural competence PROTACTIL PROTOCOL FOR MORE THAN JUST A INTERPRETERS IN CONDUIT: MENTAL NATIVE SETTINGS HEALTH INTERPRETING

by Dr. Melanie

McKay-Cody

by Dr. Tracy Epperson

DISTANTISM

by John Lee Clark

NEWSLI SWAP: POWER DOWN

by Akbar Sikder & Paola Morales

W

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On the Cover: Annette Sandy (Ojibway) interpreted at Idle No More Rally at Parliament Hall, Jan. 11, 2013. (InVIEWS Volume • Issue digenous rally, with36 Deaf First3Nation of Ontario group). Photographed by Krista Belleau. (Article page 28)

Winter 2020

VIEWS

IN THIS ISSUE:

COVER STORIES

Governance

Protocol for Interpreters in Native Settings Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody Page 26 Video Link: https://youtu.be/j_KmIzoa4Sc

Letter from the Editor/4 President's Report /6 Region I Report/ 8 Region II Report/9 Region IV Report/10 Region V Report/ 12 Regional Conference Save the Date/14

Columns/articles Dear Encounters With Reality/20

More Than Just a Conduit: Mental Health Interpreting Dr. Tracy Epperson Page 32 Video Link: https://youtu.be/Cxl2ukIBBzE

A Homage to Norma Lewis/21 Note From Uncle Dale/22 Celebrating the Pioneers of Black History /24

Distantism John Lee Clark

What's Next? Ethics Dialogue/41 Reflections from an Old Hand/46

Page 36

Self-Care/ 48 Member Spotlight/ 51

News Court/Legal Credentialing TF Update /15 CATIE Letter of Financial Support / 16 From the Desks at HQ/ 18 Discover Interpreting Online /19

Newsli Swap: Power Down Akbar Sikder Page 42 Video Link: https://youtu.be/venyXARDwlk

Newly Certified/53

To view all articles in ASL, visit our Fall VIEWS playlist on YouTube, www.rid.org/feb2020viewsplaylist/ Layout Design and Video Editing by Maxann Keller and Jenelle Bloom

Photo collections from Unsplash,

#februaryVIEWSwinter20

www.rid.org

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Letter from the Editor Hi, I’m Julia Wardle, editor of VIEWS. The theme of this issue has been a huge challenge for me, more than any previous issue we’ve done. All of our feature articles talk about how we can adapt interpreting practice to fit the needs of marginalized communities, but as Jonathan Webb will talk about in his President’s Report, what we know we need to do does not always have a fitting terminology. Through discussions with our authors, leaders, and board of editors, I discovered that coming up with a catch-all theme for such a wide array of content wouldn’t do. As you can see on the cover, the primary phrase we decided to move forward with was “Making Space.” But we also included phrases from each of our feature articles, whose language reflects the diverse needs of the marginalized communities we serve.

Our feature articles include: • Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody’s “Protocol for Sign Language Interpreters Working in North American Indigenous Settings.” This is a comprehensive effort that includes an enormous reservoir of information about native settings and how interpreters can facilitate those in a culturally appropriate way, including interpreter placement in indigenous spaces.

• Next we have an article by Dr. Tracy Epperson entitled, “More Than Just a Conduit: Interpreters as Team Members in Mental Health.” Dr. Ep- YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/Edvk8iukxO0 person practiced as an interpreter before going to medical school and has done a huge amount of research on continuity of care for deaf patients in medical and mental health settings, focusing on the need for interpreters, patients, and practitioners to work together.

• Next is John Lee Clark, a prolific author in the DeafBlind community who lent us his previously published article on “Distantism.” His writing invites us to shift our paradigm of interpreting for DeafBlind people and break down institutional and personal barriers to unfettered communication.

• Lastly, we have an article published this past year in Newsli, the premier publication of ASLI, our sister professional organization for interpreters in the U.K. In his article “Power Down,” Akbar Sikder talks about homogeneity in the U.K. interpreting community and the need to recruit interpreters as diverse as the communities we serve—a problem facing the U.S. as well. We are grateful for his collaboration with RID member Paola Morales to bring his piece across the pond.

VIEWS is not just a newsletter—VIEWS is relevant to the entire interpreting profession, because it is a part of what Makes Space. I hope you read it and find value in the efforts of your fellow practitioners who work to make this profession more competent and more allied to the Deaf community. VIEWS more than any other RID initiative opens the door for practitioners and community members to have ongoing dialogue about the direction of the profession; it opens the door for better conferences and more unity as we carry on in this great effort to serve.

It is fitting that this issue of VIEWS has been my biggest challenge, as it will also be my last. I’m bidding RID a fond farewell with the release of this issue. I’m confident that the foundation of VIEWS will remain strong as I pass this work on to my dedicated team members. Thank you for letting me be part of this great publication and this amazing profession. I look forward to becoming another VIEW-er like you!

Yours,

Julia Wardle 5 Editor-in-Chief

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

RID BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Jonathan Webb, Ph.D, CI and CT, NIC Advanced

president@rid.org

Vice President Paul Glaser, MSE, CDI

vicepresident@rid.org

Secretary Kelly Decker, NIC Advanced

secretary@rid.org

Treasurer Yakata Nichols, NIC

treasurer@rid.org

Member at Large LaTanya Jones, M.S.M., NIC

memberatlarge@rid.org

Deaf Member at Large Branton Stewart, CDI, CLIP-R

dmal@rid.org

Region I Representative Jason Farr, NIC

region1rep@rid.org

Region II Representative Brenda Sellers, CI and CT, NIC

region2rep@rid.org

Region III Representative Kenya McPheeters, NIC

region3rep@rid.org

Region IV Representative Deb Martinez, MA, CI and CT, NIC Advanced, SC:L

region4rep@rid.org

Region V Representative Mish Ktejik, M.A., NIC, SC:L

region5rep@rid.org

RID HEADQUARTERS STAFF

Interim Chief Executive Operator

Charity Warigon

cwarigon@rid.org

Chief Operating Officer Elijah Sow

esow@rid.org

Director of Finance and Operations

Jennifer Apple japple@rid.org

Operations Specialist Charlotte Kinney

ckinney@rid.org Accounting Specialist II Tong Rogers

trogers@rid.org

Senior Director of Standards Ryan Butts and Practices rbutts@rid.org Professional Development Manager

Carol Turner cturner@rid.org

Ethics Administrator Tressela Bateson

tbateson@rid.org

Certification Coordinator

Director of Member Services and Government Affairs

Ashley Holladay aholladay@rid.org Neal Tucker ntucker@rid.org

Affiliate Chapter Liaison Dr. Carolyn Ball

cball@rid.org

Member Services Khianti Thomas Coordinator kthomas@rid.org Director of Communications and Outreach

Bill Millios bmillios@rid.org

Communications Manager

Julia Wardle jwardle@rid.org

Communications Coordinator

Maxann Keller mkeller@rid.org

Communications Specialist

Jenelle Bloom jbloom@rid.org

www.rid.org

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT

President's Report Jonathan Webb, RID President YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/wO8pomBCaf4 Jonathan Webb, CI and CT, NIC Advanced President

As we release this edition of VIEWS, we enter the seventh month of the current Board’s tenure. This short time has allowed the Directors to gain a greater sense of where RID has come from, where we currently exist, and what might be the healthiest future ahead. Just as the earth continues to revolve around the sun and we see the seasons change, RID is also seeing the initial signs of transformation. From the discussions we have had to the issues we have determined to address, we see the beginnings of transformation and are excited about the future.

Much of this excitement has to do with the Board taking the position that the work of RID is ultimately in service to our Deaf communities. We do this in a variety of ways, namely by establishing and promoting standards, encouraging education and professional development, and recognizing best practices. This important work is one way that we support and stand with our DHHDB communities.

things an ally can do. This is a step past the notion of empowerment—the idea that the dominant culture has the ability to give power to someone or a group of people. Unfortunately, we know from history that when a group has the ability to empower another community, the same group conversely has the ability to disempower that community.

I learned about this when I started to study the mechanisms of resistance. Resistance is a powerful notion, an act that asserts our objection to being swallowed up by the system. It demonstrates an unwillingness to go with the status quo of being exploited by a system made to benefit only a few.

Several years ago as I was preparing to facilitate a training on this topic, I talked with my partner about the idea of resistance. Stephanie noted to me the inherent power of the sign.

To resist, as an ally, is to make space. It acknowledges that we live in a system of audism and other forms of dominance and control, and that we as interpreters benefit from it. Because we benefit from it, we stand within that space of dominance. With this standing, we have an obligation to make space within the system for new ideas, new ways of being, and new faces at the table. It means using our personal and collective privilege to open up areas for others.

While these actions are important, the “how” behind them is Of course, this idea can easily follow the trap of empowerjust as important. For me, that is much of what this VIEWS ment. If one group empowering another means they also issue is about. Making space is one of the most important have the ability to withdraw that power, then it stands to rea6

VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

son that if we make space for others, we also have the power to reclaim that space and remove others from it. Fortunately, we understand that making space is only one piece of the puzzle. When marginalized communities come into that space they have the opportunity to claim it and utilize their inherent power to do what needs to be done for the liberation of their peoples and communities.

When this transformation begins to happen, we open ourselves to opportunities. We begin to see marginalized communities show up and enhance our education, complicate and deepen our practices, and expand our consciousness about ways we can transform ourselves in order to better serve. Much of this is about getting out of the way. It’s about

begin to explore ways to open up that space. Instead of attempting to empower others, I hope we can begin to look at what we do and discover ways to show up and do the work while allowing others to come in and demonstrate the power, brilliance, and talent they always possessed but did not have the room to reveal.

As we honor our past, present, and future within the context of resistance and resilience memorialized in Black History Month, we recognize that we do so because we made space for such in our western calendar. We recognize that holidays, practices, and even ways of perceiving time are dominated by white western ideologies. When we realized that there were people we did not acknowledge, we made space

One of the most effective ways we make space is by continuing to show up—but rather than doing all the talking we instead engage in questioning and deep listening. We make space for others to share their thoughts, ideas, and experiences. realizing that if we are holding on to all the communication, within the system for some groups to be heard and acknowltime, philosophy, education, and ways of doing things, then edged. We can do that here too. In RID, in our Affiliate we have no real way to evolve and grow and become whole. Chapters, in our regions, in our communities, and in our daily work, we can make space.

So, how do we get out of the way? It is most certainly not by abandoning others. I’ve seen the concept of making space If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll find that interpreted as positioning others in places of power and making space doesn’t diminish your own, but enhances it. It then assuming they will simply know how to thrive in a sys- makes us all better and leads us closer to healthier relationtem that was never created for them. This is unhelpful and ships with one another. sets up others for failure.

My hope is that as we consider making space, we subsequentIn my experience, one of the most effective ways we make ly make concrete decisions and take actions to change. Our space is by continuing to show up—but rather than doing all Board and membership meetings, the discussions and issues the talking we instead engage in questioning and deep lis- within our Affiliate Chapters, the policies, standards, and tening. We make space for others to share their thoughts, procedures we create, the classes we teach, the mentoring ideas, and experiences. We make space in our own con- processes we develop, and the conferences we plan—these sciousness by being willing to ask hard questions that may all contain space that can be cleared for others. Doing this is threaten our own sense of security. While this type of sys- more than just a gift for others. Making space means we are temic transformation can be frightening, it is almost always a little less alone and have a larger healthier community we a beneficial experience. With this new space, we gain new can draw upon. Making space for growth and transformation ideas, perspectives, and frameworks—all of which elevate us turns these opportunities into something much more comand collectively make us a better profession and society. plex, and far more beautiful.

As we continue further into this year, my wish is that those of us who hold space (and all of us hold space somewhere)

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What did you think of this article? Send your feedback to the authors/editors by clicking here!

www.rid.org//views-february2020-articlefeedback/

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Region I Report Jason Farr, Region I Representative FROM THE BOARD Jason Farr, NIC Region I Representative & Erika Murray, NIC NYC Metro RID President Jason Farr: Hello! I’m Jason Farr, your Region I Representative! I’m here in New York City with…

Erika Murray: Hi! I’m Erika Murray, President of NYC Metro RID. JF: We have really exciting news. The reason we’re here in NYC Times Square—should I tell them?

EM: We’re in Times Square because this summer the RID Region I Conference will be here! Well, near here, in Brooklyn, NYC. We’re excited to host the regional conference for the first time!

JF: And what are the dates, exactly?

EM: The conference will be July 6-9

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/oe1NOuJMBM0 JF: July 6-9, here in Brooklyn, NYC—that’s so great! Where can I get more information about the conference?

EM: Well there are many ways to get more information. First is our website— JF: ridregioni.org. You can also look at the NYC Metro RID website, nycmetrorid.org.

EM: There we post different updates and let you know what’s going on with the conference. We’re also on social media! Our Instagram tag is ridregioni. We’re following the Roman numeral for 1. You can also visit our FB page, Region I Conference 2020.

JF: Wow, that’s great information. Thank you so much for your time tonight. I look forward our regional conference July 6-9 here in New York City!

EM: We’re excited to have you all come! Bye!

REGION I CONFERENCE 2020 8

"DIVERSITY EQUALITY INCLUSION" VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3 RIDREGIONI.ORG

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JULY 6-9TH NEW YORK CITY BROOKLYN

REGION II Region II Report

RICHMOND, VA

Brenda Sellers, Region II Representative

JULY 16-19, 2020

FROM THE BOARD

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/2d8uhzU91hw Brenda Sellers, CI and CT, NIC Region II Representative

"2020: A GREATER VISION"

Hi, I’m Brenda Sellers, Region II Representative. I hope you all had Happy Holidays and are getting back into the swing of your regular schedules. I don't have much to report. I can share that registration will be available soon for our Region II conference. The conference will be held July 16–19, 2020 in Richmond, VA. We hope to see you there!

5 REGION II

RICHMOND, VA JULY 16-19, 2020

Reflect, Connect, Grow "2020: A GREATER VISION"

www.rid.org

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Region IV Report Deb Martinez, Region IV Representative FROM THE BOARD YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/pXGAiB4m4T8 Deb Martinez, MA, CI and CT, NIC Advanced, SC:L

volunteer locally, statewide, and nationally, to contribute to making RID a better organization for those that come behind me. We have all heard of people who pay it forward, those that tip extra, wipe public bathroom sinks, etc. I also want to contribute to my profession, to make it a better place “The best way to find yourself is to lose for those we serve and those who serve. As we move forward into 2020 I encourage Region IV community members to yourself in the service of others.” Gandhi participate, re-engage, and contribute to their local organiRegion IV is seeing a lot of change and a lot of re-evaluation zations, even if it is just showing up. Our time is the greatest in the local chapters. Some are questioning their structure gift we can give to the communities we serve. and mission statements, new boards are being elected, and With that said, it is with much regret that I announce we will others are regrouping after a period of dormancy. Change not have a Region IV conference this year. In order for a reis universally inherent, an ebb and flow that is cyclical in na- gion to hold a conference there needs to be five state chapture. Personally we experience cycles of energy and dorman- ters that stand in support of it. Only 3 of our 14 chapters cy, and within group dynamics there are Tuckman’s (1965) expressed interest in actively pursuing a conference. Thereforming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. fore, Region IV will take a break this conference cycle and Even nonprofits such as RID and its Affiliate Chapters have we will look forward to being back in 2022. organizational life cycles.

In the meantime, there are several AC events coming up so During discussions at our November 2019 Board of Direc- please read on to see what’s happening within Region IV. tors (BOD) meeting, I was reminded of JFK’s quote, “Do not ask what your country can do for you but what can you Respectfully submitted, do for your country.” President Webb mentioned that many have since forgotten the collaborative “we” within RID. Many are looking at RID and saying, “What does RID do for me?” That led me to ponder, “Why do I serve?” My answer RID CI/CT, NIC Adv, SC:L is quite simple—it has been a long-standing value of mine to Region IV Representative

Deb Martinez, MA

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Nebraska - neRID

Wyoming - WyoRID

Second, TSID Interpreter Educators Special Interest Group has championed an inquiry into the BEI office since there have been extensive wait times for candidates to sit for the TEP exam. TSID members are concerned that the test wait times are hindering students from entering the field within an appropriate amount of time post-graduation, as well as hurting ITP success rates in their reports to the Texas Higher Education Board. The BEI and the Interpreter Educators SIG have agreed to maintain correspondence to resolve this ongoing issue.

We held our first conference of 2019 on March 3rd in conjunction with Casper College in Casper, WY. Peter Cook presented two excellent mini workshops: ASL Discourse Expanders & Narrative Development of Personal Experience Storytelling in ASL. Peter also performed “A Feast For Your Eyes,” on Friday evening.

Finally, TSID Conference 2020 Co-Chairs Sherri Roberts and Doug Dittfurth have established an agreement with the Texas Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators to run concurrent conferences in July 2020 in College Station, Texas. This agreement will help bring much needed legal training to interpreters in Texas.

WyoRID held its annual meeting on Saturday, Oct 5th, in conjunction with the Wyoming Department of Education Fall Interpreter Training. David Davenport presented on the importance of ASL language acquisition from birth and a wonderful workshop: “Clear as Mud: How to Make Your Message Clear.” We highly recommend this presenter, as well as Crom Saunders, who taught our WyoRID workshop the previous year.

Arkansas RID

In a nine month period NeRID has successfully held two conferences. One of which was our first joint conference with the Nebraska Association of the Deaf (NeAD). We are so excited and honored that NeAD welcomed us to hold a joint conference during their traditional biennial conference. We are hoping this is just the first of many joint conferences in the future.

In June 2019, ARID held our Biennial Conference in Little Rock, AR. We had a great time learning about how Interpreters Rock! The conference had a great turn out. We had a competition at the Arkansas School for the Deaf for artwork that we turned into buttons to show that “ASL Rocks.”

The art was fantastic and later donated to our silent auction.

ARID continues to have quarterly workshops and have alUpcoming: In conjunction with Casper College, WyoRID ready started planning the 2021 Biennial Conference. will host Sunshine 2.0, February 28th (performance) and Kansas Feb 29th (workshops).

Kansas has been active in several professional development Texas- TSID activities for members and nonmembers alike. We hosted The TSID Board has been extremely active in FY 2020. Dr. Ron Lybarger, who presented on Vicarious Trauma.

At the direction of the TSID membership, a Restructuring We also had a workshop on yoga for ASL/English interpretCommittee was formed to evaluate the current structure of ers that compared the CPC tenets with yoga tenets, followed TSID, and make recommendations on how the organization by a relaxing yoga practice, led by Robin Olson, KAI-RID can maintain relevance and meet the needs of members as VP and ERYT 200. The annual business meeting featured presentations on Interpreting for Skilled Trades presented we stay the course towards our Mission.

by Brian Van Bavel and Dale Shank—two highly skilled Deaf TSID has heard concerns from members and has advocated craftsmen. on two state-wide issues affecting interpreters: At our business meeting, the members decided to embark The first is that the Texas WorkForce Commission has put a on a restructuring effort. Committees were formed to expolicy in place to prohibit payment to agencies for interpret- plore three proposals to submit to members for considering services when a client is a no-show. This no-show, no- ation followed by a vote in January, 2020. Stay tuned for pay policy has negatively impacted Deaf clients, agencies, more information! and thereby interpreters when agencies refuse to provide services to TWC for fear of non-payment. TSID has brought the issue to the state level in hopes of resolving discrepancies in how the policy is enforced.

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www.rid.org

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Region V Report: AB 5 Update Stephanie Webb, SCRID President This article is intended to be viewed in ASL. Click the link to view. English transcript below.

FROM THE BOARD YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/1TqquxxAkJE Stephanie Webb, CI and CT, NIC SCRID President

AB5. Some agencies feel sole proprietorship will not be substantive enough to defend their B2B stance and are disallowing this option for the interpreters they work with. Some require proof of your business license or liability insurance. Again, these requirements are meant to shore up agencies’ readiness for audits.

Visual Description: Stephanie Webb signs in front of a green back- According to AB5, interpreters must have one of the three entity ground. Title reads: "Stephanie Webb, President, SCRID" on the types listed above, and of course operate the business in accordance with the law and all relevant requirements. bottom left and "www.scrid.org/AB5" on the bottom right.

California is two weeks into 2020 and the new AB5 requirements, As I mentioned, many are still working toward a professional exand I know many interpreters are confused at the differing agency emption to AB5 that will allow us to continue to function under the Borello test. SCRID still encourages you to send your impact requirements you’re seeing. statements—a brief statement of how this affects you and your First, an exemption is still being sought under AB5 for sign lan- livelihood as a service provider, or your experience as a DDBHH guage interpreters and real-time captionists. As written, AB5 individual. Those statements can be sent to your legislators as does not well fit our field. While we fail criteria of the new ABC well as SCRID so that we may gather and use them in our efforts test outlined in AB5, we also do not fit the business-to-business with senators and assembly people.

(B2B) exemption that many agencies have elected to pursue. Under the B2B route, the interpreter establishes their own business To recap, most agencies seem to be going the B2B route with the entity, then contracts as a business with the interpreting agency to providers they work with. Its efficacy is still unsure, but this is the provide services. While this seems to have viable potential there is route being taken most as we await an exemption. More informano guarantee yet; the law is written broadly enough that it will only tion on this will be coming. Keep an eye out for an announcement be through EDD audits that we discover if the B2B route will be of an online webinar to be presented January 30th by a business consultant and accountant who will be discussing each of the accepted within our field or not. business entity structures & their formation, tax implications, Under the B2B option of AB5, interpreters are allowed to es- etc. Also, note that GLAD and others will be meeting with Sentablish any of the following: sole proprietorship, LLC, corpora- ator Gonzalez, the author of AB5, this month. We hope to get tion. Because it is unsure whether this route will be accepted by some good news from that meeting! Otherwise, I hope this recap the state, many agencies have been advised to require additional is helpful. Again, keep an eye out for further announcements and verification of the interpreter’s business. These requirements are information. protective measures put forth by agencies, not legally mandated in

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

RID REGION 5 WORKSHOP SERIES & DEAFNATION WORLD EXPO

JULY 13-16TH 2020 SAVE THE DATE

DEAF NATION WORLD EXPO REGISTRATION: HTTPS://DEAFNATION.COM/DNWE/ WANT TO PRESENT OR KNOW OF A DYNAMIC PRESENTER? APPLY HERE: HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/WCZUF8R Deadline to fill out the presenter form is Jan 31st 2020.

www.rid.org sites.google.com/rid.org/region5workshops2020/call-for-presenters

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Brooklyn, New York

Richmond, Virginia

“Diversity Equality Inclusion”

"Reflect, Connect, Grow"

Region I July 6-9

Columbus, Ohio

Region II July 16-19

Region III July 22-25 Allyship = Collaboration, Cohesion, and Commitment

JOIN US!

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Las Vegas, Nevada

Region V July 13-16 Theme TBD

2020 REGIONAL CONFERENCES

Court/Legal Credentialing Task Force Update December 2019 Signed by Jon Lamberton, CDI, SC:L YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/G62s4LYzCis

T

he Taskforce held its first meeting on November 18th. The goal of this meeting was to set priorities for the taskforce, develop a list of organizational stakeholders with an interest in the legal interpreting credential, create a timeline for our work, and brainstorm approaches to efficiently perform the work.

We also began the brainstorming process for potential approaches to the new legal interpreting credential.

The group spent some time discussing how to work with state court Language Access Committees (LACs) who are the primary beneficiaries of legal interpreters’ work. An idea discussed was to have the taskforce create training materials and/or talking points to present to LACs regarding the need for a specialized credentialing and advocacy regarding state court financial buy-in for test development. An effort to obtain a list of RID members who are on their respective state court committees has been undertaken by members of LIMS. A contact list of approximately 15 RID members either appointed to their committees or who are in a position to consult with their state/local committees has been created.

For those areas in which RID members are not on the LAC, the taskforce discussed the possibility of seeking assistance from Directors or administrators of the statewide commissions/offices of the deaf and hard of hearing. In the event that some states are still not included, the state associations of the deaf leadership could be contacted to interface with their state courts to advocate on behalf of the court system and take ownership of a legal credential.

It was suggested during our online interaction that we explore the nature of the various state licensure statutes to determine how a new credential might be treated under those statutes. A survey was suggested to distribute to members to determine what the current requirements are under their state licensure statutes for legal interpreters. Another data point the Taskforce is interested in examining would be various state court language access plans that should be publicly available. The SC:L is also listed as an approved credential in the regulations set forth by the Director’s office of the United States Administrative Office of the Courts and the Taskforce discussed contacting that office to share concerns about the lack of a credential and determine whether there might be support from that office to urge/assist the development of an examination. Finally, the Taskforce discussed creating a list of stakeholders from the profession and community to determine how we can best work together.

A Call for volunteers:

The Taskforce has obtained information on states with licensure laws, however, we need information from each state court administrator (interpreter program manager or office) regarding the required qualifications or credentials for an interpreter to be added to their state court interpreter roster. The Taskforce is seeking interested members who can assist in collecting this data on a centralized document in Google Drive. For more information or to volunteer to assist the Taskforce in this project, please contact After the initial meeting, discussion continued through email Deb Martinez at Region4rep@RID.org. about developing guidelines that courts and interpreters could Next Meeting Dates: use to become qualified to work in courts and legal settings. A A meeting was held on 12/18/19, updates from that meeting will part of the Taskforce’s charge was to investigate and potential- be shared at a later date, due to publication timelines. The next ly advise courts on alternative measures of qualification in the scheduled meeting of the Taskforce will be 1/13/2020 at 7PM event that no credential comes into existence. A working draft of EST. The Taskforce membership, Scope of Work, and timelines requirements for a portfolio qualification process was created by are listed below. one of the members and will be discussed at future meetings.

Taskforce Members:

Task Force Objectives (SOW):

1. Investigate how to best establish a national credentialing • Chair: June Prusak system for legal/court interpreters.

• Members: Amy Williamson, Carla Mathers, Cheryl Thomas, 2. Collaborate with various stakeholders such as but not limitDenise Martinez, Jo Linda Greenfield, Jon Lamberton, Judy ed to NBDA, NAD, CASLI, NCSC, HEARD, among others.

Shepard-Kegl, and Margie English a. Community stakeholders must be reflective of the diverse • HQ Liaison: Ashley Holladay communities we serve within the criminal justice system.

• BOD Liaison: Deb Martinez 3. Explore the possibility of the courts taking ownership of credentialing interpreters, ASL-English and CDI, through a collective body.

Timeline: a. Work with legislative entities to garner information • Taskforce to be selected by Oct 2019. and guidance.

• Report back Dec 2020 to membership. b. Explore current legislative guidelines regarding • Completed when a recommendation for testing/credential credentialing. ing has been established.

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Submitted by Deb Martinez, Region 4 Representative, BOD Liaison

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The MHIT 2020 is currently accepting applications and the CATIE Center is once again offering financial assistance for folks who have been accepted into this year's program.

View the full Letter of Financial Support here: rid.org/catie-centers-letter-of-financial-support-for-mhit-2020/

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

MAKING GOOD INTERPRETERS

GREAT Efficient screening tool plus your mentors equals better allies for the Deaf community

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Visit get.goreact.com/RID to learn more. www.rid.org

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From the Desks at HQ Upcoming Webinars Navigating Conflict with Empathy, Honesty, and Creativity Breana Cross-Caldwell 2/12, 2/18, 2/25 6pm-8pm EST 0.6 GS CEUS $60

When interpersonal conflict arises, it’s easy to default to habitual ways of responding that leave us feeling frustrated and misunderstood. In this workshop, you will learn and practice Collaborative Problem-Solving, a neuroscience-based three-part approach to turning a disagreement into an opportunity for brain development, connection, and creative problem-solving.

Learn more and register here: education.rid.org/products/navigating-conflict-with-empathy-honesty-and-creativity

The 50 Year Gap: Racial Disparities in Interpreting Programs and the Pathway Forward National Alliance of Black Interpreters – Metro Chicago Chapter (NAOBI-MCC) and RID Presents Krystal Nicole Butler 2/20/2020 7pm-9pm EST 0.2 PS PPO CEUs $25 One avenue in which aspiring interpreters take towards acquiring ASL and English proficiency is attending an Interpreter Training Program (ITP). A student's overall perspective of their ITP experience is determined by the nature of their exchanges with faculty and peers, and their academic interactions within the classroom.

Learn more and register here: education.rid.org/products/the50-year-gap-racial-disparities-in-interpreting-programs-and-thepathway-forward

Interpreting with the Complexity of the Legal System: What Can We Do? Benro Ogunyipe 3/25/2020 7pm-9pm EST 0.2 PS CEUs $25 The webinar explores the legal challenges faced by Deaf and hard of hearing individuals in terms of their inability to understand legal terminology in both written text and ASL interpretations. Signs and concepts for legal terms, including the Miranda warning (also known as the Miranda Rights), can be translated in various ways by sign language interpreters and certified Deaf interpreters but different translated versions may not protect Deaf and hard of hearing individuals from self-incrimination or their constitutional rights.

Learn more and register here: https://education.rid.org/products/interpreting-with-the-complexity-of-the-legal-system-what-can-we-do

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

RID's revamped hub for interpreting resources All you need to know to get started and pursue a career as a professional ASL Interpreter

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Dear Encounters

with reality retirement

COLUMN

*This Column is not available in ASL*

Dear friends and colleagues, I’m doing it. I’m retiring. This decision wasn’t an easy one. I’ve had many, many conversations with myself about what I want to do with my time. To start, I’m going to follow a dream and head south for the winter. Swimming, biking, pickleball—Everyday!

Brenda Cartwright, M.S CSC, CI and CT Lansing, MI Brenda Cartwright, MS, CSC, CI and CT has been the Director of the Sign Language Interpreter Program at Lansing Community College for over 30 years.

She holds an undergraduate degree from Ball State University and graduate degrees from Ball State and Indiana University. She is a Coda with a bilingual cat named Coda.

Will I be happy stepping back from work I have found so meaningful? Can I be content on the sidelines? I’ve said yes, then no, then yes to myself dozens of times. So much has changed since I became an interpreter in 1981. We have so many more people interested in our profession, and so many more service options that didn’t exist back then.

I will miss facilitating this column. To those of you who sent me questions, my warmest thanks. To those of you who submitted responses, you inspired discussions and perspectives I hadn’t even considered. I am honored to have spent the last 20 years publishing this column for VIEWS. Yours, Brenda Cartwright

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Thank you Brenda for your dedication to our longest running VIEWS column! Your contribution will be missed. -RID 20

VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Norma Lewis

HOMAGE TO

A

long-time, esteemed member of RID, Ms. Norma Lewis, CSC, OIC:C, passed away at the age of 97 on Sunday, November 24. Ms. Lewis was an early adopter of the Gold 100 designation and never entered Certified:Retired status. She had even accrued 2.7 CEUs during her current certification cycle which speaks highly to her commitment to the profession.

Norma was the oldest working, living certified interpreter and one of the first to work with and give deaf individuals opportunities in communication access and a voice in the legal system. She was honored with the Distinguished Service Award from RID in 2007.

She was a mother figure and mentor to too many to count. Norma was a proud Navy Veteran and one of 103 World War II Veterans recently participating in Kentucky’s 75th D-Day Anniversary.

Norma Lewis, CSC, OIC:C (Passed) 1922-2019 Online obituary from the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing: https://www.facebook.com/KCDHH/posts/1755309654601782 Article in the KCDHH Winter 2019 Communicator: https://www.kcdhh.ky.gov/publications/newsletters/2019Winter.pdf www.rid.org

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Note From Uncle Dale Don’t Do Dumb Things

COLUMN My grandfather used to say if you use a tool incorrectly it will break, and if you use a tool properly and take care of it, it will break—but much much later. I have a Rule (I have many actually) that states that the Code of Professional Conduct can be abridged in one simple sentence:

Don’t Do Dumb Things.

Dale H. Boam, CI Attorney at Law Salt Lake City, UT Dale is an Associate Professor of Deaf Studies at Utah Valley University, an attorney advocating for the rights of persons who are Deaf, an interpreter, and a blogger at “Uncle Dale’s Rules for Interpreters.” He consults and presents nationally on both interpreting and legal topics. Dale recently received a favorable decision from the Ninth Circuit Court that makes Section 504 more accessible to persons who are Deaf (See Ervine v. Desert View Regional Medical Center). Dale has served in advisory committees for the NAD, the organizing board for Deaf Studies, Today!, and the 2007 Deaflympic Games.

YOUTUBE LINK: https://youtu.be/9MCIwBQIaa8

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Way back in 1993, I did not follow my own advice and I got a practical exhibition of my grandfather’s wisdom. While interpreting at an all-day appointment alone I tore two ligaments in my right wrist. It happened at about 1:00 in the afternoon. There was this snapping feeling in my forearm and then I felt tingling in my fingers, and the pain started about ten minutes later. Oh, by the way, I finished the appointment at about 4:30 that afternoon.

That is not bragging about how committed I am, that is admitting to my stupidity. Years of physical therapy, weeks in a cast, and years and years of better judgment later, it still causes me problems. I did a dumb thing and broke one of my tools. I later had the opportunity to design the course curriculum for the Deaf Studies: Interpreting Emphasis degree at the university where I teach, and because of this incident, I designed a course that focused on practical self-care for interpreters.

We work in a profession where no matter how careful we • Document all the water you drink: get a bottle with meaare, our tools will break. Hopefully later, much later, rather suring lines. Try not to change your behavior but realthan sooner, so I designed a class that covered the basics of ize if you start to carry a water bottle, you will naturally how to postpone the inevitable repetitive motion injury as drink more. long as possible. I used my own experience and consulted with medical professionals and the physical education de- • Document how much you sleep: what time do you shut down? Not just get in bed, but actually try to sleep. If partment at the university where I teach, and (PAH!) The you wake up in the night, mark it. What time do you Physiology of Interpreting was born. wake up? Do you take catnaps? Mark them.

The course covers breathing, posture, balance, hand-eye coordination, sleep patterns, and nutrition (because you • Record your aches and pains: do you wake up each day with a pain you ignore? Do you get an upset stomach at don’t want to die of heart disease before you have a chance the same time each day? Document when you feel it. If to develop carpal tunnel syndrome). We discuss the anatomsomething makes it worse or better, mark it. ical structure of the hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder and back.

We also discuss early warning signs of the most common re-

If you have not paid attention to how your “lifestyle” may impact your longevity in this profession, pause and think about it now. petitive motion injuries, ergonomics, and low impact sign • Document your exercise: first, define what exercise is production (I should not be able to hear your signs!). We for you. Time at the gym? Walking to the next class all self-evaluate interpreted texts to identify dangerous habits the way across campus? Mark your activity, time of day, and we discuss conservation of movement and the imporand duration. tance of rest and exercise.

• Document your bad habits: do you smoke? Mark each It’s also fun, because there are so many cool ways to teach the time to take a smoke break and how much you smoke. basics. For example, we explore the coordinated movements Weed? Mark it. Alcohol? Mark it. Medications? Do you of the hand and forearm muscles by learning to roll a quarter take them on schedule and in the proper amounts? Docdown our fingers and to “palm a quarter” like magicians do. ument it.

We explore the brain’s ability to predict body placement in space and calculate movement (conservation of movement At the end of the week, look at your documentation. How and hand-brain coordination) by teaching the students how different is your real life from the life you imagine you live? to juggle. We use Wii Fit Plus to evaluate balance and we Which habits should you change? This gives an honest startplay games that require balance and coordinated movement. ing place from which to develop a self-care plan. Try it. It is usually shocking… mainly because we are with ourselves all I can’t keep all my students safe in this crazy world—but I can the time but never remember eating poorly or not getting keep them working without pain for as long as possible. If enough sleep. you have not paid attention to how your “lifestyle” may impact your longevity in this profession, pause and think about You don’t have to take my class to learn how to focus on it now. Start with this exercise from the course, document self-care, but you should take a workshop on self-care, or a your life for one week, and be brutally honest with yourself: community education course on healthy living. It will keep you in the game longer and you will enjoy the time you play • Document everything you eat: use your phone camera more. Most importantly, be careful out there, take care of as a way to document everything you put in your mouth, your tools and watch out for each other—we are all we’ve got. from a tic-tac to a buffet. Everything. Note the times you eat.

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Jonathan Webb

PhD; CI & CT, NIC-A

Erica West Oyedele Dr. Shirley M.A, NIC

First African American/Black person to First African American/Black woman to become VP of RID. First African become the President of RID. YouTube Link: youtu.be/dLhtfABd3yw American /Black woman to conduct the RID business meeting at a national conference.

First known African her national certifica

Celebrating Pioneers of “Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about em Learn more about the pioneers of Black History here: https://rid.org/celebrating-pioneers-of-black-history/ 24

VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

yChildress Shirley Emery M.A

American to receive tion from RID -1977

First President of NBDA

Anthony J. Aramburo Ph.D; IC/TC, NAD IV

First President of NAOBI, INC.

RID Members Celebrate Black History Month with 15% off BadAct Apparel! Use code "RID15" for 15% off your purchase in February

Black History m bracing one another’s uniqueness.” —Ola Joseph www.rid.org

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Protocol for Sign Language Interpreters Working in North American Indigenous Settings

Melanie McKay-Cody, PhD YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/j_KmIzoa4Sc

What did you think of this article? Send your feedback to the authors/editors by clicking here!

www.rid.org//views-february2020-articlefeedback/ 26 VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Hi, I’m Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody, presenting to you this 3. An Indigenous event or ceremony is not merely an interprotocol for interpreting in native settings. This topic arose preting assignment. Instead the event should be viewed because Indigenous Deaf people felt that ITPs and other inas an opportunity for interpreters to bridge Deaf and terpreter preparation programs don’t meet our communal Hearing participants' unfolding life journeys that manineeds. The training is not appropriate for interpreting in fest in Indigenous events and ceremonies. native settings. Due to many issues related to that, we decided to establish this protocol. The work on this protocol 4. Regardless of intention or lack thereof, an interpreter makes an impact on the settings they work within and started in July 2018 as we carefully crafted the different the people they interpret for. The Indigenous communipieces and finally made it ready for publication and dissemty asks the interpreter to take this all into consideration; ination in May 2019. In this protocol we emphasize the five to honor and respect the Indigenous community, and to R’s: Respect, Relationship, Responsibility, Relevance, and have an open approach since Indigenous customs and Reciprocity. This represents our way of knowing, being, and values may be different than the interpreter's. doing, and is part of our Indigenous Deaf Methodologies, as opposed to Western philosophies used in many ASL and 5. If the interpreter is in need of cultural mediation, for unDeaf studies programs. derstanding or clarification, the interpreter should ask the designated Indigenous coordinator or appropriate Note: For all jobs/assignments that Sign Language Intercontact person and not the first person nearby. preters conduct, every interpreter must have credentials

Whereas it is typical for an interpreter to approach an interpreting assignment as a means of income and a profession that can be seen as a “job,” the Indigenous community asks for a shift in perception and a person-centered approach.

6. The Indigenous community thanks interpreters who for American Sign Language or Lengua de señas mexicana wish to serve their community.

(LSM) and/or Indigenous/ tribal sign language. American Sign Language requires certification in USA and Canada. Indigenous Deaf people: There is no certification for Lengua de señas mexicana nor 7. Understand that not all Indigenous Deaf people are Mexican Indigenous sign languages in Mexico. There is no knowledgeable (e.g. customs, values, traditions, histocertification for Indigenous/tribal sign language in USA ry) about their tribes. and Canada, the preference given to the interpreters who have years of experience and training with authentic tribal 8. Be aware that consumers may have different signs than sign language instructors. what an interpreter may have learned or uses on a regular basis. It is crucial for interpreters to accept instrucRespect tion on preferred signs from the people they are working with at any given time, and to incorporate and use Approach/Philosophy: these signs as best they can.

1. Whereas it is typical for an interpreter to approach an 9. When an Indigenous Deaf signer conducts a sacred interpreting assignment as a means of income and a proceremony in Tribal sign language (Plains Indian Sign fession that can be seen as a “job,” the Indigenous comLanguage, Northeast Indian Sign Language, and other munity asks for a shift in perception and a person-cenlanguage varieties within the North American Indian tered approach.

Sign Language), and interpreters do not know specific 2. The Indigenous community encourages the interpreter to first consider the consumers of the interpretation services and to hold them as sacred; this means to consider both the Deaf and Hearing participants and their life journey, and what they mean to accomplish at this crossroad in their lives.

signs, the sign language interpreter should explain to the hearing Indigenous audience that s/he is signing in tribal signs. Furthermore, not all tribes use Plains Indian Sign Language, other tribes outside of Plains region may use their own sign languages.

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Indigenous hearing people: 10. When appropriate, talk with the hearing Indigenous people to discuss the cultural and language deprivation that Indigenous Deaf people experience, beforehand, unless Indigenous Deaf people prefer to explain their unique situation themselves (this engages use of their own Indigenous Deaf agency).

16. Be aware that even though index-finger-pointing is considered rude and culturally unacceptable in most Indigenous communities, it is allowed to be used with Indigenous Deaf persons by interpreters, and some bi-culturally educated Indigenous people, since ASL and LSM use index-finger-pointing for pronouns and directional purposes etc., while Indigenous/tribal sign languages do not use index-finger-pointing.

11. Do not be afraid to ask the Indigenous leader/present- 17. Instead of index-finger-pointing, as it is generally coner/teacher/elder and others what terms to use in intersidered rude among most Indigenous communities, it preting beforehand. When in the service of interpretis more appropriate to refer to the speaker/presenter/ ing, an interpreter may encounter the speaker switching signer with full-hand acknowledgement. It is common from English to their native tongue throughout their for Indigenous interpreters to do lip-pointing because communication. A non-Indigenous interpreter may it may be part of their culture. need to switch off with a team of Native interpreters during this time. Recognize your limitations and respect Responsibility boundaries in such events, as an interpreter’s job is interpreting.

18. It is the interpreter’s responsibility to ask about what topic will need interpretation, and what should not or 12. Oftentimes, the person speaking will utilize their tribal cannot be interpreted. spoken language. An interpreter can ask them to repeat the word by spelling the words. Most people are open 19. Be aware that some sacred prayers by tribal spiritual to helping out with the tribal words. This is important leaders may not be interpreted. At times Interpreters/ as Indigenous interpreters are not universally available individuals may need consent to be present where such (i.e. University/college classrooms, general meetings, sacredness is happening. For example, some dancers or tribal events in urban cities). are to stay silent and are not to be touched. Know your boundaries, and theirs, within the culture.

13. It is common on the Reservation/Reserve/Nations/ Village/and other places to select “any person who 20. Interpreters may not bring counterparts such as people/ know signs” to interpret. These persons (Indigenous family to become audiences within such events to take or Non-Indigenous) should not be considered “an inphotos without permission of a spiritual leader. Withterpreter” because they are not qualified to translate the in certain tribes photography is strongly forbidden, as message. Failure to provide qualified interpreters can their ceremonies are not made open to the public. have grave/disastrous consequences (such as wrong placement like jail, educational placement) for Indig- 21. Be aware that there is a difference between a paid service and a gift (usually during community events). Not enous Deaf people. Tribal offices need to be educated all interpreting assignment are paying jobs. Do not exabout these problematic issues. pect monetary payment for your service unless agreed to 14. Interpreters who interpret sacred ceremonies, need to beforehand. Conferences, college/university jobs, and be aware that American Sign Language or Language of some meetings will provide payment.

Signed Mexican books do not cover such tribal words that may be spoken. The Indigenous and non-Indig- 22. Social media—interpreters are required to refrain from posting anything on Facebook, and any social media forenous interpreters who are well versed in tribal signs mat that reveals picture of people, or names from your would be the best fit to interpret at these tribal events, assignment. This is a viewpoint of self-promotion, it meetings, and other type of tribal activities. does not address inadvertent (and careless) revealing of 15. It is best to acquire tribal signs when interpreting for an client information. Any social media posting, check with Indigenous Deaf person. It is recommended that interappropriate Indigenous people to verify authenticity bepreters specializing in Indigenous Deaf interpreting to fore you post. attend workshops that provide this knowledge and the continuation of professional development in this area. 23. Criminal conviction—Human Resources at tribal office and specific assigned Indigenous Deaf Elders will be in 28

VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

charge of background checking on interpreter’s criminal conviction record, if situation raises. It is important that we protect Indigenous people from any harm.

Beliefs: 24. If you are non-native or from another tribe, it is extremely important to recognize and respect others’ Indigenous beliefs as distinct from your own. If you feel that you cannot separate your religious beliefs in an Indigenous setting, do not accept the assignment. It is best not to take the asfortable with and whom they deem qualified, regardless signment if you feel you cannot put aside those personal of their certification levels. religious beliefs that counter those of the culture you 30. In colleges/universities, Indigenous Deaf people have would interpret within. the right to choose their designated interpreters beClothing: cause of their knowledge in tribal culture, language, and traditional ways. This practice aligns with standard hu25. Sign Language interpreters are responsible to ask the man resources practices on Tribal lands where they seek tribal/council people or the Indigenous Deaf people to hire Indigenous interpreters. about what to wear at certain events. Generally, typical business attire is worn for conference-type scenarios, 31. Status and role of Indigenous people: Elders are treated and casual clothing for outdoor or tribal events. You with great respect. The tone of interpreting for an Elder do not want to look inappropriately dressed at certain is equivalent to that of interpreting for a person who has events. a PhD. Spiritual Leaders are afforded the same respect and status.

26. Interpreter’s garments, if ceremony or gathering participants have colorful regalia/traditional clothes then 32. Turn-taking in Indigenous communities differs from the interpreter need not come in black clothing as to non-Indigenous communities, “certain American Indampen the spirit of the ceremony, but instead can use dian groups are accustomed to waiting several minutes a light or lighter color, so long as it is muted and does in silence before responding to a question or taking a not detract, overpower, or distract from the ceremonial turn in conversation, while the native English speakers regalia/traditional clothes. they may be talking to have very short time frames for responses or conversational turn-taking, and find long 27. During sweat lodge activity, check with each tribe’s trasilences embarrassing” (Saville-Troike, 2003:18). The ditional spiritual leader(s) on appropriate clothing and sign language interpreter can inform the Indigenous or conduct within the lodge. non-Indigenous Deaf/HH/DB at these times to, “hold, still thinking,” which is preferable to “wait in silence.”

28. When providing interpretation at outdoor events, be mindful of weather, heat, and duration of the cultural event—the community may not have a strict timeline to Relevance start and end.

Gender-Specific Information:

Relationship

33. Within most tribes, women (including both participants and interpreters) are not allowed to engage in sacred 29. Indigenous Deaf people and interpreters are partners Indigenous ceremonies during menstruation. In tribes in communication at all tribal events. Indigenous Deaf that follow this practice, prior to a sacred ceremony, people will choose certain interpreter(s) they are comwww.rid.org

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spiritual leaders might approach Indigenous Deaf women and women interpreters about this restriction, although it may be assumed this is common knowledge. A replacement by another sign language interpreter during such a time is a must. Note: not all tribes practice this belief. This would apply to the Indigenous Deaf person and interpreter who is participating in a sacred ceremony. An interpreter at this type of event would be a shadow, who only interprets the ceremony without participating in it. Remember, an interpreter is an outsider in such scenarios, and one who comes to convey communication of what is voiced or signed.

34. Be aware that certain ceremonies or sweat lodges have gender-specific protocols (female interpreters cannot go near all-male ceremonies or sweat lodges, and vice versa for male interpreters). a. At some tribal events, there are certain gender-specific spaces; interpreter(s) need to talk to spiritual leader/elder/community leader about where you need to stand or sit prior to the event. b. Be aware some tribal sweat lodges might require one to be unclothed. Interpreters need to be aware of this beforehand. Note: rarely is this a mixed-gendered occurrence.

Interpreter Placement: 35. Make ceremony or signing/talking circle plans for interpreter logistics, depending on the number of sign language interpreters present. If there are many interpreters, a placement of four chairs set in cardinal directions inside the circle would be recommended. If there are only 2 interpreters, it will mean each interpreter should take 2 cardinal directions. A category of different diagrams is attached to this protocol. Keep in mind, not all tribes have similar ceremonies or signing/talking circles. Talk to the hearing and/or Deaf leader/elders who are in charge, get their instructions, and ask for pre-ceremony preparation.

36. The placement of the interpreters in a ceremony is key and dependent on the participant’s preference. A common expectation is for interpreters to be outside the circle yet still in the line of sight to those watching the interpreter. There exist many tribes in Mexico and a standardized interpreting system is not in place because of so much diversity. At this point it is best for an interpreter to take guidance from the local tribe they are being asked to work with.

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Awareness: 37. Be aware and conscientious that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) standards do not apply to Native Reservations in the USA. The same is true for the Association of Visual Language Interpreters of Canada (AVLIC) for Canada. There is no certification system in Mexico.

38. Eye Contact—It is important to know that eye contact between the sign language interpreters and Indigenous Deaf people is acceptable, but when you are in Indigenous communities, do not ask or demand an Indigenous person/people to make eye contact with you or the Indigenous Deaf person, it might be their cultural protocol to not make eye contact.

Reciprocity Dances or Tribal Events:

This protocol has been developed by Melanie McKay-Cody (Cherokee), Armando Castro (Mixteca), Tim Curry (Non-Indigenous), Amy Fowler (Non-Indigenous), Ren Freeman (Eastern Shoshone/First Nation Cree), Crescenciano Garcia, JR. (Aztec), Paola Morales (Nahua/Pipil and afromestiza) Evelyn Optiz (San Carlos Apache) and Wanette Reynolds (Cherokee). Reviewed

by Kevin Goodfeather (Dakota), Natasha Terry (Navajo), Hallie Zimmerman (Winnebago), and James Wooden Legs (Northern Cheyenne).

About the Author Dr. Melanie McKay-Cody is a Cherokee Deaf and earned her doctoral degree in linguistic and socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. She has studied critically-endangered indigenous sign languages in North America since 1994 and helps different tribes preserve their tribal signs. She also specialized in Indigenous Deaf studies and interpreter training incorporating Native culture, North American Indian Sign Language and ASL.

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39. When any Indigenous Deaf or Indigenous hearing person asks you to participate in any event or dance, do not decline the offer, it might be perceived as disrespectful to the Indigenous people.

40. Interpreters can participate in giveaways or blanket dance, which involves a donation to the Indigenous This article was originally published as Dr. Mckay-Cody’s PhD Dissertation, “Memory Comes Before Knowledge-North American Indigehearing or Deaf people who need the funds to go back nous Deaf: Socio-cultural Study of Rock/Picture Writing, Community, home or for a certain purpose.

Sign Languages, and Kinship.” University of Oklahoma, p. 312-325.

41. Above all else, it is best to ask an Indigenous person involved with the activity first, and to prepare and provide your service accordingly.

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his Column is not available in ASL

More Than Just a Conduit: Interpreters as Team Members in Mental Health

By Tracy Epperson, MD YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/Cxl2ukIBBzE

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

T

here is an old saying that the tree which bends with the wind does not break. Our current mental health model is broken, and the only way to save it is for the members of the team— both mental health providers and interpreters, to learn to bend.

The needs of the average Deaf patient in a mental health setting are significantly more complex than the current paradigm allows.

We in the field are fully aware that Deaf culture is as rich and diverse as any, though it is often overlooked or misunderstood, especially by the hearing-centered medical model of deafness.

Stressors inherent in the Deaf community, such as communication oppression and other types of culturally specific trauma, make the typical treatment model for hearing patients inadequate and ineffective. Likewise, the typical interpreting paradigm of showing up, acting only as a communication facilitator, and leaving, is also ineffective.

Competency and the Lack Thereof Many national organizations, including the American Psychological Association, require that those who are practicing outside their level of expertise (based on multiple factors, but notably language and culture) seek supervision and training in order to become competent. Despite an increased need for competent, effective mental health treatment, less than 2% of Deaf persons struggling with mental illnesses actually receive the care they need and fewer than 3% of providers offer mental health services to people who are Deaf. (Raifman & Vernon, 1996). Of this small minority of providers, very few would be considered competent in culturally affirmative and linguistically appropriate treatment of Deaf persons.

An argument can be made, therefore, that a primary need for effective (read: competent) treatment of Deaf patients is adequate communication access. Since most providers are non-signing, an effective support system must then include skilled interpreters who are knowledgeable of mental health and the unique manifestations of symptoms in a Deaf person. It should also be noted that a “support system” denotes multiple parts working in tandem.

The interpreter in a successful treatment setting is not separate from the system, but rather a member of the treatment team.

Unfortunately, a large majority of Deaf patients in mental health settings have inadequate language, a striking majority being deemed dysfluent—that is, they are not fluent in any language, including ASL. Studies have found that as many as 75% of Deaf mental health inpatients possess some form of language dysfluency (compare that to only a handful of cases of hearing people with dysfluent language, EVER). (Black & Glickman, 2006; Downey, 2010). Dysfluency impacts all facets of life, including cognition and psychosocial experiences and skills, and interferes with normal healthy attachment. Some language disparity exists even into adulthood—a study from 2009 found that even very educated Deaf adults demonstrated insufficient health literacy. (Steinberg et al., 2006) . The general population of Deaf sign language users is therefore likely to be at an even greater risk of inadequate health literacy and subsequently, poorer overall health.

Filling in the Gaps

Often providers are unaware of this deficit in health-related knowledge, which can lead to misunderstandings and worse, misdiagnoses. It falls then to the interpreter to attempt to educate unaware providers on these potential deficits, as well as other facCrucial Communication tors which may potentially confound diagnosis, such as cultural differences and the prevalence of language dysfluency in the Deaf It is likely because of this lack of cultural competence coupled community. with inadequate communication between patient and provider that there often exists a sense of fear and mistrust from Deaf in- As the team member who is an expert in the language and culture dividuals toward their hearing providers. In a study done on Deaf of the patient, an interpreter in a mental health setting must be perspectives of healthcare, it was found that “fear, mistrust, and skilled enough to recognize when the presentation of a patient frustration,” were common in Deaf patients’ health care experi- is consistent with their cultural background, and whether the ences. Any experiences described as positive were characterized communication being displayed is a symptom of mental illness or by the presence of medically experienced certified interpreters, instead merely insufficient language, then adequately convey this health care practitioners with sign language skills, and/or practi- information to the provider—all without postulating a psychiatric tioners who made efforts to improve communication. (Pollard & diagnosis. Not an easy task, yet a vital one.

Barnett, 2009).

Dysfluency or Disordered?

Neil Glickman observed that disempowering Deaf people in communication, ultimately leading to communicative isolation, In order to make helpful and accurate linguistic descriptions, it is a prominent form of oppression against the Deaf community. is beneficial for interpreters to be familiar with common features (Glickman & Gulati, 2003). It can be assumed then that care of language dysfluency, as well as the thought disorganization of providers who are not competent in Deaf culture and/or do not mental illness, in order to help differentiate between the two and provide adequate communication to their Deaf patients are in ac- better describe nuances that will help the provider identify the tuality displaying this type of oppression in their efforts, which are likely etiology of difficult language. In Mental Health Interpreting with Dysfluent Deaf Clients, Neil Glickman identifies 5 language intended to treat. errors common to language dysfluency (Crump & Glickman, 2011): www.rid.org

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miscommunication and mistrust, can lead to patients seeking care from multiple providers, exacerbating this discontinuity.

1. Impoverished/limited vocabulary, with incorrect use of many signs,

less educated or more psychotic than they actually are, and as such often requires educating the listeners regarding ASL syntax.

2. Inability to correctly sequence events (lack of time/tense indicators), 4. Descriptive—describing the language for the provider, such as whether the person is lacking proper use of pronouns or 3. Spatial disorganization, such as signing in a limited space time indicators (which can indicate dysfluency) or whethwithout shifts to differentiate subjects, er the person is stringing random, unrelated signs together (which could indicate disorganized thought).

4. Incorrect or missing syntax, such as incorrect grammar, pronouns with no preceding noun established,

However, there are also symptoms indicative of psychosis which can be common in nonpsychotic Deaf patients, leading to potential misdiagnosis by an unaware provider. For example, because ASL involves more intense body language and facial expressions than are present in hearing conversation, it is not unusual for a Deaf person to display what a hearing practitioner might label “affect lability,” and the deficit of healthcare knowledge in the Deaf community may be misinterpreted as pathological. This again is where information provided by the interpreter is so vital. But how to convey that information to the provider?

The latter strategy can be very useful in mental health evaluations, which often target a person’s presentation more than content. Interpreters can also use a combination—providing a summary of what is being said via one of the first three strategies, along with descriptive information regarding how the message is being delivered. The descriptive information should also include cultural mediation/education as to how the patient’s presentation compares with the typical Deaf population and whether the language they are using is representative of fluent ASL users or not. One example is eye contact. What is acceptable and even expected eye contact in the Deaf world may be considered overly intense eye contact in the hearing world, and mistaken as a sign of altered mental status. Likewise, a Deaf person who makes the fleeting eye contact, which common in hearing culture, is actually displaying atypical behavior for someone who is culturally Deaf. Again, it is important that the interpreter provide this linguistic information (“the signs they are using appear disjointed and unrelated”) without asserting a diagnostic opinion (“this person is signing psychotically”). The interpreter can then clarify whether the pattern of language used is typical for someone with minimal language skills, whether the affect displayed is typical of a member of the Deaf community, and so on.

More Than the Message

More Than Just a Conduit

Robert Pollard has identified strategies to help with conveying difficult language to providers, and in his Mental Health Interpreting Training curriculum, he offers some valuable examples of how to utilize each of the four strategies:

Interpreters often bear the additional burden of being the only continuity in Deaf patients’ mental health care path, as all too frequently continuity of care is glaringly absent in their treatment.

Previously discussed confounding factors such as miscommunication and mistrust can lead patients to seek care from multiple providers, exacerbating this discontinuity. Since the interpreting community is small, one interpreter may interpret for the same patient at multiple facilities, which may not communicate with one another, resulting in the interpreter having much more knowledge of the patient than their current providers.

5. A mixture of gestures with sign, not for emphasis or embellishment, but due to inadequate vocabulary.

Likewise, there are commonly seen language abnormalities in mental illness which can be found in both hearing and Deaf populations, such as looseness of association (unrelated words or phrases strung together), echolalia (repeating back what the interviewer has said/signed), and incongruent affect (emotional display mismatched to language, such as signing, “I’m very excited,” with an expressionless face).

1. First person—the method we most often use as interpreters, in which we voice as the Deaf client.

2. Third person—sometimes necessary to avoid escalating a volatile encounter, in which we use “he is saying,” or “she said,” despite being taught during our training never to do so, and cringing the entire time we are forced by circumIn our training as interpreters, confidentiality is drilled deeply stances to use it. into our very souls, so much so that considering ourselves a mem3. Glossing—word for word interpreting, typically reserved for ber of the team and more than just a conduit of communication completely incoherent language, and only rarely useful in may feel sacrilegious. However, the RID Code of Professional mental health. It carries the risk of making the signer sound Conduct states that each assignment requires its own level of con34

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fidentiality and that information is to be shared on an “as needed” basis. In a mental health setting, more information may need to be shared than in a typical visit to a PCP for a cold. In some cases, not sharing vital information would be harmful to the patient’s treatment.

Pollard, R. Q. & Barnett, S. (2009). Health-related vocabulary knowledge among deaf adults. Rehabilitation Psychology, 54(2), 182-185.

Raifman, L.J., & Vernon, M. (1996). Important implications for psychologists of the Americans with Disabilities Act: Case in Granted, acting as a “liaison” goes far beyond the usual and acpoint, the patient who is deaf. Professional Psychology: Research cepted interpreter duties, and brings with it many potentially difand Practice, 27(4), 372–377. ficult ethical situations. Do I tell this facility the name of the previous facility where the patient was treated since they are unable to Steinberg, A.G., Barnett, S., Meador, H.E., Wiggins, E.A. & recall it? Do I tell the doctor this patient is allergic to the Haldol Zazove, P. (2006). Health Care System Accessibility. Journal of he just prescribed because the patient incorrectly said they had no General Internal Medicine, 21, 260-266. allergies? The list of potential ethical dilemmas is endless, and I would argue that each requires answering on a case-by-case basis with the one overarching tenet of healthcare kept firmly in mind: First, do no harm.

About the Author Tracy Epperson, MD Dr Tracy Epperson is a licensed resident physician in the psychiatry program at Unity Health in Searcy, Arkansas. She received her medical degree at the age of 46 after 2 decades of observing the extreme need for qualified providers familiar with Deaf culture and fluent in ASL over the course of her interpreting career, which began in 1998. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Interpreting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and her medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She enjoys spending time outdoors, especially with her amazing husband and overly handsome sons.

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References:

Black P.A. & Glickman N.S. (2006). Demographics, psychiatric diagnoses, and other characteristics of North American Deaf and hard-of-hearing inpatients. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11(3), 303-321.

Crump, C. & Glickman, N. (2011). Mental Health Interpreting with Language Dysfluent Deaf Clients. Journal of Interpretation, 21(1), Article 3.

Downey, G. (2010). Life without Language. Neuroanthropology. Retrieved from neuroanthropology.net/2010/07/21/ life-without-language/.

Glickman, N.S., & Gulati, S. (Eds.) (2003). Mental health care of deaf people: A culturally affirmative approach. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

What did you think of this article? Send your feedback to the authors/editors by clicking here!

www.rid.org//views-february2020-articlefeedback/

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Distantism

By John Lee Clark

This article will not be presented in ASL. According to the author: “For the Protactile community, bilingualism means English via Braille/technology or PT in person.” Protactile, as a tactile language, is difficult to capture on video, and not ideal for recording or broadcasting as the nuances and inflections of the language are not visual. In the future, we hope to engage signers inspired by these topics who are willing to collaborate with our DeafBlind authors and create an accompanying ASL video that can more widely reach our VIEWS 36 VIEWS Volume audience.

36 • Issue 3If you would like to contribute, please let us know at views@rid.org.

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t is with a wry shake of my head on your arm that I find myself introducing a fancy new word. As a poet I dislike jargon. But sometimes we do need a new word, and it can change the way we see everything. That’s what happened to the sighted Deaf community with “audism.” Although it was first coined in 1975, by the Deaf scholar Tom L. Humphries, it didn’t receive a full discussion until after the hearing-sighted linguist Harlan Lane used it in his 1993 book The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community. Sighted Deaf people had always known that hearing society discriminated against them, but the new word suddenly made it much easier to identify and analyze.

es of hearing and vision. The ways in which many cultures have evolved on the almost exclusive basis of these two senses have indeed been harmful to us. That insistence on sight or hearing to function in society means only one thing for us: death.

But that would be putting it too simplistically. Each form of social bigotry has its distinctive personality and its unique set of intertwining evils. So I would like to dwell on the concept of distantia, or a standing apart, which lies at the heart of distantism. We already have a Protactile word that describes people who pull away from touch, who refuse to connect. It is an attitude and a behavior. Many hearing and sighted societies prize it highly, and their As is typical of our community, several DeafBlind folks proposed members seek to maintain physical distance, however thin those variations on the Deaf theme. But none of them caught on. More margins may be. Their rulers and heroes stand alone—the more

Distantism manifests itself in the long lines, tight cells or cubicles, and above all, their being removed out of sight and hearing.

For all the hype around its ability to connect the world, technology has often served to isolate people in every other way. recently, however, “vidism” has gained some traction. It’s a helpful concept for two reasons. First, it places a finger on some of the ways sighted Deaf communities replicate their own oppression by oppressing us. The second reason is that the hearing blind community did not yet have a term to describe sighted privilege and bias, other than the generic “ableism.” Our brother Bryen Yunashko has done much to define and address visism.

remote they are, the more highly esteemed they are. Even when the less privileged are squeezed closer together due to poverty, exploitation, or as punishment, distantism manifests itself in the long lines, tight cells or cubicles, and above all, their being removed out of sight and hearing. For all the hype around its ability to connect the world, technology has often served to isolate people in every other way.

Yet addressing both audism and vidism still leaves too much behind glass. I knew there was something bigger there, and I longed for something that would shatter that pane of mystification. Something that would allow me to wrap my hands around its throat and say, “I’ve found you out, you old serpent!”

Are sighted and hearing people wrong to use their distance senses and let it affect how they live? No. If they wish to be all eyeballs and flapping ears, they are welcome to such an existence. But we have problems when they impose their distantism on us.

The sense of that malaise which affects all of us, DeafBlind and non-DeafBlind alike, had been growing stronger and stronger ever since the Protactile movement started in 2007. It has taught us so much about who we are. About what is natural and true.

About how to live. About language. What we once put up with we could no longer tolerate.

Let’s read a classic distantist statement:

“The loss of both sight and hearing constitutes one of the severest disabilities known to human beings. Essentially, it deprives an individual of the two primary senses through which we acquire awareness of and information about the world around us, and it drastically limits effective communication and freedom of movement, which are necessary for full and active participation in soWhat, I wondered, is the opposite of tactile? Researching our ciety.” community’s history, I see that we have always been tactile. But hearing and sighted people have always sought to keep our tac- It used to be impossible to argue with a statement like that. Now, tilehood in check. We’ve always been denied access to some of with a critique of distantism we can begin to break it down. It’s the most basic human rights. What should we call this force of an old trick, blaming injustice on its targets so that the privileged can pretend there’s nothing wrong. We are at the bottom of sosuppression? ciety because, what? Because we are DeafBlind. Which cannot A Standing Apart be helped. Therefore, we belong at the bottom of society. It’s an amazingly easy trick to pull. They take things out of our reach and I propose to call it distantism. The English word “distance” comes then they say we have limited awareness. Whatever they do is our from “distantia,” Latin for “a standing apart.” A point could be fault. made that distantism refers to the privileging of the distance senswww.rid.org

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I wish I could share everything this critique has unearthed for me, but it would take years to write! For now, I would like to touch on a few things that I think tell us a great deal about how distantism works in our lives as DeafBlind people.

week to the enterprise. Fortune also hugged them when Howe and his new wife departed on a long honeymoon in Europe. It was during his absence that a portrait was painted of Bridgman teaching Caswell to read and write.

Intervenors

In Deaf education, Deaf teachers were involved from Day One. Many graduates were promptly hired as teachers, and Deaf teachers would go on to found schools all over the world. Blind graduates of early schools for the blind were also hired as teachers and continue to play a leading role in that field. But in the education of DeafBlind children, we have not seen the same pattern. There are thousands of Intervenors working today. There are hundreds of teachers proper who work with our children in Deaf, blind, and public schools. There are hundreds of early-intervention specialists. None of these professionals are themselves DeafBlind. What happened to cause so complete a shutout of tactile teachers and role models?

Despite the many barriers we encounter in society, we can gain much awareness about the world around us. But when we go exploring or when we just exist, sighted and hearing people rush in to intervene. Can they help us? Please don’t touch. They will be happy to describe it to us. They will guide us. No, they will get it for us. It’s much easier that way. Hello! My name is Katie and I’m your Intervenor!

One of the things I have pondered is why, very early in the history of education of DeafBlind children, they started assigning each one of us a special teacher-companion. This wasn’t always the case. There were some classes where we shared a common teacher and we had each other. We can see in the record how distantism set in, and how hearing and sighted people wanted things to look right. It didn’t look good when we went around “groping in the dark.” It didn’t look good for us to cluster together and have too much fun. Education meant we had to sit behind a desk.

When Howe returned to his post at Perkins, he found that Bridgman had mingled too much with teachers and fellow students. She had learned too much about religion and had many questions. He considered his neat experiment ruined. He immediately made some radical changes, and, later, for a period of five years Bridgman was in the company of one single teacher. Any suggestions of a future in a widening social circle was abandoned. Perkins would set an example for the world of assigning each one of us a special teacher-companion. They were to help us, keep us safe, protect us from bad influences, and, we can now see, make sure we aspire to the distantist ideal. We would wait to be told things, not find out things for ourselves.

The solution was to assign each one of us a sighted companion.

Such teachers made it possible for us to sit apart and for the classroom teacher to stand in front of us. They made us hearing and sighted by proxy. Even though we would be in constant contact with our special teachers, the pair of us made for a tidy unit that could and did stand apart. It also made for a most inspiring sight, the self-sacrificing teacher laboring as our only link to the world. It is a common outcome of some forms of oppression that their It isn’t a miracle unless there is a miracle worker. targets must fit in a narrow space of cooperation and gratitude.

Today those special companions are called Intervenors or Inter- The idea with distantism is that we can never uphold it perfectveners. The title is altogether too apt. Intervenors who eavesdrop ly, but we should make a continuous failed attempt to do so. This on this article will protest, “But I let Jimmy touch anything he continuous failed attempt reassures society that we agree with wants to!” My friend, no. It’s not just a matter of letting or en- their values. We are to be good, but never good enough. The couraging. There’s a whole cultural element involved. There are field, which Howe firmly sent on its current course, excludes us distantist modes of touch and there are protactile modes of touch. because it needs to maintain a certain level of failure. If it was its A distantist cannot truly teach or empower our children to live goal to succeed completely in educating us, it would embrace our and learn as tactile people. Yet the field of education of DeafBlind tactilehood and value us as teachers and leaders. Instead, distantism is the first condition, and for that to make sense, the field children has never included us as teachers. Why is that? needs its work to be difficult and expensive, not easy and effective.

The Road Not Taken Under Different Names September 30, 1841, might have been the beginning of a wonderful alternative history. On that day, our brother Oliver Cas- We adults also receive intervention that serves a similar function. well, then eleven years old, entered the Perkins Institution, where In the United States we have Support Service Providers and in the our famous sister Laura Bridgman had already been a student for United Kingdom they are called Communicator Guides. In Canfour years. He met many people on that day, but he was immedi- ada, they don’t bother to pretend it’s something different. Their ately drawn to her, and the two latched together. Samuel Gridley Intervenors serve children and adults alike.

Howe, the school’s hearing-sighted director, was the most insuf- I am not saying that we don’t need sighted assistants. After all, ferable bigot, but on this occasion he allowed Bridgman to serve we do live in a distantist society, and we should avail ourselves of as his auxiliary for Caswell’s first lessons. Thereafter Bridgman distance-information readers. However, the way our SSP services eagerly continued to teach Caswell, devoting many hours each are performed can be smothering. That’s why a key concern of the 38

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In Deaf education, Deaf teachers were involved from Day One… But in the education of DeafBlind children, we have not seen the same pattern. What happened to cause so complete a shutout of tactile teachers and role models?

Protactile movement is autonomy. When I teach Protactile, I like “That’s not what the position is, it is this.” Soon the other SSPs to make it easier to remember what it means and how to spell it by slipped into the group. In a few moments there was a nice straight breaking it down into three parts: row, everyone paired off and standing apart.

AUTO: They do a lot of things automatically, taking over, making The White Cane decisions for us, making assumptions.

Even when we shake off those pesky intervenors, distantism folNO: We need to say “No!” to such automatic actions. lows us still in the form of the white cane. Now, I love my cane, but it was also one of the first things that told me there is someMY: We need to say “My!”—we will do things our way and make thing wrong. As I pointed out in my essay on Protactile design, our own decisions.

“My Dream House,” it is not our home if we need a cane. What Sometimes I get a new SSP and she asks for my shopping list. She this means for our present discussion is that the instant we feel is ready to take charge and have me merely holding onto the cart. the need for a cane, we are in distantist territory. One of our longShe’s confused when I do not give her a list and I take charge, term goals should be to claim more and more territory where we directing us toward the places where we will find what I want. She abandon our canes because the design of these environments is is now more like a detector, or a device that I take out of my back tactilely accessible and appropriate. pocket to consult. Only she is far more intelligent than any machine could be and there’s a wonderful rapport—that is, if she is able to unlearn her distantism. It is my responsibility to learn and know the world around me. It is part of her job to help me update that knowledge as we go along, but it is not her job to retain any of this knowledge herself.

For going out in public, I think we still need to ask the question: Why were we given the white cane? The three words Orientation and Mobility specialists repeat like a mantra are “independence,” “freedom,” and “safety.” Our brother Robert Sirvage has noted that in American Sign Language all three are said the same way.

Our crossed wrists turn away from each other, moving apart, as Having a SSP is still useful, but it makes such an enormous dif- if breaking out of handcuffs. That’s freedom, and also indepenference how it’s done and when. Sadly, most SSP, CG, and In- dence and safety. I now realize that this is the ultimate distantist tervenor programs leave the professionals’ distantism intact. As fantasy. a result, they often take charge, make assumptions, push our The white cane makes it possible for us to go many places over a canes away from making contact, pull us back from people, put wide variety of terrain all the while avoiding contact with our envithemselves in the middle of interactions instead of supporting ronment except through our cane. It is a magic wand that conjures our direct communication with others, and guide us in such a way up a bubble for us to float in. Sighted Orientation and Mobility as to maintain a margin between us and the world around us. No instructors have always taught us one-on-one, the better to dance wonder we have limited awareness! circles around us and make sure the bubble grows stronger. They Their distantism finds its ugliest though unconscious expression at many of our own gatherings, conferences, and retreats. You know the routine: We are each assigned a SSP. Instead of helping us connect with each other, they end up being the ones with whom we talk the most.

like to scout out a location first, find a path through it, and then bring us there, saying, “Go straight until you feel a curb, then take a 45-degree turn and walk until you encounter a railing.” A code of aimed turns and sailing until we hit something then another turn.

Their presence creates a network of distantism that separates us from each other or makes it harder for us to find each other.

They also can destroy moments when we cluster and go tactile. A friend shared with me an experience he had with a yoga activity at a popular “DeafBlind” retreat. The yoga instructor was a sister, and she wanted the group to do it in Protactile style. So there was a happy clustering, and people helped each other and passed on information. But it didn’t look right, and one of the SSPs standing back intervened by going to her “client” to correct his position.

The field has yet to accept any DeafBlind instructors, adamant in the belief that we cannot teach each other to travel. They are right—we cannot possibly teach each other how to travel in their sterile, desolate, meaningless mode where the goal is for us to go down the middle, in a straight line. They want us to disturb the world as little as possible. Ironically, sighted people make that easy to accomplish by parting like the Red Sea before our rod.

Joke: How am I supposed to find anyone if everyone runs away from me? www.rid.org

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The bubbles they put us in are sometimes so thick they are more like tanks. I cannot count the times I would approach a DeafBlind friend and get the feeling I’d just interrupted their process of steaming forward. Often they’d be holding something in their other hand, and I must wait for them to disassemble their tank-bub-

Protactile movement, we knew it was a historic event. Now that we know more about distantism and how poisonous it is, their achievement seems all the more astonishing.

Think about it. Billions of people on this planet, and all of them

So there was a happy clustering, and people helped each other and passed on information. But it didn’t look right, and one of the SSPs standing back intervened by going to her “client” to correct his position. ble before we can interact. That’s why I have worked on making my bubble as thin as possible, ready to pop the instant there’s an opportunity for connection. For me, this has meant finding the right cane: a slender beauty made of fiberglass. It’s so light that I can hold it like a pencil if I wanted to, with just two fingers. It’s no tank. It’s a mere whisker, sometimes feeling ahead, sometimes tucked in favor of my exploring hands.

agreeing that hearing and vision are required for leading full, normal lives. Billions of people of one mind that being DeafBlind must be an unendurable fate. Billions of dollars poured into the hope of medical cures. Distantism, that old serpent, held the whole world in its remote-control spell.

And then our sisters from Seattle had the audacity to say that there’s a DeafBlind way. To say that hearing and vision are not One of the moves of travel I love is co-navigation, traveling with necessary. To say that the only cure we need is each other. Can another, especially a fellow DeafBlind person. I agree with Sir- you feel the world shaking as it starts to, finally, come together? vage’s suggestion that we need community-based approaches.

This would go against the whole thrust of the rehabilitation system, which is a monument to distantism. It’s built on one-on-one About the Author instruction, which effectively isolates us and tells us that we are John Lee Clark is an experienced Braille and Protactile instructor broken and need to be fixed. who operates a busy private practice in the Twin Cities area. He Final Irony is second-generation DeafBlind and the author or editor of five books, the most recent of which is a collection of essays called Before I bring up one more thing about distantism, let’s read that Where I Stand (Handtype Press, 2014). In 2015, the D.C.-based quote again: social justice organization Split This Rock named him finalist for “The loss of both sight and hearing constitutes one of the sever- the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry and Activism in recognition est disabilities known to human beings. Essentially, it deprives an of his poetry, translations of ASL poetry, and advocacy for people individual of the two primary senses through which we acquire with disabilities. His writings have appeared in diverse publicaawareness of and information about the world around us, and it tions, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ecotone, drastically limits effective communication and freedom of move- McSweeney’s, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Poetry, Rattle, and ment, which are necessary for full and active participation in so- Sign Language Studies. He is also a research consultant for a National Science Foundation grant studying Protactile phonology, ciety.”

Drs. Terra Edwards and Diane Brentari principal investigators.

The final irony is that a DeafBlind man, the late Robert J. Smithdas, wrote these words. Many hearing and sighted people have He lives in Hopkins, Minnesota, with author and artist Adrean expressed the same sentiments, but distantism is so pervasive that Clark and their three sons. You can find some of his essays at we all have internalized it. Helen Keller thought of us as being www.johnleeclark.com, follow him on Twitter @johnleeclark, or imprisoned in the “double dungeon of darkness and silence” and email him at jlc (at) johnleeclark (dot) com. described us as “the loneliest people on Earth.” She was being fanciful, but what is true is that the marginalization we experience is too often literal, involving physical margins. *This article was originally published on John Lee Clark’s blog: johnleeclark.tumblr.com* That we find distantism even in ourselves is good news, for it proves that it is a serious, society-wide sickness. When our sisters, the magnificent Jelica Nuccio and aj granda, launched the

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Whats Next? Ethics Dialogue Letter to the Editor by Jennifer Libiran, NIC Signed by David Stuckless, NIC YOUTUBE LINK: https://youtu.be/ZdKo9OtaziE

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thical standards and conduct are the cornerstone of any field of integrity. As the interpreting profession strives to evolve, we must endeavor to expand our membership’s understanding of and skills in ethical reasoning. According to RID’s website, content in VIEWS is intended to provide “interpreters with the educational tools they need to excel at their profession.” Ethical-decision making is neither simple nor black-and-white. If the goal of VIEWS is to circulate material that will equip interpreters with the most appropriate skills to navigate the field, that material should both reflect the complexity of our work and promote a level of analysis that reflects a responsible approach to decision-making.

Among the many scholars in the field of interpreting, Robyn Dean and Robert K. Pollard have numerous publications on ethics and decision-making. In their article, “Context-based Ethical Reasoning in Interpreting: A Demand-Schema Perspective,” the authors state, “ethical interpreting practice must be predicated on an ongoing analysis of relevant contextual factors that arise in the interpreting situation.” Context is everything. The point is that in any scenario, there are a variety of options that could be defended as ethical, but we can only explore those options by asking questions that reveal the nuances of the interpreting scenario and acknowledging that the answers to those questions should guide our decisions. Due to our profession’s history of interpreters allowing their personal values to direct their behavior (i.e. acting as morality police), yes, we must be cautious about what

we promote as ethical action in publications like VIEWS. However, presenting a scenario stripped of its relevant contextual information is in itself dangerous, too. It suggests to readers that little analysis is needed in making responsible decisions, and that the ethical decision should be a universal one amongst practitioners.

If the content in VIEWS truly seeks to educate our membership, we do not need to provide readers with answers.

An alternative could be to model how to engage in an ethical-reasoning approach. Provide a scenario, and follow with a discussion that asks the relevant questions and considers the positive and negative consequences associated with a few available decisions. Leave the “answers” out of the publication—let our membership grapple with the final decision at an individual level. Knowing how to ask the right questions and think through a scenario is far more beneficial to practitioners as they navigate the complexities of this work.

Sincerely, Jennifer Libiran

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References RID VIEWS Magazine. (2019, September 10). Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://rid.org/membership/benefits/publications-overview/views/.

Robyn K. Dean & Robert Q Pollard Jr. (2011) Context-based Ethical Reasoning in Interpreting, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 5:1, 155-182, DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2011.10798816

If you’d like to become involved in creating a new column for VIEWS about ethical scenarios, please submit here or contact views@rid.org. We need your perspectives!

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YOUTUBE LINK: https://youtu.be/venyXARDwlk

Newsli Swap:

o P W Er down

By Akbar Siker, MA, RSLI, RSLT, AITI, A1 Signed by Paola Morales, NAD III

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ocio-ethnic homogeneity in the sign language interpreting profession risks it becoming institutionalised and limits its capacity to serve deaf people.

Akbar Sikder reports:

Those who work in the signed language interpreting (SLI) profession may have observed that interpreters are not very ethnically diverse. ASLI’s 2011 survey on fees and working conditions revealed that 9% of 297 respondents were not classified as White British. This is in spite of 1 in 5 deaf people (Oxford Policy Management 2016) and 13% of the total UK population (2011 Census – Office of National Statistics) coming from an ethnic minority.

The sign language interpreting profession is just slightly more White than the UK average (91% to 87%), but considerably more White than the deaf BSL population (91% to 80%) Moreover, of the 20% non-White British deaf people, 1 in 2 are of Asian origin (OPM 2016). No data exists on what proportion of the 9% non-White British interpreters are of Asian origin, but my own tentative guestimate would be around half.

This means around 4.5% of interpreters could be of Asian heritage, based on 1,416 registered and trainee interpreters (NRCPD 2019) and the ONS (2011) figure of 15,483 deaf people. People of Asian origin represent 7% of the total UK population – the largest ethnic minority. It is therefore unsurprising to see the deaf community mirroring this trend, although it is concerning that, in spite of this huge Asian population, there are so few Asian interpreters.

The data suggests that sign language interpreters do not reflect their deaf and hearing service users in terms of ethnic diversity. However, this is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg, since other minority groups, such as deaf-parented interpreters, are also underrepresented in the interpreting profession.

If interpreters are overwhelmingly representative of a single Majority culture socio-ethnic group, how can we begin to understand the imYet the lack of ethnic diversity in the sign language interpretpact of diversity on interpreting practice? ing profession is perhaps symptomatic of a much bigger problem. It could be argued that interpreters who have grown up Deaf people, SLIs and ethnic minority inside the deaf community are significantly underrepresented ASLI’s 2011 survey didn’t provide a further breakdown of in the profession too, since “most BSL/English interpreters ethnicity, so we don’t know how the 9% of non-White British are British nationals with English as a first language and are interpreters is further divided into specific ethnic groups, such adult learners of BSL” (Stone 2010). as Black and Asian. The 2011 survey appears to be the only one to consider ethnicity. Despite all the surveys conducted on Mapson’s 2014 survey on the demographics of sign language the SLI profession, there has still not been a single study on its interpreters (which also didn’t consider ethnicity) revealed that 13% of interpreters are deaf-parented, ie understood as ethnic diversity in the UK. coming from the deaf community. As a result, a pattern emergIt is worth noting that no reliable estimates of the deaf popula- es here between ethnic and social diversity, with only 9% of tion exist and the figures quoted here are drawn from the 2011 interpreters coming from an ethnic minority group and 13% census. These figures still provide an indicative sample, sug- from the deaf community. Although deaf-parented interpretgesting that the interpreting profession is just slightly more ers make up a slightly higher proportion of the interpreting White than the UK average (91% to 87%), but considerably population compared to ethnic minority interpreters, it is clear more White than the deaf BSL population (91% to 80%). that both groups account for an insignificant proportion of interpreters, suggesting that the SLI profession isn’t just overAround 1 in 5 BSL users live in London (OPM 2016), where whelmingly White, but is also overwhelmingly representative the average non-White British population is 40%, a much of the powerful majority culture, even though its deaf and hearhigher proportion compared to the UK average. As a result, ing service users are increasingly diverse. geography is an important factor in considering whether diversity in the SLI profession really is disproportionate to that of Why is diversity relevant? its service users. We know that over 80% of all people from ethnic minority groups live in urban areas (ONS 2011), so we Interpreters can be seen as gatekeepers to the powerful institucan assume a similar trend for the 20% of deaf people of non- tions of the majority culture, granting the minority community access to these institutions. This minority community could be White British ethnicity.

The SLI profession... is overwhelmingly representative of the powerful majority culture, even though its deaf and hearing service users are increasingly diverse www.rid.org

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an ethnic minority, such as the Asian community, or a social minority, such as the deaf community. Scollon (1981:4) defines “institutional gatekeeping” as “any situation in which an institutional member is empowered to make decisions affecting others.” The gatekeeping metaphor sums up the problem of institutional discrimination and its power in our society to affect people’s lives; interpreters often find themselves adopting powerful gatekeeping positions.

When gatekeepers look and talk like members of the institution, this affects how the minority group perceives and experiences the majority culture; minority groups may then view the interpreter as an ambassador for the powerful institution.

a statement of personal preference and leading to a communicative breakdown.

Similarly, a restricted worldview and lack of sensitivity to minority groups could restrict the profession’s understanding of its own role in managing gatekeeping relationships. Erickson & Schultz (1982), in a study on counselling relationships, found the extent of social similarity (and co-membership) influenced the degree to which the counsellor acted as “advocate” (representing the interests and helping) or “judge” (representing the institution’s interest to possible detriment).

The distinction between ‘advocate’ and ‘judge’ is rooted in co-membership and social similarity, which indicates that “a

Interpreters can be seen as gatekeepers to the powerful institutions of the majority culture, granting the minority community access to these institutions For example, Ahmad et al’s 1998 study on the experiences of deaf people from minority ethnic groups found that “for many [hearing] parents deaf culture was simply an extension of White culture” (ibid: 2) and that ethnic minority deaf people and their families felt marginalised in a number of ways, including because “SLIs were often not aware of certain cultural practices” (ibid: 3).

person’s upbringing greatly affects how they understand different situations and shape their expectations as they provide a service” (Angelelli 2010: 97). The lack of these experiences is concerning for a profession that exists to serve increasingly diverse service users.

These findings suggest that experiences using interpreting services have a hand in forming perceptions of self and other. Cronin (1995), who looks at translation into minority languages, argues that the way in which translators translate, ie the translation process itself, can reinforce how majority and minority groups perceive each other. This is because translators who belong to the majority culture and translate from their native dominant language into their second minority language might default to a translation strategy that produces a “foreignised” (Venuti 2008) target text, reflecting the full otherness of the dominant language and socio-ethnic group. This doesn’t just undermine the status of BSL as a minority language; it also reinforces the minority status of the deaf community, thereby impacting on perceptions of self and other.

A growing body of literature supports the idea that “it is important to recognise and value the expertise that [brokers] have and the ‘real life activities’ that they have engaged in from their experience of growing up in a minority community, which is comparable to the experiences in minority ethnic communities” (Napier in press: 22). Again, this touches upon the issue of cultural competence and suggests that an interpreting profession that is overwhelmingly representative of the majority culture is “left working to recognise and comprehend language oppression and the inherent privilege of non-deaf people” (Cokely 2012); although Cokely refers specifically to “non-deaf people,” we can understand this more generally to mean the majority culture.

If the SLI population is overwhelmingly homogeneous, this could restrict its worldview and so it risks becoming less sensitive to particular cultural differences. This has very tangible repercussions. For example, Gumperz’s (1982) study on job interviews found that Pakistani applicants did not recognise contextual cues for a narrative explanation, instead providing

The socio-ethnic homogeneity of the SLI profession limits its ability to challenge institutional perceptions of self and others 44

VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Cultural competence

Being born into a minority group ‘enables a different kind of decision-making about how best to facilitate the articulation of necessary information’ (Kent 2012:17). For example, Harris and Sherwood (1978) observed that interpreters who come from the minority language speaker’s community are “more conscious of culture switching than of language switching […], whereas much emphasis is put by professional translators on remaining absolutely faithful to the grammatical and syntactic structures of utterances during translated events.” Similarly, Davidson (2000) found selective and patterned (non-random) decision- making. He hypothesised that this could be an attempt to “insulate the physician, and thus the institution of the clinic, from patient challenges to its authority” (ibid: 391).

The distinction between “advocate” and “judge” is rooted in co-membership and social similarity These studies on gatekeeping situations across spoken language communities mirror experiences of deaf-parented interpreters (Napier, press). This suggests that culture-brokering experiences are fundamental to our understanding of how interpreting works. Research has only focused on differences either between spoken language communities or between deaf and hearing communities, never both. This has produced a binary perspective of the interpreter as a bilingual, bicultural conduit.

Roy (1993:7) was an early critic of this binary perspective, arguing that the “bilingual, bicultural label did not take us away from a basic conceptual notion of interpreting as relaying text.” In other words, the bilingual, bicultural model doesn’t really help in understanding cultural competence and decision-making. It seems more sensible to look at this through a multifaceted, multicultural lens, recognising the complexity of culture brokering not just between deaf and hearing cultures, but between White, Asian and Black cultures too. As a result, the notion of “diversity” offers a much broader framework for understanding the interpreter’s behaviours and decision-making, and can include all culture brokering experiences. This means both ethnic minority and deaf-parented experiences can be considered together, allowing interpreters to think about how diversity in general impacts on their practice.

Our profession’s socio-ethnic homogeneity limits its ability to challenge institutional perceptions of self and other, to consider its own sensitivity to the cultural practices of its service users and to move away from binary models of interpreting. It is perhaps only by adopting a multicultural, multifaceted perspective of interpreting and by encouraging more diversity within the profession that the impact of diversity can be fully explored.

Until then, a profession that is overwhelmingly representative of a single socio-ethnic group risks becoming institutionalised, where the norms of the powerful majority culture become the established and ruling norms, and therefore increasingly out of touch with the people it exists to serve.

References Ahmad, W, Darr, A, Jones, L & Nisar, G (1998). ‘Deaf people from minority ethnic groups: initiatives and services’ in JRF Findings, August 1998.

Angelelli, C (2010). ‘A Professional Ideology in the Making: Bilingual Youngsters Interpreting for the Communities and the Notion of (No) Choice’ in Translation and Interpreting Studies, 5(1) pp94-108. Association of Sign Language Interpreters (2011) Fees and Salaries Report 2011, ASLI. Cokely, D (2012). ‘Vanquished Native Voices: A sign language interpreting crisis?’, Street Leverage. Available at: www.streetleverage. com/2012/01/vanquished-native-voices-%E2%80%94-a-sign- language-interpreting-crisis/ Cronin, M (1995). ‘Altered states: translation and minority languages’, Meta, 8(1), pp85-103.

Davidson, B (2000). ‘The Interpreter as Institutional Gatekeeper: the sociolinguistic role of interpreters in Spanish-English medical discourse’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 4(3): pp379-405.

Erickson, F & Shultz, J (1982) The counselor as gatekeeper: Social interaction in interviews. New York: Academic Press.

Gumperz, J (1982). Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harris, B and Sherwood, B (1978). ‘Translating as an Innate Skill’, in Gerber and Sinaiko (eds) Language Interpretation and Communication, Plenum: Oxford and New York.

Mapson, R (2014). ‘Who are we?’, Newsli, Issue 87 (January 2014), pp13-15.

Napier, J (in press) ‘Not just child’s play: Exploring bilingualism and language brokering as a precursor to the development of expertise as a professional signed language interpreter’, to be published in Antonini, R (Ed.), Non-professional Interpreting and Translation: State of the Art and Future of an Emerging Field of Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Office for National Statistics (2011). 2011 Census, UK Data Service.

OPM (2016) Research into the Deaf audience in the UK: a review of evidence, London: OPM.

Roy, C. (1993) ‘A sociolinguistic analysis of the interpreter’s role in simultaneous talk in interpreted interaction’, Multilingua – Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 12(4), pp341-364 Scollon, R (1984). ‘Gatekeeping: access or retention’, Southwest EduAbout the Author cational Development Laboratory, Working Papers in Sociolinguistics AKBAR SIKDER is a hearing child of two deaf parents and a 96. grandchild of Bangladeshi immigrants. He has been interpret- Stone, Christopher (2010) ‘Access all areas – sign language interpreting since 2009, holding a BA (Hons) in French and Linguistics ing, is it that special?’, The Journal of Specialised Translation, Issue 14 and an MA in Translation and Interpreting from the University of (July 2010), pp41-54.

Manchester.

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Venuti, L (1995/2008) The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, London and New York: Routledge.

We're grateful to ASLI for sharing this piece with us. The original article was published July 2019 in Newsli issue 109: www.rid.org 45 https://asli.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/8-12-Diversity-Final2-3.pdf

Reflecti ons From an Old Hand COLUMN

I've been thinking about what would be worthwhile to write about in this column, relating my life experiences to you and making them enjoyable and possibly educational.

Phil Giambaresi

Former CSC, LCSW (Retired)

California

I was born in 1950 to parents who have been Deaf since their birth. I have a younger brother who is also a hearing child. The influence from my mother's deaf family and my interest in being the family interpreter led to a career of being a certified interpreter. I received a BA in Psychology. At the age of 34, I earned my Master's in Social Work, specializing in mental health of the Deaf. After living in NYC for over 30 years, I moved to California and am now retired.

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Some of my early experiences interpreting for my deaf parents are on my mind and I want to share a few stories. I recall being less than 10 years old and interpreting for my parents when they bought a new car. The dealer actually handed me the contract to sign! He must have thought my parents were illiterate. I handed the contract to my folks and told the man, "My parents can read and write!"

There was another time when I went with my dad to the auto mechanic. Dad was quite angry about the mechanic's past mistakes in servicing the car. Dad signed to me, "Tell son of a —— man he take advantage of deaf people and think he can get away with it." That was embarrassing to me, so I simply looked at the mechanic and said out loud: "My father is very upset with you." The mechanic did the job, and Dad turned to me and said, "Important to complain!" Thanks to Dad I learned (many different times) how to be diplomatic with people.

Dad tended to dislike hearing people due to his early life experiences of not being able to communicate with his hearing family in ASL, and he struggled with written English. One time when we went to the beach, my little brother and I were playing in the sand. Mom and Dad went into a fish and tackle shop to browse around. Mom then went outside to wait for Dad. After a while, Dad rushed up to her and said, "The bird! The bird! Look at the bird!" Mom looked up into the sky and was confused. Dad said, "No. The car there. The Thunderbird. I saw famous actor, Ray Milland, in store and gave him paper to write name. He is driving car!" Mom looked at the paper and saw Dad’s writing. It said: "May I have your autopsy." Below was Ray Milland's autographed signature. Mom was mortified, her English skills being akin to most hearing people. She explained to Dad his mistake.

Poor Dad's usual answer was, "So what?"

me interpreting, and the teacher seemed fascinated and understood a bit more about me and my personality. Deaf parents. Philip was different from other kids.

In sixth grade, the teacher was talking about cows and the word "udder" came up. I raised my hand (as usual) and asked what an "udder" was. The kids all laughed at me. This isn’t in my biography, but from age 2 to 13, I lived in Wisconsin where there are a lot of farmlands. The teacher turned red and laughed and asked if anyone could explain what an "udder" was. Nicky raised his hand and sputtered about a cow's "bag" and then said loudly, "It's the tits of a cow!" Oh, for sixth graders, that was hysterical and I realized how ignorant I could be about many things, having grown up in the "Deaf World" without a lot of hearing influence!

Well, that's it for this column. Until next spring, I wish you all a good 2020, and hope it will be good for us all. ComSpeaking of my early years interpreting, I recall how my ments? My email address is pgiambaresi@aol.com. folks would ask my brother or me to make a phone call. Being the oldest, I interpreted every word from the person on the other end of the line, and was sure to voice what my folks signed. My poor brother tended to voice interpret a few words, listen for a period, and then hang up. He'd tell my Mom what the person said but she hadn't finished her part of the transaction. Brother tried his best, but often deferred the phone call interpreting to me, saying, "Let Phil do it!"

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As much as I loved my parents and being involved in their "Deaf World," there were rare times when I'd invite a school friend over to my house, and I could only think of how difficult it would be to introduce the friend to my parents. I didn't share with a lot of kids I knew that my parents were deaf. When I did introduce my mother, for instance, I'd tell my friend at the last minute when we would enter the house, "Oh, by the way, my parents are deaf and we use sign language." When they met my mom, the friend would see me signing and voicing and seem dumbfounded. We'd go and play, and my friend would ask many questions about my parents being deaf. "Can they drive? Can they read and write?

How did they become deaf?" I only wanted to play, and answered questions quickly to get it over with. I'm ashamed to say that sometimes I was very self-conscious about admitting my parents were deaf when I was a kid.

Mom always taught me not to be afraid to ask questions. The result was that I asked LOTS OF QUESTIONS in school.

My report card from the teacher said, "Philip is a Question Box." Once she met my mother for a parent meeting, with

FEBRUARY 23 – MARCH 1, 2020 Online in Canvas LMS Most activities are asynchronous.

Question and Answer Session with Campbell McDermid via Zoom February 26 7:30 pm EST, 6:30 pm CST, 5:30 pm MST and 4:30 pm PST (If you cannot attend, you can watch a recorded video of this session.)

Facilitation will be offered from February 23 – March 1, 2020.

Participants will have until March 9th at 8 am CST to complete the requirements for CEUs. Cost $10 for CIT members $25 for others Funds go to “Pay It Forward” fund which will be used for scholarships for CIT conference. You have the option to make an additional donation.

What did you think of this article? Send your feedback to the authors/editors by clicking here!

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SELF-CARE

From Consciousness to Aligned Action COLUMN

The field of sign language interpreting is undergoing a time of change, in which more and more hearing interpreters are waking up to the audist system in which we operate.

Breana Cross-Caldwell, BS, CI and CT Portland, Oregon Breana Cross-Caldwell holds her CI/CT from RID, B.S. in Interpretation from Western Oregon University and is a Certified Life Coach. She has led thousands of interpreters in preventing burnout and finding the passion again in their lives through developing habits of self-care. You can find her on Instagram @brighterfocus.

YOUTUBE LINK: https://youtu.be/fu9a_0DTR6s

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

The field of sign language interpreting is undergoing a time of change, in which more and more hearing interpreters are waking up to the audist system in which we operate. Deaf people have been telling us for many years, and now the message is hitting critical mass and we are beginning to see the water in which we swim. As Jonathan Webb, President of RID, so articulately states, “This system pays my bills and allows me to survive in a larger system of capitalism. This system also requires Deaf people to live beneath hearing people, exist as second-hand citizens, have their language appropriated and changed, have their values and beliefs dismissed, and a list of other atrocities that undoubtedly encourage assimilation” (Webb, 2019).

As we wake up to these atrocities, become conscious of the part we play and the power and privilege we possess, may we cultivate the space within for self-care. Not the self-care that indulges a sense of helplessness, but the self-care that ex-

pands and deepens our courage, compassion, and capacity • Emotionally, recognizing the feelings and emotions that to make space for Deaf people. arise within me, developing the capacity to be with these emotions, and honing the skills to process them.

Making space for others • Physically, identifying the ways I carry myself in the

world, the spaces I have access to, the treatment I reMaking space is a term I first learned from Jonathan Webb ceive, and also the ways that my thoughts and feelings in a workshop on unpacking power and privilege. He deimpact my body—manifesting as physical pain, tightscribed how the most helpful use of our privilege is in makness, headaches, digestive issues, or other health issues. ing and holding space for Deaf people and marginalized groups to step in, make decisions, and exert their own influence. In social justice terms, he encouraged interpreters to Listening deeply to others is the next part of our journey tofind and make opportunities to be accomplices in furthering ward making space. Webb gives some helpful suggestions the goals and work of the Deaf community (Webb, 2017). for starting this journey of listening by reading—anything from scholarly articles to personal narratives to Deaf vlogs

The field of sign language interpreting is undergoing a time of change, in which more and more hearing interpreters are waking up to the audist system in which we operate. Deaf people have been telling us for many years...

In order to do this work successfully, we must be engaged in on YouTube (Webb, 2017). Trudy Suggs’ Street Leverage presentation titled, Deaf Disempowerment and Today’s Inpractices that expand our consciousness. terpreter is a fantastic example (Suggs, 2012).

Make space for consciousness, so that we may make As you take in experiences and perspectives that are outside space for others your own, be aware of any fear or guilt that may arise by beConsciousness, as defined by Webb, is not merely a cog- ing told (directly or indirectly) that you have said or done nitive process that happens in the mind. He says, “Coura- something problematic. This can help hearing interpreters geously choosing consciousness means reconnecting my develop our tolerance for hearing fragility—to borrow on the mind (mental awareness) with my heart (emotional center) concept of white fragility from antiracist education (DiAnand my body (physical and physiological awareness). When gelo, 2018).

I attempt to reconnect myself in this way, I step into a fuller state of being and wholeness. I garner more information, in- From consciousness to action formation that isn’t always accessible via the eyes, hands, or Consider the following questions as a guide to support you ears.” (Webb, 2019). in moving through holistic consciousness to aligned action.

Making space for consciousness means awareness on sev- This is a never-ending process of self-discovery and greater self-awareness that leads to living in alignment with your eral levels: values.

• Mentally, noticing my own filters and biases. For myself, as a white, hearing, able-bodied, American interpreter, 1. What important roles do you play in your life? Pick the roles that are most important to you and define who this means exploring and accepting the ways that my you are. audist, racist, heteronormative, ableist, transphobic society has shaped me, and the ways I continue to enact 2. Why is each role important to you? Example: As a those beliefs.

Self-Care Coach, I feel such joy supporting interpreters www.rid.org

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Celebrate the “aha!” moments, celebrate uncovering your motivations and rooting out the colonization you discover. in taking better care of themselves. This lights me up inside! I feel aligned with my purpose and a sense of ease in my work, while also challenging my limiting beliefs and helping me stretch to better express my truest self.

thing you will commit to doing this week that will enhance your consciousness and help you be better able to make space for others? Example: I will sit quietly for at least 5 minutes every morning to get grounded, centered, aligned with my heart, and to process anything internal that needs my attention.

3. What emotions or sensations do you want to feel in each role? Example: As a mother, I want to feel peaceful Application and connected.

4. What supports, habits, and beliefs do you need to have in place in order to carry out each role to the best of your ability? Example: As a Self-Care Coach, I need consistent spiritual practice and alone time, and attention to my weekly schedule to keep my cup full and available for those I support.

5. What do you need to do, believe, or remember so that you can use your privilege in service of the liberation of the marginalized communities you work within? Example: As an interpreter, I need regular selfcare, consciousness practice, and time dedicated to processing my own emotions so that I can show up to my work operating from a full cup. This allows me to better respect and serve the needs of others as a communication facilitator, without my ego hindering the process.

I also need to see and know Deaf people as people—to understand Deaf culture, Deaf history, and the current concerns of the Deaf community, so that I, as a hearing person with hearing privilege, may be better equipped to act in ways that are truly supportive.

As you engage in this dance of self-discovery, listening, consciousness, and aligned action, remember to celebrate and share with others along the way. Celebrate the “aha!” moments, celebrate uncovering your motivations and rooting out the colonization you discover. Celebrate any effort that moves you closer to operating consciously and making space for others. As you share these intentions, realizations, and actions, you strengthen bonds, deepen trust, and inspire others to do the work of self-reflection that leads to aligned action.

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Resources DiAngelo, Robin. (2018, June 26). White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press.

Suggs, Trudy. (2012, December 11). Deaf Disempowerment and Today’s Interpreter. Street Leverage. https://streetleverage.com/live_presentations/deaf-disempowerment-and-todays-interpreter/

Webb, Jonathan & Arthur, Brandon. (2017, October 18). The Field of Sign Language Interpreting Needs an Accomplice, Not 6. What gets in the way of your ability to carry out the an Ally. Street Leverage. things you outlined above? Example: As an interpret- https://streetleverage.com/live_presentations/conscious-pracer, when stressed or triggered I operate from a con- tice-a-courageous-choice-for-sign-language-interpreters/

stricted and reactive place. I notice that I am more easily frustrated and offended by feedback, and I default to taking more control of the interpreted interaction rather than allowing the consumers to clarify with each other or maintain ownership of the flow of their conversation.

7. Taking into consideration all of the wisdom and inner-knowing you have outlined here, what is one

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

Webb, Jonathan. (2019, April 3). Conscious Practice: A Courageous Choice for Sign Language Interpreters. Street Leverage. https://streetleverage.com/live_presentations/conscious-practice-a-courageous-choice-for-sign-language-interpreters/

Spotlight

MEMBER

Ambrose Elijah Tabb, NIC Atlanta, GA Region II

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/oT7GomyjGD4

Tell us a little about yourself (Name, hearing status, where are you from, training experience) My name is Ambrose Elijah Tabb. Most people call me Eli, though. I grew up in Mississippi, but I've been living in Atlanta, GA for the past 9 years. I have my Associate's Degree and Bachelor's of Art in Sign Language Interpreting from Georgia State University (2017).

What inspired you to become an interpreter?

I have always been a very cheery person. When I was 16 years old, I worked as a skating carhop (server) for Sonic DriveIn. Every customer who pulled in I offered a bright smile and lighthearted small talk. But there were Deaf customers who came in at least once a week. They would pull in and flash their headlights. Equipped with an infectious smile, I would go out to take their order. They would silently hand the crumpled piece of paper out the car window. I would whip around and take the paper inside the store to ring up the order. After a few weeks of this, I made a decision. "Something has to be done. These people deserve to have good customer service like everyone else who comes to Sonic.''

That evening, I went home and searched "Sign Language tutorials" on YouTube. By the time I graduated high school, I was conversational. I moved to Atlanta immediately after graduation where I ran into a group of sassy deaf gay men who suggested I become an interpreter. Thus, I began my journey into the interpreting field.

What was your first official interpreting experience?

During my practicum semester, I had the opportunity to visit several different local places to practice interpreting under the supervision of my professor.

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Read the rest of Ambrose's Member Spotlight here: rid.org/february-2020-member-spotlight-ambrose-tadd/ www.rid.org

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In accordance with the Ethical Practices System (EPS) Policies, the following members were found to have violated the NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct (CPC): Member Region Tenets

Barry Elkins

II

Sanction(s)

1. 3 Month suspension of membership and certification.

2. Select a mentor with at least 10 years of post-certification experience and possessing an SC:L 2. Conduct for approval by the EPS. 3. Professionalism 3. Read “Sign Language Interpreters in Court: Understanding Best Practices” by Carla Mathers.

4. Read articles selected by the panel on Power and Privilege, to be discussed with the mentor.

4. Respect for 4. Submit a reflection paper that thoroughly summarizes the situation that gave rise to this Consumers grievance, what could have been done differently, readings and the mentor experience. Reflection paper will be approved by the mentor prior to sending it to EPS. A copy of the reflection paper will be sent to the complainant.

2. Professionalism 1. A 4-month suspension of certificate and membership.

2. Select a mentor approved by the EPS with at least 10 years of post-certification experience and 3. Conduct well versed in ethical decision making.

3. Read publication “Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide 4. Respect for Madeline Decisions in Work and Life” by Ronald A. Howard, Clinton D. Korver, Bill Birchard.

II Consumers Reckert 4. Submit a reflection paper that thoroughly summarizes the situation that gave rise to this grievance, what could have been done differently, readings and the mentor experience. Reflection 6. Business paper will be approved by the mentor prior to sending it to EPS. A copy of the reflection paper Practices will be sent to the complainant.

52 VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

National Interpreter Certification Certification awarded between 11/06/2019- 02/07/2020

Region I - Northeast

Region III - Midwest

Abby Kaufman Amanda Elise Dorsey Dawn E Foster Eliza Fowler Heather Hanson Rachel Heller Lena Jenny Abby Kaufman Eva Kubiak Timothy Smith Juli Anne Young Neerja Vasishta

Justin Sato Lauren Rigdon Elizabeth Garaux Rebecca Katherine Reicher Maxwell Gingerich Stauffer Kaylee Horn Justine Bryant Kathy Dyke

NY WV NJ NY MA MA MA NY NY NY ME NY

Region II - Southeast Danielle DiSessa Sarah Joy Kadar Wanda Krieger Nicolette A Velasquez Victoria Pope Nguyet Phan Robyn Michel Coleman Abby Hanna Stephanie Lynn Hubert Alyssa Terzo

MD MD MD DC FL VA MD DC NC GA

IL MN OH KY KY OH MI IN

Region V- Pacific Sonja R Van Hee Alanna Adria Alegria Sierra McIver

WA WA ID

PDIC Jennifer Buechner

WI

FY 2019 Certification Reinstatements and Revocations Below, please find a link to a page on our website that lists individuals whose certifications have been revoked due to non-compliance with the Certification Maintenance Pro-

gram. The Certification Maintenance Program requirements are as follows: • Maintain current RID membership by paying annual RID Certified Member dues • Meet the CEU requirements:

m CMP CEU Requirements: w 8.0 Total CEUs with at least 6.0 in PS CEUs w (up to 2.0 GS CEUs may be applied toward the requirement) w SC:L’s only–2.0 of the 6.0 PS CEUs must be in legal interpreting topics w SC:PA’s only–2.0 of the 6.0 PS CEUs must be in performing arts topics • Follow the RID Code of Professional Conduct If an individual appears on the list, it means that their consumers may no longer be protected by the Ethical Practices System, should an issue arise. This list is available on the RID website and can be accessed by the community at large. The published list is a “live” list, meaning that it will be updated as needed if a certification is reinstated or revoked.

To view the revocation list, please visit the link HERE. Should you lose certification due to failure to comply with CEU requirements or failure to pay membership dues, you may submit a reinstatement request. www.rid.org 53 The reinstatement form and policies are outlined HERE.

VIEWS

Vision: VIEWS, RID’s digital publication, is dedicated to the interpreting profession. As a part of RID’s strategic goals, we focus on providing interpreters with the educational tools they need to excel at their profession. VIEWS is about inspiring, or even instigating, thoughtful discussions among practitioners. With the establishment of the VIEWS Board of Editors, the featured content in this publication is peer-reviewed and standardized according to our bilingual review process. VIEWS is on the leading edge of bilingual publications for English and ASL. In this way, VIEWS helps to bridge the gap between interpreters and clients and facilitate equality of language. This publication represents a rich history of knowledge-sharing in an extremely diverse profession. As an organization, we value the experiences and expertise of interpreters from every cultural, linguistic, and educational background. VIEWS seeks to provide information to researchers and stakeholders about these specialty fields and groups in the interpreting profession. We aim to explore the interpreter’s role within this demanding social and political environment by promoting content with complex layers of experience and meaning.

While we publish updates on our website and social media platforms, unique information from the following areas can only be found in VIEWS: • • • • • • •

Both research- and peer-based articles/columns Interpreting skill-building and continuing education opportunities Local, national, and international interpreting news Reports on the Certification Program RID committee and Member Sections news New publications available from RID Press News and highlights from RID Headquarters Submissions: VIEWS publishes articles on matters of interest and concern to the membership. Submissions that are essentially interpersonal exchanges, editorials or statements of opinion are not appropriate as articles and may remain unpublished, run as a letter to the editor or as a position paper. Submissions that are simply the description of programs and services in the community with no discussion may also be redirected to a more archival platform on the website. Articles should be 1,800 words or fewer. Unsigned articles will not be published.

Please contact the editor of VIEWS if you require more space. RID reserves the right to limit the quantity and frequency of articles published in VIEWS written by a single author(s). Receipt by RID of a submission does not guarantee its publication. RID reserves the right to edit, excerpt or refuse to publish any submission. Publication of an advertisement does not constitute RID’s endorsement or approval of the advertiser, nor does RID guarantee the accuracy of information given in an advertisement.

Advertising specifications can be found at www.rid.org, or by contacting the editor. All editorial, advertising, submission and permission inquiries should be directed to (703) 838-0030, (703) 838-0454 fax, or publications@rid.org.

Copyright: VIEWS is published quarterly by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. Statements of fact or opinion are the responsibility of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the opinion of RID. The author(s), not RID, is responsible for the content of submissions published in VIEWS. Statement of Ownership: VIEWS (ISSN 0277-1088) is published quarterly by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. Periodical postage paid in Stone Mountain, GA and other mailing offices by The Sauers Group, Inc. Materials may not be reproduced or reprinted in whole or in part without written permission. Contact views@rid.org for permission inquiries and requests.

VIEWS electronic subscription is a membership benefit and is covered in the cost of RID membership dues. Single issues of print VIEWS are available to members or nonmembers for $9.00 VIEWS Board of Editors Dale H. Boam, CI, Attorney at Law Kelly Brakenhoff, NIC Royce Carpenter, MA, NIC Master Jami Macdonald, Associate Member Amy Parsons, Associate Member Julia Wardle, MA © 2020 the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. All rights reserved.

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VIEWS Volume 36 • Issue 3

MISSION The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf strives to advocate for best practices in interpreting, professional development for practitioners and for the highest standards in the provision of interpreting services for diverse users of languages that are signed or spoken.

VISION By honoring its past and innovating for the future, RID envisions a world where: • Its members recognize and support the linguistic rights of all Deaf people as human rights, equal to those of users of spoken languages; • Deaf people and their values are vital to and visible in every aspect of RID; • Interpreted interaction between individuals who use signed and spoken languages are as viable as direct communication; • The interpreting profession is formally recognized and is advanced by rigorous professional development, standards of conduct, and credentials.

DIVERSITY STATEMENT The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) understands the necessity of multicultural awareness and sensitivity. Therefore, as an organization, we are committed to diversity both within the organization and within the profession of sign language interpreting.

Our commitment to diversity reflects and stems from our understanding of present and future needs of both our organization and the profession. We recognize that in order to provide the best service as the national certifying body among signed and spoken language interpreters, we must draw from the widest variety of society with regards to diversity in order to provide support, equality of treatment, and respect among interpreters within the RID organization.

Therefore, RID defines diversity as differences which are appreciated, sought, and shaped in the form of the following categories: gender identity or expression, racial identity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, deaf or hard of hearing status, disability status, age, geographic locale (rural vs. urban), sign language interpreting experience, certification status and level, and language bases (e.g. those who are native to or have acquired ASL and English, those who utilize a signed system, among those using spoken or signed languages) within both the profession of sign language interpreting and the RID organization.

To that end, we strive for diversity in every area of RID and its Headquarters. We know that the differences that exist among people represent a 21st century population and provide for innumerable resources within the sign language interpreting field.

Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. 333 Commerce Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 838-0030 V • (571)-257-3957 VP • (703) 838-0454 Fax • www.rid.org www.rid.org

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GALLAUDET DEPARTMENT OF

INTERPRETATION AND TRANSLATION

The department offers three levels of education. ♦ Ph.D. in Interpretation program focuses on research and pedagogy of interpretation and translation. ♦ MA in Interpretation program prepares interpreters and researchers who will provide exemplary services and become leaders in the field.

We offer two concentrations: ♦ Combined Interpreter Practice and Research ♦ Interpreter Research ♦ BA in Interpretation focuses on interpretation.

Interested in graduate study? Contact interpretation@gallaudet.edu.

Interested in undergraduate study?

Contact bai.hug@gallaudet.edu.

gallaudet.edu/interpretation Gallaudet University 800 Florida Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002 www.gallaudet.edu

Department of Interpretation and Translation (202) 559-5627 (videophone) (202) 651-5493 (voice)

CONNECT WITH US @GallaudetU