22 minute read
Honoring Diversity
https://youtu.be/99l53zC3JxM
Honoring Diversity: Jeffrey Bowden
COLUMN
Jeffrey Bowden, NIC written by Billy Sanders, MPA, NIC
Veteran extraordinaire, Jeffrey Bowden, affectionately known as “Jeff,” is walking Black history. Iconic. Charismatic. Reverent. The teenager who ran up and down the corridors of the historic Gallaudet University, who, by way of his father, learned how to sign, code-switch, and swag all in the same adventure.
To unpack Jeff’s experience is a gift that will keep on giving to the experienced and inexperienced interpreter alike. Retelling the life journey of this NERDA1 is much like a box of chocolates, because doing so reveals the odyssey and evolution of the Black interpreting community.
The rural fields of North Carolina is where Jeff grew up and developed his hard work ethic. The valuable ideal of community he learned back then left an indelible print in the fabric of his life. Moving from the country to the hip streets of Washington, DC, forced him to apply survival techniques and nuanced facial expressions (before he understood the meaning and platitudes of code-switching) to effectively evade the unforeseen consequences of inner city life. In order to form organic friendships, Jeff used humor—an integral facet to his charm—to defuse apparent conflict between himself and peers.
“...Because the revolution will not be televised” - Gil Scott Heron
Picture Credit: Billy Butler, NVested Photography
Jeff began to hone his interpreting skills by serving in the Silent Mission, the nation’s oldest Deaf ministry, at Shiloh Baptist Church. The Silent Mission provided the initial relationships and connections to meet the likes of many great Black Deaf leaders and pioneering Black interpreters. Honorably, the Black interpreters who came before, and ultimately mentored Jeff, were the late Zoe Page, Dr. Shirley Childress Johnson, Deborah Lyles, and Richard White. After failing his first professional assignment miserably, Jeff’s predecessors gave him anothquently, many Black DC residents worked on campus, and Jeff’s family was no different. Jeff’s father embarked on a career at Gallaudet that advanced from custodian to foreman, and ultimately mechanic. The fringe benefit of his father’s work provided Jeff the opportunity to earn a job as a custodian on the same campus, before he transitioned to becoming an interpreter. Eventually, Jeff became a part of the first cluster of Black staff interpreters at Gallaudet University in the early 1990’s.
Before TikTok videos, Instagram, YouTube,
er chance, and in that second chance the proverbial lightbulb came on. At the very place Jeff cleaned for a living, he realized his fit in a profession awaiting him.
What many people around the world may not know is that Gallaudet University sits in the middle of a historic Black community, affectionately known as Trinidad. Conse-
Picture Credit: Billy Butler, NVested Photography and even video relay, it was Jeff’s charisma that brought color to the marvel of sign language interpretation. Effortlessly, his charm became the kind of wonder that reverberated throughout the community to the extent that he became a staple at the Kennedy Center. Unfortunately, the highs came with disheartening lows. To be a part of the few Wakandan-hued interpreters in Washington,
DC, meant one had to endure the blatant racism and systemic strongholds that made inclusion and diversity a mythical ideology. Jeff found his breaking point, and broke it!
When there were less than a handful of Black male interpreters in the nation’s capital, Jeff became a part of four fearless interpreters, which included the visionary John Lewis, the legendary Wanda Newman, and the incomparable Barbara Hunt. The “Fearless Four” went on to set the groundwork and cement what is now the District of Columbia chapter of the National Alliance of Black Inter-
preters, fondly known as NAOBI-DC. Jeff recruited and served as a beacon for Black men, who (like myself) held on to a shimmering ray of hope of wanting to become “like Jeff.” The Black interpreting community is so diverse yet incredibly small that any one individual can give a unique account describing how Jeff has coached, inspired, and guided them. Jeff’s presence is felt when he walks in the room, and is missed when he leaves.
Unbeknownst to many is that Jeff is also an ordained minister, and has led several interpreting ministries. Ultimately, the culmination of his commitment toward service and
Picture Credit: Billy Butler, NVested Photography There is no achievement without challenge. There is no celebration without achievement. There is no reward without both
empowerment, led to him establishing United Deaf Ministries (UDM) in 2001, because as he aptly puts it: “Someone bet I wouldn’t, and I bet I could.” UDM has truly become an international juggernaut with a presence in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Philippines—to name a few. Scores of Deaf and interpreting community members clamor to attend UDM’s annual awards banquet, which recognizes outstanding trailblazers, humanitarians, and champions of distinction.
Spiritually led by the conviction that “one is always becoming until one is not” Jeff, an accomplished playwright, envisioned a play featuring the same constellation of stars he came from. The phenomenal and highly acclaimed “Z: A Christmas Story” morphed from an inescapable dream to an annual play at Gallaudet University to a touring stage production. “Z,” included a stellar all-Black Deaf leading cast and production crew, and was
notably directed by the renowned Michelle Banks! Can I get a witness?!
Long before touring stage plays, Jeff gave an unofficial face to the ambassadorship to our unique profession as a staff interpreter with the State Department shortly after earning national certification in 1992. Like many seasoned professionals in our field, Jeff let his certification lapse in the mid 1990’s while enjoying a long career. The world looked mighty different post retirement from the State Department in 2015 when he quickly recognized that earning a National Interpreter Certification (NIC) was imperative to freely work as an independent contractor.
Although Jeff has worked many years to attain high degrees of mental and emotional acuity, it took sheer determination to persevere through his own trepidation to acclimate to the relevant demands of the present. Jeff
Picture Credit: Billy Butler, NVested Photography ascertained that the time is now to swing the pendulum in the direction of second chances, because this revolution will be publicized.
In 2016, Jeff took the NIC: Written. He failed. He took it again, and passed. Then he took the NIC Performance and Interview. He failed. He took it again (and again) before passing in 2020. Jeff has proven that any veteran interpreter can take the necessary steps to earn a NIC and join the league of accountability. The tumultuous hard-knock journey, and lived experiences of Jeff and other courageous interpreters set the bar of what creating safe spaces truly looked like. Unsung heroes and sheroes forced the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) to take a bold introspective look at herself, and retool her efforts to correct the glaringly obvious systemic glass ceiling2 within our profession.
Jeff continues to fight the “good fight” and open doors for the newer generation of Black interpreters who subsequently benefit from what RID offers today: the Interpreters and Transliterators of Color Member Section along with Power Privilege and Oppression professional development requirements for all certified interpreters. In wise summation, he shares: “There is no achievement without a challenge. There is no celebration without achieve1 Popularized by savant interpreter David ment. There is no reward without both.” 5 2 “Spotty glass ceiling” is coined and expounded upon by Billy Sanders in the N. Evans, NERDA means Not Even Related article, “The Black Elephant,” located in this to a Deaf Adult. same VIEWS issue.
https://youtu.be/EOwJRNh5sdI
The Black Elephant
FEATURE
Billy Sanders, MPA, NIC
Iam passionately indebted to the underlying love for the pursuit of convincing young Black men and women that there is a safe space for them in this field of sign language interpretation. The love for the Deaf community I am from and serve, the love for the advocacy of social justice, political and economic equity, and the love for the dynamic expansion of our distinguished profession is what drives me to persevere beyond the inescapable presence of being the black elephant in the room. Legendary hip-hop artist KRS-One said it best: “Love’s gonna getcha.” If only my brothers and sisters with unbound potential can get through the mess to get to the message. My mess began in junior high school, whereas we intellectual outcasts always sat at “the nerd table.” There we had our own cool, our own inside jokes, and shared altruisms. The cool kids never understood our uniqueness past seeing us as an anomaly. To even sit at “the cool table” meant you were a part of the power construct: team captains, clique leaders, class presidents, student government leaders, most attractive, most popular, and so on.
Though we nerds represented the smallest percentage of the student population, we unceremoniously remained at the top of the honor roll. Intellectually astute enough to run the show, but socially and systematically shunned from “the cool table.” We believed we had the best ideas, strategies, and formulas to run the student government, but the powers that be would not allow for such a pivotal shift. An older nerd who saw my potential taught me that there is a place in the world for the likes of me if only I persevered. That was the message through the mess.
No longer a junior high school student, I am now at the nerd table of the “talented tenth”[1] of certified sign language interpreters. The vast majority of the field of sign language interpretation is dominated by the power construct of identifying white, female,
and LGBTQ interpreters. Within the system of the power construct — the cool table — are curriculum developers, interpreter training program directors, tenured faculty professors, agency owners, organizational leaders, and the like. Power constructs can have lasting effects on the perception from those who fall outside the status quo. As a CODA (Child of a Deaf Adult), my mom yearned for me to become a professional interpreter. I, along with my vast network of CODA friends, rebuked our parents’ ex-
pressed interests at every turn. In our minds, we could not separate the profession from the power construct before our very eyes. It took many years until I met a few prominent mahogany-hued interpreting professionals to show me the light. Fortunate to be given a shimmering ray of hope that I, too, could one day sit at “the cool table,” and open doors The power construct has been slow to recognize and effectively recruit numerous young, talented Black men and women who see no safe space for themselves in this field. The unfortunate consequence of not being able to see anyone who looks like you or comes from your cultural experience in a meaningful position of leadership destroys the hope of becoming the very thing your people need you to be.
Fortunately, the collective of Black interpreters does have effective tools to attract, recruit, and inspire scores of young Black men and women to become certified professionals. We even have the gift to unlock the lens of cultural bias and inherited prejudice from within our own disenfranchised commu-
nity. However, we cannot eradicate the visibly spotty glass ceiling that separates us from “the cool table,” which severely dampens the spirit of those who have the potential to be tomorrow’s leaders today.
The silver lining in my cloud of potential has been the love from Black interpreters who came before me; namely, but not limited to, the beloved diaspora of members from the National Alliance of Black Interpreters, Inc. [Note: please check out the Washington, DC, chapter’s website: naobidc.org]. Their commitment to my development superseded
my inherent misperception, fears, and cultural biases within and toward this fascinating profession of sign language interpretation. Conversely, that same love has showered me with the encouragement to persevere through this power construct. Furthermore, I am centered in the challenge to make space safe enough to convince my brothers and sisters that they, too, belong at “the cool table.”
The time has come for us to break up the power construct and control the narrative: that we become tomorrow’s leaders, today, because we need more. We need more than 2% of all certified interpreters to make up for the Black male populace, more Black interpreting program directors and tenure-track professors, more Black curriculum developers, and more agency owners and operators. If the aforementioned examples of marginality do not inspire you to push past the glass ceiling of opportunity, then “love’s gonna getcha.”
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[1] “Talented Tenth” is a term coined by the late great Dr. W.E.B. DuBois within an article of the same name, which distinguishes a leadership class from its cultural cohort. A theory that one in ten Black men and women would likely become the leaders [of their race] in the world through continuing education, social change, and authoring critical literary work (Booker T. Washington, et al., The Negro Problem: A series of articles by representative American Negroes of today, New York: James Pott and Company, 1903).
FEATURE
Colleen Jones, MA, NIC
People love “AHA!” moments. We love them so much we have a name for them (and perhaps, like me, you picture Oprah saying it?). As an interpreter I can describe in detail the moments that lightbulbs have turned on for me throughout my career— where I was, who I was with, what finally made all the disparate pieces click. Just as clearly, I remember the weeks and months after that moment, seeing patterns in my work that directly related to that nugget I had finally wrapped my brain around, feeling the connections become illuminated like pathway lights coming on at dusk.
The continuous improvement and evolution of our practice is one of the highest goals of interpreter professional development. While the requirement to earn CEUs on a designated schedule can make the process feel more like checking boxes, I believe that interpreters undertake continuing education with the intention of doing justice to the position we hold in our communities. The CEU requirement for interpreters aligns with continuing education requirements for teachers, engineers, and medical professionals—we are all accountable to something larger than ourselves, and our commitment to our work requires that we continue learning and growing.
We all know how exciting and motivating it feels to have a lightbulb moment. It can also be invigorating to feel challenged by a professional development opportunity—maybe I don’t walk away with a fully-formed new tool, but with new perspectives and ideas that I
is the founder of The Insightful Interpreter and is a nationally certified interpreter, researcher, presenter, and teacher. She holds undergraduate degrees from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and Seattle Central Community College, and a Masters degree from Western Oregon University. Colleen lives in Seattle, Washington, and is passionate about travel, gardening, and how we grow as interpreters. You can find more information at www.insightfulinterpreter.com.
For many of us, when we think about deep, inspiring learning, we picture some sort of in-person interaction. Much of my own best learning has been sparked by insightful and challenging dialogue, not just in workshops, but in meetings with mentors, hallway conversations, and evenings spent in conference
hotel rooms with a group of colleagues who have congregated to drink wine and share their thoughts from the day. I also love the ongoing application that takes place when we go back to work and continue these discussions with team interpreters and consumers. But for every learning opportunity I have leveraged by attending an in-person event, there are dozens I have missed out on. I’m sure you have had the same experience; workshops can conflict with birthday parties, anniversaries, and travel plans. Your favorite presenter might be coming to your state, but their presentation is still 4 hours away, requiring a hotel stay and gas money and restaurant bills, which all add up to “I can’t make it this time.” Also, I admit, there are workshops and webinars I sign up for and anticipate with excitement, but when the day arrives, I’m just not feeling it. Maybe I overcommitted myself that week or stayed up late and I’m exhausted, maybe I had a really challenging job I can’t get off my mind, or maybe I just can’t sit and take in information for that many hours in a row. Regardless of the reason, there are days when I just cannot do my best learning. The past year has necessitated rapid change,
and we have seen everything from preschool to concerts move online. As we navigate this shift, our industry has just scratched the surface of the exciting new possibilities for interpreter professional development. Webinars can be wonderful, but is watching a recording of a live event after the fact equally engaging? If interpreters are consuming information passively, will transformation and application actually take place?
If we embrace the challenge and create CEU opportunities that are specifically designed to take place virtually and asynchronously (on your own time), interpreters everywhere stand to benefit. The results can provide interpreters with professional development
options that offer deeper learning AND flexibility.
When I talk to colleagues about CEU opportunities that are intentionally designed for asynchronous, virtual learning, one of the benefits we focus on is convenience. On-demand workshops and courses allow you to participate whenever best fits your schedule. You don’t have to live within driving distance, and you don’t have to clear your schedule to sit through hours of content at a time. Courses that are broken down into smaller units not only make it easier to fit into your busy life, but also allow you to take time to consider the topic, digest the information, and apply it to your own experience. Have you ever been to an excellent workshop but felt like you were drinking from a firehose because the pace was overwhelming? The ability to pause, take breaks, and repeat content gives you a chance to absorb more of the information.
You might be wondering if asynchronous, virtual professional development can offer anything close to the learning experience of a traditional in-person workshop. In some ways, I think it can offer more. Self-paced learning and flexible activity choices allow participants to adjust the experience to be compatible with their best learning. Are you a morning person? Great! Work through a module with your morning coffee, then let the information percolate as you go about your day. Prefer to discuss content with colleagues? Me too! Activity options can include engagement with a Community of Practice. Do you need real-world experience to really anchor your learning? That makes total sense. Take a week between units to notice how the concepts you are learning about come up in your work. Excellent virtual professional development is not only accessible (and, with the right technology, easy), it can look different for every participant.
While online learning will never replace face-to-face connections, interpreters today need professional development options that fit their busy lives and offer meaningful, relevant information in easily accessible formats. CEU opportunities that are specifically designed for asynchronous online learning can offer not only this accessibility, but also value and flexibility. As we move into a new year and, in many ways, a new era, I am excited about the possibility of new options for earning CEUs and experiencing those AHA! moments. I hope you are too.
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https://youtu.be/NoG1o8T87ks Face to Face with Ethics: Views from Other Sides
COLUMN
Joe Sapienza, CI is a freelance interpreter and interpreter mentor, working in St. Louis,
Missouri, and the surrounding area. Joe has been interpreting professionally since 1986. He first began teaching sign language in area community schools; then later at an Interpreter Training Program. He has been an interpreter mentor since 1989, conducting individual and group classes and coordinates interpreting practice opportunities in the community.
VIEWS would like to welcome you to its newest column, which builds on the excellent work of Brenda Cartwright’s “Encounters With Reality.” As with “Encounters,” ethical scenarios and dilemmas submitted by readers will be introduced. Comments and considerations will then be given from several points of view (“sides”), such as from a Certified Deaf Interpreter, a Deaf person, a business person, an interpreter, etc. The is not to give a definitive answer on how to address each scenario, but is instead to provide “food for thought” and discussion points for our readers to ponder. As professional interpreters we continually strive to improve ourselves and our skill set with the goal to better serve our clients.
We’ve long since recognized that the “tools of our trade” entail not only working on a better command of American Sign Language but also of understanding Deaf Culture, honing English skills, gaining small business acumen, etc.
The need for an ethical base to guide interpreters so that their actions would be similar across the country led to creating our original Code of Ethics.
As interpreting grew as a profession, better and more detailed ethical guidance came to the field and the Code of Ethics evolved into the Code of Professional Conduct. We understood that the need to think about and discuss professional ethics was a benefit to interpreters, our clients, and the profession as a whole. I would imagine most of the
above paragraph is “old news” for many. For the moment, it serves as a segue into an observation on ethics.
Let me start with some personal background information. Several years ago a required number of Continuing Education Units specifically on the topic of Ethics was added to my home state of Missouri’s yearly licensing requirements.
Before and since that requirement addition, I’ve attended a good number of ethics workshops. Almost all of them were structured around the same basic format: An interpreting scenario is introduced that contains one or more ethical dilemmas, which is then discussed in small groups or the workshop body as a whole. We identified “What went wrong” and “What went right.” We debated how the scenario “should” have been handled, and so forth. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with this format, and from these workshops I’ve been given a lot on which to think.
In recent years, however, I began to feel something was missing. While it is well and good for interpreters to discuss interpreting issues, I finally realized that what I felt were the missing pieces.
They were the “views from other sides.” In other words, I wanted to know the thoughts and feedback from our Deaf and hearing clients. After all, they were also involved in those ethical scenarios! Recalling how I handled some of the many ethical dilemmas that have occurred in my own work over the years, I realized I often gave my clients the same basic answer of why I did or did not do a specific action. It was something that I learned and took away with me from my ITP days. This answer was to simply state some variation of the phrase, “because The Code of Ethics says so.”
No other explanation—just that! While an interpreter can understand the underlying truth to this ideology, it gives very little as far as a meaningful answer to our clients unless we think to provide additional information, or they ask for clarification and a more in-depth explanation to that simple phrase.
It took time, but generally speaking many of our Deaf clients have gathered that there is an interpreter Code of Ethics.
However, stemming from the first tenet—and possibly most important to Deaf folks—the Code of Ethics often boiled down to only one thing: Confidentiality.
When asked what the Code of Ethics meant to him, a Deaf friend of mine replied: “Interpreters can’t tell anyone about anything while working.” Agreeing with the truth of
his statement, I waited for him to continue. “There is more,” I thought, “…so much more!” However, that was the extent of his answer regarding the Code of Ethics, and I (sadly) left it at that. That was a number of years back. The Code of Ethics then evolved into the Code of Professional Conduct.
Based on how the Code of Ethics was distilled into a singular meaning, I wondered: What, then, do our clients know about the CPC? Asking this question to a number of Deaf folk led, instead, to me being the one that was questioned:
What are the CoE and the CPC? When did one change to the other? Why did it change? Who changed it? Were Deaf people involved? Wow! All great questions!
And these, I realized, are coming from only one side of our work dynamic—the Deaf view. What thoughts and questions did the hearing side have? I feel we need to consider all these views.
Should our clients know we have a Code of Professional Conduct? Should they be aware of any changes from the old Code to the new? Should they have a say in discussing answers to “what went right,” “what went wrong,” and “how should we handle various ethical dilemmas”?
I believe these “views from other sides” can
help us think in new ways and become more sensitive to other thoughts and considerations when deciding on how to resolve ethical dilemmas when they occur (or when they are discussed).
While these Deaf and hearing views may or may not ultimately gel with our Code of Professional Conduct, I believe it is of great benefit for us to be aware of and sensitive to them.
They can help us prepare, recognize, and respond to ethical situations.
Ultimately, I feel exploring views from ALL sides will help to educate us and our clients to better understand why we act as we do in our profession.
