Host Crystal Hand sits down with American Sign Language Interpreter Kate Chen to discuss her experiences from her front row seat to the deaf community. Touching on subjects like how to become an interpreter, differences in older and younger generations of Deaf Individuals with language, the very private moments she witnesses and how technology and covid has changed it all.
This podcast is produced and owned by Crystal Hand and not associated with any other company, business or government entity. "The Other Side of Deaf" podcast and associated websites and social media pages represent the opinions of the host and her guests on the show and do not represent or reflect the opinion of any organization the participants are employed or associated with. The content here is for information purposes only and should not be used for medical or legal purposes.
Host Crystal Hand sits down with American Sign Language Interpreter Kate Chen to discuss her experiences from her front row seat to the deaf community. Touching on subjects like how to become an interpreter, differences in older and younger generations of Deaf Individuals with language, the very private moments she witnesses and how technology and covid has changed it all.
This podcast is produced and owned by Crystal Hand and not associated with any other company, business or government entity. "The Other Side of Deaf" podcast and associated websites and social media pages represent the opinions of the host and her guests on the show and do not represent or reflect the opinion of any organization the participants are employed or associated with. The content here is for information purposes only and should not be used for medical or legal purposes.
Crystal: Hello, welcome back to the other side of deaf. This is Crystal Hand, your host. You are listening to episode four, so if you are just tuning in for the first time I encourage you to go back and listen to my previous episodes where we discuss things like deaf education, the hearing parent perspective, and of course the very first episode of the deaf perspective. As you may know in an effort to make sure we are getting a holistic view of the deaf community and all that surrounds them, my goal is to get perspectives from all sides of the table. Today we will be diving into the life and perceptions of a sign language interpreter.
Now over the years between my daughter and my work I have met many interpreters. All have been really great but there are a few that really stand out as being just outstanding, and today I have one of them with me - Kate Chen.
Kate is a freelance American sign language interpreter who interprets in various settings and has been in the field for over 10 years. She is certified in Pa (Pennsylvania) Educational interpreting, is NIC certified through the registry of interpreters for the deaf, and is also certified through the Administration Office of Pennsylvania Courts, which enables her to interpret in legal settings in Pennsylvania.
In addition to interpreting she serves as an ASL interpreter internship coordinator for students at Mount Aloysius College in Pennsylvania. And on a side note she is one of the coolest and most fun interpreters I've ever met.
So Kate, thank you so much for being here.
Kate: Thanks, it's a pleasure being here.
Crystal: So I'm going to dive right in and get started. We want to get to know you a little bit better.
Kate: Sure.
Crystal: So what made you get into this profession and how did you get started?
Kate: So I guess it sounds a little campy, but growing up I had this book on Helen Keller that I'm sure my mom purchased at some sort of like basement thrift store or like a yard sale or something. And I just remember being super fascinated with the story of someone who had an alternate way of communication. So in the back of this book was this A to Z in sign language and I was like, oh my gosh that is so cool. You know like when you're reading a book as a kid and you're reading about sign language, um you're like okay I don't really know what that looks like. And then when you turn to the back of the book it kind of made it clear for me like oh this is like a language that you would use with your hands that doesn't involve using your vocal cords at all. And as a kid that was amazing to me. And so from there I think I just had my curiosity peaked and I started taking sign language classes when I was like 11 or 12. And I graduated high school when I was 16 and then I started taking community college classes. And at my community college there were sign language classes. It was shocking because I arrived to class and I just assumed that my teacher would be speaking English and my teacher a hundred percent was deaf and just started signing. And it was a hundred percent immersion by the by the first class, which of course like knowing kind of sign language but not really knowing conversational sign language it was very challenging for me. But I learned very quickly then how to converse in sign because my main person that I was communicating with was deaf, so you kind of had to learn or you you know drowned. And then someone had suggested, you know interpreting might be a really cool thing for you. So I transferred to Mount Aloysius college and started taking interpreter classes and graduated and have been in the field ever since.
Crystal: So going into that, you have been in a lot of different settings.
Kate: Yes
Crystal: Do you have a favorite and a least favorite?
Kate: I think that I could say I probably have environments that cause me more anxiety over other environments. I think starting out everyone always says, oh I love medical interpreting and and I would be one of those I think that would say I really do love medical interpreting. I think the one that causes the most amount of anxiety for me would be the legal setting at the moment. I'm still kind of getting my feet wet and understanding like how legal proceedings are and all the different types of jargon that that would entail. So for me to be in a legal setting is not only anxiety-inducing because it's a very serious type of setting, but it's also it has a lot of ramifications if something were to be interpreted incorrectly. However, I have heard from other interpreters where they say that type of mentality is actually a bit backwards because the medical setting is one of the most serious ones that you could possibly interpret in. Because if you interpret something incorrectly someone could die. However if you were to interpret something incorrectly in court you know no one dies but you would be able to contact the court and say you know we need to do a retrial. We need to amend the record for the purity and integrity of the record based on this issue. It's a very heavy weight when you start thinking communication is so important that someone could misunderstand and take a medication wrong and it could be due to your interpreting something incorrectly.
Crystal: Yeah that is a lot to take on. So thinking about that, I've had a lot of people that assume that if you know a little bit of sign language that you can interpret for anybody. And I've had people approach me and they're like "Oh well we couldn't get an interpreter, can you do it? And I'm like no! Because I'm proficient enough that I can get by but at no time ever have I ever claimed that I have the skills of an interpreter. And I think there's a lot of confusion about that. I think a lot of people don't realize what you have to go through and the level of education and training you have to do in order to become an interpreter. So let's talk about that.
Kate: I think that the reason why people feel like interpreting is kind of the same as conversational is because when you start learning a language you think, oh okay like I I know english and I'm learning sign language and like I conversationally I can have a really solid conversation where I can understand what people are saying. And I can, you know, be in a similar scenario like that where I feel confident. But people don't tend to realize or understand that in order to interpret you have to have multiple processes going on in your brain at the same time. And we also go through lots of ethical scenario training and we in general just have a different mentality when we go into jobs as compared to a conversational type of situation. In regards to your question, yes there are many different certifications so in the United States there are obviously 50 different states in the union. Each of those states has specific laws in place of what their qualifications and requirements would be. In Pennsylvania in order to interpret in a k-12 setting we have a performance test called the educational interpreter performance assessment and that's through boys town university. It's a wonderful test. It in essence, it evaluates how you would be interpreting in a k-12 scenario and it gives so many pages of information to help you understand how you could improve your skill sets. They grade you based on up to number five. So you could have like 3.2 or 3.7. In Pennsylvania they require you to have a 3.5 or above in order to interpret a k-12 setting. And then if you were to interpret in the freelance field for medical assignments, or if you wanted to interpret broadway shows or things of that nature, you would have to be nationally certified through the registry of interpreters for the deaf. So it would be NIC certified through RID is what they would say. We do have laws here that enable people to post graduation interpret for up to three years which they call provisional registration and that is, I believe you have to have a certain amount of ceus like continuing education credits that you would do every year to prove that you're still continuing your learning. I personally don't feel like it's enough time for somebody to get even more fluent in the language because when you're in college you go through four years of learning about deaf culture and ethics and interpreting skills and the language itself and and linguistically how it's different and so there's a lot of learning that you're doing within those four years. And so whenever someone graduates and they have an internship really they're just like fledgling little pre-certified people that need a lot of support and they need a lot of exposure in order to become more fluent and so we have that three-year law that in essence allows them to work fully protected in Pennsylvania during those three-year time frame. And then specifically in Pennsylvania, which is not true for other states, but we do have a legal certification so we go through training. We pass a written test in order to prove competence in legal understanding and then we're put on a registry in Pennsylvania specifically that enables us to work in legal settings here. Right now we don't have a medical certification. I know that people are talking about it. I know that there is a medical certification for spoken language interpreters. And it's not very well understood that a spoken language interpreter is actually much different than what we do as a sign language interpreter. They receive different types of training. They do not go to college for four years. Typically from what I've heard a lot of language interpreters learn the language wherever they're living for four, five, six, months potentially their whole lives but in general they they don't have as much of the training that we have. They don't have as many of the certifications that we have and they're not considered to be an accessibility point through the ADA which is what American sign language interpreters are considered.
Crystal: So, somebody that speaks Vietnamese for example and is an interpreter in the United States, doesn't need a college degree or go through any certifications; they just have to have proficiency in that language.
Kate: Correct. Yeah at least in Pennsylvania to my knowledge. I know that there are people who hire, like hospitals and things, who say hey we really want you to have this type of medical certification if you are a spoken language interpreter. and I've researched some of those they're they're wonderful programs. The certifications have a certain amount of hours in ethical teaching as well as in language teaching and it ends up being like a 40-hour 50-hour training and then you're certified. As well as the fact that spoken language interpreters interpret uh what's called in consecutive, which means that they would listen to what their patient for example has to say and they listen to the entirety of like the sentence or the paragraph and they hold all that information in their head and then they interpret it by chunking the information. and saying you know Mr Gonzalez says a, b, and c. But for sign language interpreters, we interpret simultaneously. So, whenever our deaf client is signing, we give ourselves like a couple of words of lag time, is what they call it, and then we start interpreting immediately. Which is very very challenging on the brain.
Crystal: Yes absolutely! Because I know that with me, my daughter and I have a joke because she'll start signing to me right away and my brain has to go through a switch. I have to switch myself from English to sign language and it takes me a beat to do s. And so, I'll say to her: I'm like stop. I need I need to think about this and switch. I didn't understand what you just said, and she just looks at me like oh my gosh. And watching interpreters, it's amazing because you are understanding English and speaking a different language at the same time. So, it's it's a whole different process than just interpreting. And a lot of people also don't understand sign language has a different grammar. It has a different syntax as as far as that goes. So, when you're interpreting, you're not doing it word for word. You're also changing the grammar as well so that's a lot going on in your brain.
Kate: Yeah, and even just English has so many words that mean things but like for example, if you were to say well, I'm gonna run for president, you know the sign for run indicates physically running. And so, this is where you talk a lot about an interpreter training programs, you talk a lot about how to be conceptually accurate in the information that you're hearing and how do you conceptually interpret it to sign. I am going to run for president to mean that you are running for office instead of physically running. So, there's a lot of that complexity as well.
Crystal: Yeah, something else that a lot of people don't understand is sign language is not universal. So, each country each language has their own sign language. So, we have American sign language here in the United States, but there is British sign language and everything else like that. So, do you happen to know, do they have different certifications and do they kind of go through similar processes or are other countries much more lax?
Kate: Yeah, it's actually interesting because there is a universal sign language that is used at worldwide conferences. I don't to my knowledge, I I don't think I've seen it very often but it's very interesting to see. It's very visually based. So like a lot of the signs you'd be able to roughly kind of understand based on like the panaming but it is a universal sign language that's used for those types of situations which i think is really neat. I don't know much about other countries with their requirements or the types of certifications or trainings that their interpreters have to go through. I do know that there are multitudes of sign languages all over the world and not only that but even in the United States there are pockets of sign language that have their own accents. And so being from South Carolina, being from California, being from New York, those types of places have different accents. And they also have different types of terminology based on you know where they live. But we do have you know one bonafide unifying ASL. It just has differences in vernacular the same as like slang or being more familiar with other types of towns nearby and things the same in English in that way.
Crystal: Moving on, let's talk about when deaf people request an interpreter. Okay so I can tell you from my experience, there's a lot of confusion about this even amongst deaf people. So, in the United States if a deaf person requests an interpreter for a medical or legal point of view they are required to provide one. It doesn't necessarily have to be a live interpreter. It can be through a virtual but they are required to do it and they are required to pay for it as well. So that's something a lot of people don't understand. So, when you go to a medical facility, let's say you're in the hospital and you request an interpreter, the hospital is required to have a certain amount of money that they have set aside for that specific thing, unless they can prove that it doesn't undo burden on their particular practice. This is all stuff I have learned over the last couple of years because we have had issues with Samantha asking for interpreters and them not wanting it. The problem that we run into a lot is that most medical facilities have not been trained on it. So even if you request an interpreter they don't always know how to get an interpreter. They don't know the process of requesting things from agencies or anybody else. But the other thing is is that I find that a lot of older deaf individuals, they tend to want to muddle through instead of asking for accommodations. Now there are some that are culturally deaf that are much more forthcoming about that stuff. But I know deaf adults who are just - I'll figure it out. And as somebody who works in the field I look at them and think why would you not ask for all these things? But it seems to be the older generation that tends to do that and I don't know whether you've seen that or not.
Kate: Yeah, it's it's interesting because being trained at an interpreter training program in a college I upon graduation I had kind of had the same thought like you know. I'm noting a lot of the older generation of deaf just kind of saying you know i don't really want an interpreter here. I like to meet with my doctor alone and that kind of baffled me in the beginning until I started to get to know one of my dear deaf friends. And I said to her "why don't you have an interpreter at your appointments? Like it would just go faster it would go smoother you wouldn't have to write things down?" And she said, "I really value my privacy. I really really want to just have a relationship with my doctor without having to be anxious about my interpreter not being there or a different interpreter being sent or maybe the interpreter doesn't understand. And and I would be able to communicate with my doctor just fine. I've known him for 30 years." And that really helped me understand and be a little more cognizant of just how private a lot of these scenarios are. I think being involved in people's lives is such a privilege. And I also think it's one of the things that people kind of get used to. For me, I note that it becomes like okay, I have a job at nine it's an ultrasound, I have a job at 12 and it's going to be a business meeting, and you're just very used to going through the humdrum of going to different places. And of course it's different every day but you you still become very used to being involved in extremely private situations that you really don't don't really realize until maybe somebody kind of points it out to you. These are our lives. And this is private and a lot of this information is serious and it's sensitive. And even if it's not medical, like if it's at a business meeting or a board meeting or training, people are very vulnerable in a lot of scenarios and I think that that's something we have to keep in mind as interpreters. Is we are often treading into very vulnerable lands like every day.
Crystal: Yeah I think that's something that I know that I struggle sometimes to think about. So with my daughter there's been a couple of times recently that she has legit just walked up to your interpreter and said I don't want you here. And it's mostly things that are high school - I want to sit with my friends and I don't want my interpreter listening. Because high school kids don't want to have an adult listening to their conversations so whenever her interpreter would come over they would all button up. They wouldn't talk and so she's like "I don't want you here because they stopped talking if you're here. And I was like I don't understand that. And she's like, " sometimes my friends are telling me private things. Sometimes I'm saying private things. And even though I love my interpreter and I'm used to them. I mean she has she's had the same interpreters for a long time and she loves all of them but there are certain things that she doesn't want her interpreter to know. It's odd for us as hearing people to think about that but you're right. There's a lot of very private things and I think about you know, how would i feel if I had somebody else in the room when I was going to a gynecology appointment. That would be awkward.
Kate: Yeah and it's a different dynamic based on where you're working. So I'm I'm happy to hear you say that she's had consistent interpreters through a lot of her education because I think that that's such a beautiful thing that the school can offer to have the consistency of one or two or a team of people to interpret her education. And sometimes other students aren't as fortunate as that. Gosh I've received so many requests of, you know, this student is in second grade and their interpreter is on maternity leave and we need a sub in there. And what they do is they do the best they can, you know, they puzzle piece together a schedule with multiple different interpreters. And as much as that's the best we can do that's very challenging for a second grader or a fifth grader or a ninth grader you know to have a different person every day and to have a different adult following you around. My gosh I would have hated in high school to have an adult following me around all the time jumping into situations so that i could have access. I think it would be a love-hate type of a thing and I note that a lot I think in in the deaf community, from what I've seen, there's a lot of love and reverence for what we do and there's also a lot of animosity. I think for what we do too because we are just involved and not everybody's personalities mesh well and you know everybody kind of has a different ethical sounding board even though we do our best to be trained. But yeah it's it's challenging.
Crystal: So let's talk about what you just touched on, which is deaf people often have interpreters that they prefer. I've had business meetings where deaf people have said I want this particular interpreter. And it was eye-opening to me that even with my daughter, she's had a few times with some of her extracurricular activities that they've hired interpreters from different agencies that have been outside of what she normally has and sometimes she's "like yeah they were pretty good" and then other times she comes to me and she's like "I did not like that interpreter. We did not mesh well. I didn't understand what they were saying" and so there's this kind of personality that has to mesh as well. Do interpreters feel the same way?
Kate: This is one of the things that people ask often in interpreter training programs. Is, you know, what happens if I become friends with my client? What does that look like? What are the ethical boundaries in that regard? Do I then no longer go to their appointments because I then have all their personal information or do I continue to go because I'm now a trusted confidant? And it's such a very fine line to walk. And then there's different theories where people say well you should do your best to be as involved in the deaf community as possible. Youu should go and volunteer and you should have deaf friends and you should go to deaf bowling and in order to you know remain in the culture. And then I also know that there's theories where people say I mean that's my work life. And I love to provide a service and I love to be that access bridge for people, but i choose very specifically to not be involved because creating very tight-knit friendships can also mean that you are creating less of a pool of people that you feel like you can interpret for ethically. I have gone to jobs where I talk with the client and I don't really feel like that we're a good fit but it's not really based on personality more so based on language need. There's a couple things that you need to look for as an interpreter. One thing I look for is whenever clients would parrot me. So for example I would walk in and they'd be in the waiting room and I would say hello. And they say hello. And then I say how are you? And they say how are you? And then I say where are you from and they ask where are you from? And to me that is then an indication that potentially we have someone from another country who doesn't know sign language as well. Somebody maybe who is on like an autism spectrum or somebody who has more types of complex communication needs. And so in that type of situation that's when i start calling the agency and saying uh we , need to have a certified deaf interpreter or a deaf interpreter with training come in to team with me to make sure that this person is fully comprehending the information. Because I can be in a job and I can interpret and it looks like I'm providing access, however if I'm not checking in with my client and being like is this clear, are you understanding, do you have questions for the doctor? If i'm not checking in with my client to make sure that comprehension is happening, then I'm only doing half my job. I don't think I've had jobs really where it's the personality thing. I think that happens more in k-12 because you're with that student from 8am until 4pm and if you don't jive together then it's it's very obvious.
Crystal: Kind of transitioning, interpreters are often people that are kind of seen in the background. You're kind of faceless. We had talked before about how you say that when you're in that job you're not a person in the room. You're just a conduit of language but having that position you are really witness to a lot of things. We touched before you're in private situations things like that. So first of all, how are interpreters perceived when you're in a job? Do people welcome you or are they kind of like who is this person and why are they in my room?
Kate: I find it funny that you say that they're faceless because I think that's half true. But I also feel like we are on display a thousand percent. We are there. We have lights on us. We're moving around we're very expressive because sign language has facial grammatical information. So you have to use your face to indicate different types of grammar in sign language and so I find it to be kind of half true to say that we're we're faceless. Because we do go into situations where oh that's just the interpreter. And then they give you an agenda and then you sit there in the front of the room. But then I also do experience frequently people are very unused to having someone in the room that they don't interact with. So people will say oh we're going to introduce everyone in the room would you like to introduce yourself with a b and c. And it's like, I would be happy to introduce myself as Kate the interpreter. I would not be happy to talk about my personal life because that's not what I',m here for. But it also depends on the situation. There's a very specific type of job called a designated interpreter for deaf professionals where they have their interpreter that comes in every day and it's the same person and so that person has knowledge of the job itself has knowledge of the terminology and the software that's being used and things of that nature. And so when that happens it's human nature people get to know you you get to know other people. It's very challenging to walk a line of how do I be personable but not be involved as a person if that makes any sense. And i know there's different schools of thought too. There is more of like a robot thought where people say oh well the interpreter isn't even a person when they're on the job. They're just this language conduit. And then there's another one where it's another type of theory where people say you know my interpreter is human and I want her to feel human. There's both schools of thought for different types of people and that's another reason why interpreting is such a challenge I think is because each person that you interpret for has a different understanding or a different expectation of what their interpreter should be.
Crystal: So do you find with deaf people, is there a specific group that tend to be more specific about their interpreters?
Kate: That's a great question. I tend to note that the older deaf community is way more community based than what iIm seeing in the younger generations of deaf community. And I feel like a lot of that potentially might be because of mainstreaming that happened where kids could go to public school. And so I think that it created less community in that way because students were isolated for a lot of the time or they just didn't have as wide of a pool of people to talk with in their own language. And so whenever I do see individuals of the older generation, I note that they do tend to be more possessive of well this is my interpreter. I've noted in the younger generations that they tend to be more hands off. A little more like I don't care who comes so long as I have somebody. Or I mean I'm fine with using an ipad with an interpreter. I'm used to that. So I see a lot more of that not really being specific in appointments in the younger generation.
Crystal: That kind of goes into my next question. Technology has changed a lot. Both in hearing technology. hearing aids cochlear implants, which has changed the landscape of language in the deaf community. But also the invention of having video conferencing. So a lot of doctors appointments that we go to, they don't have live interpreters. They have the language line screens. So how has that changed your job over the years? And of course then we have Covid, which has escalated that. So what does that whole landscape look like now?
Kate: As far as technology goes- like how has it impacted the landscape. I think a lot more people are getting cochlear implants and I think it's impacting a lot of how families are viewing education. It's impacting a lot of how families are viewing family communication. I think that really cochlear implants are such a personal choice and as an interpreter I don't really have an opinion one way or another uh mainly because it's not really my business to have an opinion you know. If I were to go to an appointment and I see someone has a cochlear, the things I wonder as an interpreter are, are they going to want me to voice for them or will they voice for themselves? And that's a question I ask the client up front so just having that open communication with that individual. As well as I often will think too pending on how old they are, this person might have been mainstreamed which means that their sign language is going to look different as compared to the older generation of signers. Which might mean that I'm seeing more english-styled signs. It might mean that I'm seeing more signs that were created specifically for that student. I do think technology has impacted things a lot. And I think that prior to Covid happening, there was definitely an interest in having interpreters online and having call centers and things like that. But now I feel like almost every agency has what they would call a virtual remote interpreting, like vri interpreting from home. I think that that landscape has exploded since covid happened. And it's definitely impacted me. I mean i lived uh in in more of like a city center and then I moved very remote. And even though I moved to somewhere remote I'm still able to work on the computer and prior to covid that wasn't necessarily an option to work from home. I would have had to live near like a call center. But it changes a lot of things. For example, when I would be in person at a medical assignment, I would be able to kind of grasp my clients language and their understanding of me their comprehension of my language by interacting with them in the waiting room. But when everything went virtual I don't have that anymore and it's actually really been challenging for me as a professional because I don't get to have the same types of experiences where I'm interacting with my client in the same way. Instead it's at two o'clock there is a meeting and the doctor will be in at 2 15 and it's very one-way communication I'm noting. The nurse asks questions, the patient says yes or no and then we wait for the doctor and then the doctor comes in. And so there isn't really a lot of the community feeling involved and that's something that I really mourn for us as interpreters for deaf people in general. Because I feel like it created such a strong bond of the working relationship for both of us and now it's more like I am a sterile person on a screen. And it also changes how I interpret sign language in general. Because sign language is a 3D language. We use space to indicate time. If something is further ahead of me that's in the future. If it's behind me it's the past. And so doing that on a virtual screen, it's 2D. I have to shift my body differently on a video to shoot to indicate and show time or to indicate and show anything in space. Things look so flat and that's I think something that people don't realize when they're like oh that's great you can work on the computer and I'm like i hate it in a lot of ways. Because I have to change how my signs appear and my signing space can be much smaller. I don't feel like I have as much capability to move around in person because my space is more confined to my desk. It is challenging. But in a way it's also wonderful because you can be home, you can be at your own house for lunch, and you can stack your schedule without having to think about travel time.
Crystal: On the positive side it also provides accessibility in places that it would be very difficult.
Kate: Yeah it's interesting, as wonderful as technology is and I think people in general agree right now in the world, technology is unifying but it's also very isolating simultaneously and that type of duality is really complex. And how do we manage that duality as time goes on.
Crystal: Yeah that's a really good point. I wholeheartedly agree. Even in the hearing community technology unifies us but it also gives us a lot of loneliness and fake feeling of having community when we really don't have a community. Online forums do not provide that personal, organic conversation. You are having a topic that you're talking about but there's not that looking people eye to eye, getting to know their vibe or their energy, understanding where they're coming from and that compassion or empathy for each other. And that's something that technology I think is really just taken out. It's a great tool for getting information but not humanity if that makes sense.
Kate: Yeah it definitely feels colder. It's definitely a different world that we're going into right now.
Crystal: So the next thing I wanted to ask is, you're obviously team asl because that's what your profession, but when you work in environments where there are deaf community members that have different modes of communication, do you find in those environments that there's a particular type of deaf person that struggles more than others to communicate with hearing people or do they all kind of find their own way and their own vibe?
Kate: I think it's an interesting question. I note that my clients who speak for themselves or who have the capability of speaking for themselves, that they walk the line of both worlds much more and I feel like they end up feeling much more isolated. Because when you speak people assume that you can hear. And when you speak people assume that you can comprehend what they are saying because you can hear and so there's that disconnect for a lot of my hard of hearing clients or even my quote unquote deaf clients who have gone through oral training who grew up being able to speak. I think there's a lot of complexity for them because they are partially relying on interpreters, they want to use their voice to speak, but if they use their voice to speak people don't believe that they need interpreter services. And so then there's animosity against that individual because they need interpreter services and it's so many different complex feeling I think that I've heard people talk about. Deaf on Deaf individuals, it's challenging for them too. Staring at an interpreter all day is exhausting for someone.
Crystal: Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand with deaf people that when you're with sign language interpreters, or even if you can hear. - so like my son Luke he doesn't use interpreters, but he uses his hearing aids and assistive technology. He gets maybe like 60% of everything of what everybody's saying and then he fills in the blanks. And so, I tend to describe it to other people like it's like him putting a puzzle together all the time. He's given you know 60% of the puzzle and then he's got to figure out what the picture is based on the puzzle pieces that he's received. And there's no particular order to them and so then he has to mentally do that all day. Samantha has to focus on an interpreter all day. She doesn't have the luxury of being tired and saying I'm just going to put my head down and listen today. I'm not going to engage. There's none of that. There is I have to be 100% paying attention all the time and it is very exhausting.
Kate: Just really quickly I wanted to mention something that i learned recently that I thought was cool. There's a new style of interpreting and in order to talk about it I would probably have to mention what interpreters do now in the interpretative process. But when we interpret , you will usually see interpreters standing or sitting in the front of a room and then we switch off every 15 to 20 minutes and that's mainly because the the process in the brain to continually do 50 things at once, listening to the source message interpreting it into sign language, while continuing to listen to it in English, it's an exhausting process to do that. But what I've recently learned is something that I think is being coined tandem interpreting, which is interesting. So when you have two interpreters they would sit next to each other and one interpreter would sign for like a sentence or two and then would touch the leg of the other interpreter and they would then sign another sentence and it goes back and forth and back and forth and it tends to look more natural and it also cuts down on a lot of the visual exhaustion that a lot of our clients are experiencing having to watch one person for 20 minutes. And so that's that's been interesting. I had the chance to to try it a couple years ago with a team. It's interesting because it keeps you focused as an interpreter for much longer as well. I'm not working for 15 minutes and then quote-unquote on the off seat for 15 minutes.
Crystal: Right. So we've been talking for a long time so let's wrap this up with one last question. You've been doing this for 10 years, so what expectations or perceptions did you have when you maybe graduated and started that now are maybe different? And what would you tell new interpreters coming out of school what to expect or advice?
Kate: So in college I distinctly remember it kind of being beaten into us about english signs and signs relating to anything having to do with this is english grammar, this is more of an english size like sign. I remember in college it really being very strongly taught - we don't sign those. And not only do we not sign them we don't teach them because those are not signs that you need to know. And it ended up being a big problem for me post graduation because I got into the quote unquote real world where people who were in mainstream schools who graduated now living as adults. They used signs that had english swayings to them or they used signs that were english. And so not learning those signs was did me a huge disservice. Because it didn't really communicate to me the varieties of sign that there is no wrong sign for something. There's just a different sign or a varied sign for something. I wish that I had been taught more about the flexibility of language. But I also think in their defense, it's difficult to teach the flexibility of language while also teaching that this is what ASL is. So that was one thing. I think too, it was never really spoken but I always had the impression in college prior to graduation that educational interpreters were not to be emulated or their job position was not to be respected or they just weren't as skilled. Which is the completely wrong indication that I had had in college. And having subbed in a k through 12 for a couple of years, dear god those people are champions. I would never be able to be a full-time educational interpreter. It takes dedication. It takes skill set. You have to prep a lot differently for the types of information that you are interpreting. You are interpreting a different class every 50 minutes and you don't really have a break besides going from class to class. A lot of educational interpreters are pretty isolated in their own school districts and they don't really have a lot of support. And so I I think that was a different expectation as well that I had uh incorrectly kind of been led to believe. And I mean as soon as I graduated and met more people and actually did the work in education it couldn't be further from the truth. It's not the right fit for me but that doesn't mean it's not the right fit for someone. And I think that having that information also would have been awesome because it would have given me more of a holistic view of the different types of interpreting that I could go into. I chose to go into freelancing because I love working with adults and adult language. Working with children and their emerging language is a lot more difficult and it's definitely a responsibility that should be shared with not only interpreters but also deaf role models. So yeah, I think those two things were the biggest expectations that whoa this is different. This is amazing. To students now- to anyone who wants to be involved in the interpreter community now, I think it's a wonderful career to be in. I think getting to know other interpreters has been such a saving grace for me because I'm able to call them and say this happened to me has this ever happened to you? Or even having more of a collaboration with them. So I think having a community of interpreters that you ingratiate yourself to is also really important to feeling successful in this career
Crystal: Okay great. Well thank you so much for being here and thank you everyone for listening. I hope you learned something new today. Don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel and if you really like my podcast check out my facebook and instagram pages and of course share with your friends about this podcast or leave a review. Stay tuned for future episodes coming out in the next few weeks but until next time I'm signing off.