First, I hope you all are doing well and finding plenty of opportunity to interpret.

Second, I want to share with you a book I recently read that is valuable in understanding hearing and deafness from a perspective different than the traditional interpreting perspective and completely valid.

I Can Hear You Whisper by Lydia Denworth is a mother’s journey in navigating the worlds surrounding deafness after her third son was born deaf.  Ms. Denworth’s day job is as a science writer and so she knows how to thoroughly research scientific aspects of a subject and presents them in a narrative easy for the public to understand.  What Ms. Denworth does in I Can Hear You Whisper  is almost magical.The book is a love story to her son, a prayer that he will have opportunities equal to his hearing older brothers, and a navigation through deafness historically, culturally and scientifically.  We, as interpreters, claim the moral high ground around deafness saying that we accept Deaf people as whole people while we assume audiologists, ENTs, and even hearing parents of Deaf don’t see our people as whole.  I urge you to keep an open mind while reading this book because you’ll see a mom who loves her son so completely that he becomes her life’s work for the better part of a decade.  You’ll see doctors impacted by hearing loss trying to do their best to bring communication back to people they love.  You’ll see the dynamics of Deaf culture through a different lens–the lens of a mother wondering if her son will abandon the family home for another culture and trying to decipher the new culture.

Ms. Denworth sits down with the inventors of Cochlear implants, neurologists who research hearing, staff and Gallaudet and RIT.  She talks about the Deaf woman she hired to teach her family sign language as well as how scary it was for her and her son when he lost what residual hearing he had.  Through it all, she imagines who her son will be as an adult.

Ms. Denworth also talks plainly about the very real way that having less access to sound negatively impacts a person’s life socially and educationally.  This is a very real impact that we, as interpreters like to brush over, but Ms. Denworth, as a mother, is extremely sensitive to.

If I were running an interpreter training program, I would have I Can Hear You Whisper as required reading.  Barring that, I’m simply recommending it to all of you.  If you read the book, please let me know what you think.

The post A Love Story for My Son, a review of I Can Hear You Whisper by Lydia Denworth appeared first on Signtalk Foundation.

As interpreters we play a large role in inclusion. We are often hired so one or two Deaf people can be included in a meeting or event. In a world with full access, rather than inclusion, everyone would sign, making interpreters unnecessary and making Deaf people full participants. While there are a few spaces where ASL is the dominate language and Deaf norms are upheld, this is unlikely to become the standard in American life any time soon. So, how can we help make the spaces we inhabit more egalitarian?

When I arrive at an assignment for the first time, I do not introduce myself as “John’s interpreter,” which bolsters the misconception that the interpreter is only present for the benefit of the Deaf person. I say, for example, “Hi, I’m Amy. I’m the class’s interpreter for the semester,” or “I’ll be the interpreter for your meeting.” I want to start our working relationship with a clear signal that everyone in the room is using my services.

This mindset extends to how we use CDIs. I don’t say, “The consumer needs a CDI.” This implies that the deficit resides in the Deaf consumer, who lacks some quality that does not allow him or her to use a hearing interpreter alone. Actually, the deficit lies in the hearing consumer who does not know sign language, and in me, who does not know the foreign sign that the consumer uses, or does not have the skills to communicate with a consumer with nonstandard language use.   Rather, I say that “the meeting requires a CDI,” or even that I lack the skills to communicate with this specific consumer and therefore require a CDI as a team to effectively facilitate communication.

Do these subtle changes in language make a difference? I can’t be sure. But as an interpreter who respects the power of language to communicate one’s beliefs and perspectives, I believe that words matter. By choosing words that do not contribute to the audist assumptions that spoken English is the natural language in any environment and only Deaf people need accommodations, I believe I’m chipping away at the assumptions too many of our hearing consumers make.

One challenge facing most every interpreter is negotiating turn-taking between signing and speaking participants in a meeting. Many hearing interpreters, myself included, privilege spoken comments over signed comments, forcing the Deaf participants to wait longer to get their points across. When a Deaf consumer begins signing at the same time that a hearing consumer begins to speak, do we interrupt the hearing person to prioritize the Deaf person’s right to contribute? While there are many factors to consider, including the formality of the meeting and the relative statuses of the participants, too often hearing interpreters relay hearing people’s comments first. This is the very nature of “inclusion”: Deaf people may participate, but never at the expense of any hearing person’s power.

To combat my habit of favoring what I hear over what I see, I make a special effort to begin speaking, in order to take the floor, as soon as a Deaf consumer begins signing. Depending on the dynamics of the situation, I may use a comment such as, “I want to jump in here to share my perspective on this…” or “Not to interrupt, but I did want a chance to say….” These introductory phrases can smooth over any overlap or competition for the right to speak. They also can fill the silence while you’re receiving the message and formulating an English interpretation before you begin voicing.

My perspective has shifted through the years. Instead of viewing my role as providing Deaf people with access to the hearing world, I now see how I can help transform the spaces where I work into level playing fields, where Deaf people may freely contribute to a project, influence their colleagues, or guide the conversation. Until every person learns to sign, we will be in the rooms where inclusion can, hopefully, transform into full participation.

The post Inclusion, with Conditions appeared first on Signtalk Foundation.

This story rubbed me the wrong way for a few reasons. The man has the right under the American with Disabilities Act to a paid note-taker of his choosing. He should not have had to be accompanied by his mother to attend classes and have access to note-taking. I can only imagine the impediments Marty faced to making friends or asking for dates while attending class with his mother. Was he less willing to participate in class, afraid of asking a simplistic question or giving a wrong response in front of his mother? Was she even a skilled note-taker, and was she willing to adapt her style to suit her son/consumer, or did she think she knew best?   None of these questions is answered, because not one of them was asked — or at least not reported on in the published story.How often are Deaf consumers ignored while hearing teachers, doctors or co-workers speak directly to the interpreter? Hearing people who have made no effort to get to know their Deaf colleagues or classmates are never shy to ask the interpreter how to say something in ASL, or inquire whether we have Deaf people in our families or how we got involved in the interpreting profession. Of course, I often defer to the Deaf consumer to answer questions about ASL and the Deaf community, but I have to wonder why do these people ask me in the first place, instead of the Deaf person whom they’ve known for months or years?

Chapman University took this focus on the service provider to an extreme by granting Marty’s mother an honorary degree for being her son’s note-taker. She did not pay tuition, nor did she take any tests or write any papers. She had not accomplished extraordinary achievement in the field of business, as most all honorary MBA degree recipients have. She was a service provider for a person who had the legal right to the service, and she worked for free, allowing the university to avoid the cost. For this, she was rewarded with a degree others work for years to earn.

Years ago, the Deaf actress Marlee Matlin appeared on The Tonight Show, and the host, I believe it was still Johnny Carson at the time, asked questions of Matlin’s interpreter, Jack Jason. This was long before I was an interpreter—I had only begun learning ASL—but I remember wondering why Carson was directing questions to the interpreter when Matlin was his guest. While it’s understandable that the language barrier can seem daunting to hearing people who don’t sign, interpreters are present to bridge the gap, not widen the chasm. Let’s not allow hearing people’s focus on us to be one more obstacle to Deaf people’s full participation in their gatherings, or in forming direct relationships with others.

Interpreters, note-takers and other service providers do important work. In the best-case scenario, they allow Deaf people and people with disabilities to better connect with their teachers, co-workers, health care providers. In the worst cases, they block those connections, stealing the attention and forming relationships of their own, rather than acting as a conduit for their consumers. In short, we can stand between our Deaf and hearing consumers so each must look around us to see the other, or we can stand behind our Deaf consumers as they face the wider world.

The post Stand Aside in Order to Stand Behind Your Consumers appeared first on Signtalk Foundation.

Sharing this information from generation to generation is an integral part of every holiday. For my parents, the weekly observance of Shabbat created an opportunity to sit down to a family dinner with their nine children – a weekly experience marked by lighting of the candles, saying the blessings over the wine and challah, and sharing a family dinner.

During the year, our Jewish heritage mandates attending synagogue to listen to the cantor sing those familiar tunes, reading the Megillah on Purim and loudly clanging the grogger (noisemaker) to blot out the name of Haman, taking turns reciting aloud from the Haggadah on Passover, and hearing the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah in synagogue. However, most of my religious memories center around the dining room table set for eleven.

The Jewish holidays are based on storytelling, and my upbringing would be described today as “hearing privileged.” There were no accessibility issues; I was able to connect to my Jewish heritage whenever and wherever I wanted. If I was unsure of the meaning or significance of specific traditions, I could easily inquire.

Our traditions involve all the senses. Some we view, others we taste, smell, touch and some require us to listen or hear. But what about my Deaf Jewish friends? What was their experience growing up in a hearing family? I had to know.

After interviewing several of my Deaf Jewish friends, raised in traditional Jewish, hearing families, I discovered many similarities in their experiences. They described the observance of Shabbat and holidays as boring, isolating and confusing at best, especially when forced to sit in synagogue for hours on end with no interpreter. The Hebrew language was incomprehensible, as were the meanings behind the rituals. One friend admitted to not even being aware that there was a Shofar on Rosh Hashanah until she became an adult. For her, the extent of the holiday involved dipping apples in the honey to symbolize a wish for a sweet new year.

Conversely, another of my friends remembers the way her mother would sign a particular song from the Haggadah each Passover. She developed warm feelings and memories about the rhythm of the signing, but admittedly did not understand the associations behind the words. The matzoh which is set aside wrapped in a piece of cloth and then hidden is called the Afikomen. All the children love looking for this piece of matzoh and can spend up to an hour doing so! My friend knew she was looking for a piece of matzoh and would get money if she found it, but never learned the reason behind this fun activity.

She is very is grateful for the weekly Sunday school for Deaf children which she attended, conducted in ASL. This school gave her the connection she sought and filled in the gaps of what was missing both in synagogue and at home. She creditsTemple Beth shalom in Flushing, Queens — which provides classes forDeaf Children from all over New York — for the strong Jewish roots she has today. Storytelling was alive in this school because of its approach to accessibility.

Some Deaf Jews became frustrated and eventually gave up on their Jewish community. Their spiritual needs were better met within the Deaf community rather than the community of their faith. With family seders or services inaccessible, rituals didn’t make sense and there was no deepening connection to these practices. However, when they became adults and craved some of the traditions they grew up with, it was Deaf Jewish organizations that gave them the connection they were missing.

Even Deaf Jews who are fortunate enough to be born into a Deaf family and therefore do have access to their heritage through sign language, still struggle within the larger Jewish community and feel that they are unable to be a truly active participant in their congregations.

With the Jewish New Year approaching, I asked about accessibility in relation to the listening to the shofar, an integral piece of Rosh Hashanah. According to the Torah it is a mitzvah. an obligation or commandment, to hear  the shofar. Does this mean only hearing people would be able to fulfill this mitzvah? What if one cannot physically hear it?

Thankfully, times they are a changing. Now with a “handful” of Deaf Rabbis and congregations conducted in ASL or services which are accessible through an interpreter, HEARING the shofar comes in many forms. At Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf in Northridge California, the Rabbi has gotten creative. Congregants all receive balloons before services. When the shofar is blown, the Deaf congregants who wish to “hear” the sound with their hands will hold the balloon and the vibrations of the shofar causes the balloons to vibrate. The “sound” differs for participants who are hard of hearing, Deaf, or have hearing aids or cochlear implants. At another congregation, a light goes on in the shofar each time the Ram’s horn is blown. At other services, Deaf people are permitted to go right up to the shofar and feel it with their hands or mouth.

Read this article about Deaf Rabbi Deborah Goldmann and Temple Beth Solomon, http://www.homemadenews.com/stories/2014/10/3/5ztt3kuqe5yax9fnaevidbe4rsx7fm. It is so inspiring to learn how the Rabbi leads her congregation on Rosh Hashanah. Or click on the radio show (for which, ironically, there are no captions) to see first-hand the experience of what “hearing” the shofar is like on Rosh Hashanah for some of these Deaf congregants.

Today, Deaf Jewish children have ample opportunity to experience a rich Jewish upbringing compared to those of previous generations. There are more Deaf Rabbis, Deaf Jewish camps, Deaf Jewish societies and foundations connecting Deaf Jews to their heritage. They are succeeding through Deaf culture, American Sign Language, technology and accessibility. That ability to participate in the traditions of Jewish holidays provides the Jewish Deaf community with the possibility to connect more deeply to their Jewish heritage and is proof of the importance of true community in the Jewish faith as a whole.

Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff will lead Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in Brooklyn this year. There is a link below to find out more details. I cannot wait to go and have an opportunity to sit in a congregation in a language accessible to Deaf Jews.

Links:

http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/3424540/jewish/Deaf-Rabbi-to-Lead-High-Holiday-Services-in-ASL.htm/mobile/false

Town and Village Synagogue in the East Village in NYC provides interpreted services. Click below for the schedule during the high holidays. http://tandv.org/events/10449/asl-interpreted-rosh-hashanah-service/org/

http://jewishdeaffoundation.org

http://www.jdrc.org

http://jewishdeafcongress.org

http://wsjdeaf.org

http://jewishdeafmm.org

https://www.facebook.com/deafrabbi

The post How Do We Participate when Tradition Expects Us to Hear? appeared first on Signtalk Foundation.