Interpreting and Motherhood - By Suzie Crick
“So you can read Braille?”
“No, I said I work in the Deaf community-not the blind”
“Oh! So you teach poor Deaf people? That’s so nice of you! Must be very rewarding.”
“No. Not that either.”
This conversation. Again. Like so many times before at dinner parties or baby showers, I smile politely and explain again that I’m an interpreter. American Sign Language is my second language and I learned it later in my life. I try to keep my explanation of my work and the role I play in the Deaf community simple and understandable. I leave out so many of the pieces that truly shape me, stir in my mind as I try to fall asleep at night. The pieces that I’m so grateful for.
Thanks to Covid19, the term ‘Sign Language Interpreter’ has become more familiar to the masses. Those skilled, native language users are there for every briefing, ensuring that Canada’s Deaf population are kept abreast of this crisis. Ensuring that they aren’t getting the information later than the rest of us, or worse, not at all.
My work as a hearing sign language interpreter has been a gift from the Deaf community. From the day I first learned to spell my own name with stiff and shaky hands, I have been welcomed and encouraged by Deaf people. First, by my abundantly patient Deaf teachers who watched my terrible VHS videos time and time again, insisting I was capable of better and holding me to that. Then, all of the Deaf people who said “Ok” when I needed practice. Those who let me interpret 10 patchy, erroneous minutes of their actual real-life moments. Who said “It’s a good start” or “keep practicing, you’ll get there” when they could have just as easily said “No, thank you” to allowing a placement student to try their hand at their appointments.
This work has made me privy to people’s most intimate moments. Births, weddings, funerals, deaths. What an honour and a responsibility, I don’t take that lightly or for granted. I wish I could write a love letter to the community that still patiently teaches me every single day. Perhaps this is that love letter. Thanks to this work, I have paired up to make communication happen with Deaf Interpreters. These gifted colleagues are Deaf, native language users who can understand and express sign language in a depth that I will NEVER be able to mimic. We are a stellar team when my own language short-comings mean I can’t communicate with a Deaf person for countless reasons that I won’t list here.
Working as an interpreter has called my attention what my soul truly values. The notions that, if I’m honest, were already rooted in me in childhood.
Fairness. Communication. A level playing field. Accessibility
When your work shows you time and time again how unjust this world is, how much privilege really matters, it’s impossible not to care about other communities too. My care for the Deaf community runs tandem to my care for Black Lives Matter, for LGBTQ+ communities, for refugees and so on and so on.
13 years ago, I got to add another job to life’s resume. Mom. My first son was born and within 5 years from that point, I had 3 kids to love and teach and shape. I know what you’re thinking. “Her kids probably know Sign Language.” No. You know what they say about the shoe cobbler’s children never having shoes? Turns out that’s true. It’s one of my regrets but, alas, I’m on a tangent. Moving on, my kids are being raised by an interpreter, so they’re hearing from me that things aren’t as fair, equal and accessible as we all want to believe. I find myself trying to balance their happy, privileged ignorance with my wish to set them straight. To remind them of the leg up they’ve had in life, not to make them feel bad about it-nothing good grows where guilt lives. Instead, I hope they’ll use their privilege to give someone else a fair shake. A leg up. I hope they’ll make noise when they know something just isn’t right. I don’t need them to be another Greta Thunberg, I think change making happens on all scales. I hope that the lessons I’ve taken from my career and shared in my household mean my kids will be a safe place for a friend to come out to. I hope that if they’re ever in a position to hire someone, they won’t bat an eye when that applicant needs a sign language interpreter at his/her job interview. I hope that when they’re at a bar someday and someone says something derogatory about an entire community they clearly know nothing about, my kid will say “hey, that was a stupid thing to say”. I’m trying to model that for them, being willing to call someone out and let the chips land where they may. It’s not easy. I’m not batting a hundred. I’m trying and I’m thinking and I’m growing. Hopefully they see that and it’s enough.
With much love to the Deaf and Interpreting community,
Suzie