The gist of my comments, for those who don’t know American Sign Language, is that we should trust the validity of the NIC (National Interpreter Certification) and the RID (Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf). This unfortunate incident of one individual’s corrupt behavior does not invalidate test scores any but 3% of test takers during the time in question; those candidates have already been notified and will have to retest. RID conducted the examination into this matter professionally in every way, and though I was frustrated myself while waiting for my test results for a long time, I now applaud RID for following a stringent protocol and maintaining secrecy about the situation until the investigation was complete. Please, consumers of interpreting services, continue to trust RID. It is a trustworthy organization. And please, fellow interpreters, do not doubt your scores. If you passed at the level you wanted, there is no need to retest. If you failed, you failed. Many of us fail tests the first time. Believe the results, learn what you need to learn to pass the test, and retake it. That’s what I did, and it worked. Again, this is a sad situation, but it has been handled. Let’s not let this get us down. We are good and RID is good. I am proud of us.

[P.S. I forgot to include a link to the source announcement. I don't want to post a link to the RID media page, because that link is constantly changing, so I will refer you to RID Addresses Invalid Rater Scores on National Interpreter Certification Exam — FAQs.]

If the telephony could be worked out, I don’t see why a phone couldn’t be made to run on a thin, browser-like OS that accesses almost all its content on the Cloud. As HTML5 is helping web content become more app-like, and as more of users’ content is stored online, there may soon be little need for onboard apps at all. We may be doing everything we need with Web apps. This may be the end of the OS as we know it. No more bloated platform-dependent apps. Microsoft never was a trailblazer, and Apple isn’t blazing trails anymore, either. Apple is announcing iCloud and OS X Lion tomorrow, and I’d say they’re just playing catch up. Microsoft say Windows 8 is going to have an HTML5 panel screen instead of a desktop, and by the time it comes out in a year or so, it will be as old news as Windows 95 = Mac 84.

As someone who embraced platform-independent Web development before it was popular, I am thrilled to see that HTML and CSS have now taken us to the point where just about any app can be a Web app. Pretty soon, there won’t be a need for five different Facebook apps; there will just be Facebook as a web app anyone can use the same way on any device. You won’t have to wait for your favorite Website to come out with an app for your device’s operating system, because web standards and powerful web functionality will make the question of device and OS moot.

I’m already doing just about everything online with the Chrome browser now except for editing photos and videos and opening Office documents on my iMac. The only thing I do on my laptop other that the Net is Microsoft Office if I have to, and I’m already using that less as I use Google Docs more. I’m ready to move away from bloated software and over to something simple, fast, and standard. Chrome is the OS of today.

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This is my response to Ella Mae Lentz’s vlog about the difference between the philosophy of oralism and the mere act of speaking, either by deaf or hearing people. In this video, signed in ASL—PSE (along the continuum), I tell of my experience as an interpreter with oral deaf, English-oriented deaf, and strongly ASL deaf people. In my experience, I have not found oral deaf people to be against signing deaf or condescending toward culturally deaf people who choose to use sign language instead of speaking and lipreading. I share my experience being an oral transliterator for certain deaf people who were able to read almost 100% of what I mouthed, despite the “myth” that oral deaf people understand only 30–40% of what the get from reading lips. I also share my experience of having a deaf boyfriend who was culturally deaf and very strong in ASL, not so strong in English. When his mother came to visit, she insisted that he could read her lips even when she wasn’t facing him. He looked to me for interpretation, and I thought, “Why should I have to interpret for my boyfriend and his mother? Come on, Mom, learn sign!”

My basic message echoes what Ella said in her blog: there is nothing better or worse about signing or talking, as long as people are respectful of other’s communication styles and speaking people don’t look down upon signing people. I add to this that, in my experience and opinion, it should go both ways— that deaf signing people shouldn’t look down upon deaf speaking people, either, and that it is everyone’s responsibility to respect people’s language preferences and meet them where they are, if at all possible. That is, hearing people who wish to communicate with signing people who are not skilled in English or lipreading should learn now to sign. And hearing people who wish to speak with deaf people who speak and read lips should face the person and speak clearly so the person can read their lips.

One thing I must clarify: I didn’t mean that deaf signing people should meet oral deaf people in mouthing and lipreading. For many deaf people, that is not possible. I know that deaf people have a wonderful skill at meeting other deaf people at many levels and styles of communication, but you can only do what you can do. When I spoke of meeting oral and signing deaf people in their language style, I was thinking of hearing people who interact with deaf people.

You may have heard the jazz standard “My Satin Doll” written by Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Billy Strayhorn. Well, I learned that song when I was in high school and I attended the Fullerton Jazz Festival music contest— singing contest. It was adjudicated, and we got to go up there are do our stuff and get some feedback from the adjudicators. Well, I remember when I learned that song it just struck me as a little odd, like why would you call her your satin doll, and why would she speak Latin?

Well, a few years went by, and I learned a little bit more about the Jazz Age, and Harlem, and the different people that hung out there, and some of the lingo. And it really struck me that maybe the song was originally written “My Latin Doll.” Meaning, like, my “Latina” doll. Because if you think about the lyrics, there’s all kinds of Spanish in there, like “careful amigo, you’re flippin’” and, uh… “doin’ my rhumbas with uno.” So there’s at least three “Latin”—Spanish—words in there. And think about it— who “speaks” Latin, anyway? I mean, maybe people read Latin, or they can write Latin (or sing or recite Latin), but Latin’s a dead language. Nobody really “speaks” Latin. And even if there are some academicians that meet at, like, some special conference once a year and maybe they speak a little Latin with each other? Eh, I’m not buyin’ it. I don’t see how that’s a sexy thing, that “I’m going out with this girl who speaks Latin.” Okay?

So, at the risk of questioning the lyrics of the great songwriters, I just want to sing it the way it makes sense to me. Think about it. I would love to hear your comments, and I would love it if anyone knew any historical facts about this song and if there were some way to know what the intention was originally. ‘Cause I’m wondering if there was a little political correctness going on where they had to change it from what it originally was.

Anyway, here’s the way it makes sense to me:

Cigarette holder
Which wigs me
Over her shoulder
She digs me
Out cattin’ that Latin doll

Baby shall we go
Out skippin’?
Careful amigo, you’re flippin’
Wears satin, that Latin doll

She’s nobody’s fool so I’m playing it cool as can be
I’ll give it a whirl but I ain’t for no girl catching me

Switcheroonie!

Telephone numbers
Well you know
Doing my rhumbas
With uno
And that’n my Latin doll
And that’n my Latin doll
Wears satin, my Latin doll

Abstract

Reflections on my recent experience at the RID Region V conference, the benefits of the policy of using ASL at all times during the conference (except in a few of the workshops that were interpreted), and the great contribution of deaf interpreters to the field. I also discuss my experience as a workshop presenter and my thoughts on how to make my discussions of interpreting less hearing-interpreter-centric, and more inclusive of all interpreters, especially deaf interpreters.

Transcript

Hi. My name is Daniel Greene, and to be honest with you, this is my third take on this video. I get so flustered and make so many mistakes, but I can’t retake again and again and again, so I hope the third time’s a charm.

I want to let you know about my experience at the RID Region V conference in Salt Lake City. It was awesome! I taught two workshops and that was really exciting. It was my first time presenting at a regional level. I had previously taught workshops on a local and state level, but this was my first time presenting at a regional conference. And, funnily enough, the next week I taught three workshops at NAOBI here in San Diego [Brain fart! I meant Phoenix, where I’ve lived for five-and-a-half years, not San Diego where I lived for 27 years —DG] — the National Alliance of Black Interpreters — and that was a national conference. So now I’ve taught at local, state, regional, and national levels. Anyway, it’s not just about me and my workshops. Yes, it was fun, it was great, and people came up to me and gave me tremendous feedback— this workshop is great, I love it, I’m learning a lot / benefiting from it, etc. And that’s terrific.

But what I really want to talk about is the ASL policy. The RID Region V policy was “all language here is ASL. We will use ASL at this conference.” Not “all language is ASL”– see? I told you I say things wrong. Dug! I mean “Duh!” See? I’m even fingerspelling wrong. Anyway! My point is that, “The language of this conference is ASL.” This means that people won’t speak in spoken language, they’ll speak in sign language. All of the plenary sessions were conducted in ASL. Whenever someone in the audience wanted to make a comment or ask a question — assuming that the speaker invited such participation — they would sign it. The speaker would call on them, they would stay seated, and the person on the stage interpreting for them would be a deaf interpreter. The interpreter would stand on the stage along with the speaker and copy the signing of the person in the audience. This was very helpful, because you could keep your eyes on the stage rather than having to scan the big ballroom to find out who was talking. And you wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to see the speaker or seeing only their back and not being able to see their signs. The best solution was to hire deaf interpreters to do platform mirror interpreting. And they had some fabulous deaf interpreters at that conference— fluent, top-notch, deaf interpreters. And it was really helpful to us hearing interpreters to be required to sign more.

You know, it’s easy when you’re interpreting and you can hear what a hearing person says and then process it, rehearse it, figure out how to sign it— not that you’re consciously thinking “How do I sign that?” but a part of your brain is working it out. But when you talk for yourself in sign, it’s a bit more immediate— it’s unrehearsed, spontaneous. It forces me to express myself in sign more naturally, or whatever. I really sometimes wish I had the native fluency of a deaf person. I wish I could “sign like a Deaf person.” And I aim for that although I doubt I will ever achieve it. But the point is communication.

I remember times when I would say to a deaf person, “I know I’m a little hearie who’s not fluent like you,” and several deaf people would tell me, “The point is to communicate. It doesn’t matter if you’re using PSE, ASL, or whatever, as long as you’re communicating— signing.”

And it was the same with the RID Region V conference. Yes, the conference policy was ASL, but that didn’t mean they would clamp your hands down if you didn’t sign pure ASL. It didn’t mean they would force you to instantly sign with the fluency of a culturally Deaf person who grew up using the language. No, that was not it. Besides, not all deaf people sign with equal fluency in gorgeous “perfect” ASL. So, there’s variety in all of it.

The point of it is so that deaf people know what you’re talking about. If a bunch of hearing interpreters are standing around talking (speaking English), the deaf people are left out of the conversation and it’s not fair. And, actually, nowadays more and more deaf people are interpreters. It’s not like in the past when deaf people were the clients and hearing people were the interpreters. Now it’s more integrated — hearing interpreters and deaf interpreters, HI’s and DI’s — all working together, learning together, improving together. That’s the great benefit of it. That’s big.

Oh, and in my experience as a workshop presenter, one thing I noticed about teaching was that I wanted to including the deaf participants (there were mostly hearing and a few deaf), and I thought, “how can I include them and make them feel it was equally beneficial, interesting, and entertaining?” And that’s hard. It’s a little bit of a challenge. I think most of the time if I sign and deliver the content of the workshop, all will benefit equally. But one thing I recognized in myself was that I tended to talk about the interpreting process as one of watching deaf people sign and hearing people talk. And I kept setting up deaf people and hearing people in signing space that showed the deaf person in front of my and the hearing person to my right. I guess that’s because I do a lot of video interpreting — video relay service — well, actually both VRS and VRI. Anyway, I realized that [division of hearing and deaf in signing space] is “hearing–interpreter–centric.” It would be better that I discuss the interpreting process in terms of “first speaker / second speaker; person expressing communication / person receiving communication; sender / receiver; expresser / receiver… or something.

But not deaf / hearing. Because deaf interpreters interpret between deaf and — well, not deaf, but hearing interpreters, not hearing speakers of English. So, deaf interpreters are not going between ASL and English— not spoken English anyway… well, maybe sometimes, but most of the time between hearing interpreters and deaf people. Both [of their interpreting tasks] are receiving sign and expressing sign. It is a challenge for me to think about how to talk about two interlocutors (two people who are talking to each other) and how to take one language and convey it to another. Maybe using more neutral space (from here to there and there to here), not “deaf in front of me and hearing at my side” or deaf/hearing, but more like “person A and person B” or something.

Maybe we as a profession need to think about how we discuss the interpreting process per se— not focused so much on English-to-ASL and ASL-to-English, but more like “one language to—” well, I know there are words for that, such as “Source Language (SL)” and “Target Language (TL).” Yes, we already have those words, so maybe we need to engage those words more often. Or maybe I have to do that myself as a teacher / presenter.

So, I guess that’s all. I really had fun in Salt Lake City. I did sightseeing and took lots of photos— you can look at my Flickr— I have tons of photos (eleven thousand photos!). I love taking pictures. So, I will post them today. Promise! Anyway, if you want to follow me on Twitter, it’s my name danielgreene. I’m also a member of LinkedIn, and my name on that website is danieljgreene [it's now danieljamesgreene]. Well, I enjoyed talking with you — I mean You, and thanks for your attention to this video!

Why don’t blog spam filters recognize as spam those generic comments that link to commercial websites? Akismet used to filter all the spam that came into my blog, but now there’s a type it never catches– generic comments linked to a money-making (or even phishing or malicious) websites. These spammers write adulatory comments that don’t address the content or topic of the post. They tell you that you have just earned a new follower and that they will add you to their RSS feed straightaway. They say things like, “This is the best post I’ve ever read on the subject.” Note they say “the subject” without naming it. Sometimes they even write editorial comments that have nothing to do with your blog post. Here is an actual examples taken from a recent comment on my blog:

Here’s one posted on my blog entry “Comparison of EPUB Download Sites“

How risky is blogging really? Blog firings are relatively rare. In a recent survey of 279 human resource professionals by the Society for Human Resources Management, just 3 percent of companies reported disciplining bloggers and none reported firing anyone for blogging. You’re more likely to get in trouble for fooling around online or downloading music at work. About half the companies in the survey said they’ve fired or disciplined employees for Internet use that was unrelated to work duties.

Note I didn’t say anything about “blog firings” or the risk of blogging in my post.

If there’s any risk of blogging, it’s for your blog to be highjacked by people using your publication to promote their get-rich-quick schemes.

Here’s one on my blog post “My first Speak & Spell workshop“:

This is an excellent post. I have a similar blog myself so I will keep coming back to read more.

And this from a guy who runs a blog about magic spells. At least his comment addressed the topic of my blog post, even if incorrectly.

I’ll add more examples as they come in, which I’m sure they will.

P.S. This is not a paid advertisement, but I do like using WordPress for Android because new comments to my blog show up as notifications on my Nexus One and I can follow the notification to open the app and mark comments as spam if I choose. It helps me stop spammers sooner than if I had to wait to get to a computer and log into my blog’s admin dashboard.

What may or may not be apparent is that I have felt shame and failure in my life, and there have been a few times I doubted I’d ever achieve anything. When I do manage to do something good, my feelings of past failure and inefficacy drive me to shout my achievements from the rooftops. “See! I’m not a complete failure! I DID something!”

Perhaps it is the fact that there have been so many times in my life when I have felt paralyzed into inaction. I’ve wanted to do many things that I didn’t do because I didn’t believe in myself. Now, when I finally do things that I’ve only been dreaming of doing for years, I feel… well… vindicated! Especially when other people didn’t believe in me, either. It’s like, “How do you like me now?!” Well, maybe not very much, I fear.

What good does it do to shove my success in the faces of people who doubted me? Are they really going to “like me now”? Or are they just going to resent me for rubbing it in their faces that I succeeded in spite of them? My fear is that they are going to resent me as much as I resent them. Resentment begets resentment. The thing to do is forgive everyone for everything, starting with myself.

Will I ever be good enough so that I can stop proving myself to people? Will it ever be enough just to be? Well, sure, but I’d still want to do something. There’s a time to be and a time to do. Maybe if I can master being, then I can be better with doing. Right now, doing is like, “Wow!” A miracle!” (Though, I wonder if that will ever change, for what are being and doing but miracles?)

Another consideration is there may be others who have done what I’ve done and not had the same level of success. Am I hurting them by touting my success? That is not my intention, but I fear it may be a consequence. Then again, there’s that whole thing about, “Who are you not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” I would like to think that when I let my own light shine, I give other people permission to do the same (re: Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love).

My best intentions, when I get past the neurotic ego stuff, are to promote the work for the good of others. The workshops I’m doing are designed to help interpreters become better at serving their clients and taking care of themselves. I would like to believe that the work is worth people’s time, and so I promote it so that people can benefit from it. And the truth is that I want to teach, and I can’t teach without students.

An actor cannot perform without an audience. The same is true of any artist or creator of any kind. We create what we do because of our creative impulse. There is nothing to be ashamed of about the creative impulse, and there is nothing wrong with admitting that I am a performer who needs an audience. Yes, I need to say something, and yes, I need you to listen. The tricky part is how to charm you into granting me an audience and then entertain you so you feel it was worth your time.

The best self-promotion is really not self-promotion; it is promotion of one’s work. It is a plea to “let me entertain you” so we can all “have a real good time” (to quote Sondheim). I may be ashamed of the way my ego gets in the way, but I’m working on seeing the greater good beyond myself. In my future promotions, I will be cognizant of the issues I’ve raised here and try to make my statements the kind that promote my work without building myself up or tearing anybody down.

I was criticized by a deaf person for posting a one-minute long closed-captioned spoken video on YouTube the other day. The deaf person said that they were disappointed that I didn’t sign my video and that, being a sign language interpreter, I “represent the deaf community.” This is my response, signed and closed-captioned.

Lately, I notice — especially with Facebook — that I get pain in my elbow and wrist from so much mouse clicking to follow everyone’s posts. I read all my Friends’ postings, regardless of how well I know them, and I just keep reading and commenting and reading and refreshing pages. There are people in my Friends list that I’ve spent more time with on Facebook than in real life. But no matter what our relationship in real life, I find myself reading everything they post. It begins to seem as though my “best friends” are the ones who interact with me the most on Facebook. Yet that’s insidious, because it doesn’t mean they’re closer to me; it just means they’re on Facebook a lot and they like to interact with people on it. It’s seductive to sit there clicking, clicking, clicking on everyone’s content, yet I have to do something about my overuse strain. I am, after all, a sign language interpreter, and I have to save my hands and arms for work.

And speaking of seductive, it is so tempting to add all the people Facebook suggests to me as Friends– well, all the people I know, anyway. I never went and added all my friends Friends or anything crazy like that, but I did add almost all the classmates, coworkers, and friends I recognized. It got to the point where I had 378 Friends! As I started following more closely, I realized that I hadn’t even remembered some of my classmates correctly. In one case, I thought I was following a guy who was one class ahead of me until I realized that I was following his brother who was two classes behind me. He seems like a great guy, but the last straw was when he made that “tell me something you remember about me” prompt in his status message, and I realized, well, I didn’t remember anything.

Even more seductive is the ability to develop a fan base that will respond to what I post. But again, those who respond are not necessarily my friends. They are people who appreciate what I produce. They are fine people. Nothing wrong with them at all. But I have to be realistic with myself and ask myself why I need their validation, and why I’m spending time doing this when I could be doing other things that are more creative and productive. Or just spending time doing nothing at all, soaking up life and resting my wrists.

I’ve gotten overwhelmed with Flickr. I have 275 contacts right now, and I think I had even more at one point. There’s no way I can do them all justice. I tend to look at a few photos that show up on my home page, and sometimes surf from there onto other photos. I leave some comments and favorites. But I used to go crazy with it. Just as I do with Facebook now, I would view and comment on almost everything and then refresh the pages to see if there was anything else. I’m thinking about weeding my contacts list– not that I spend that much time on Flickr anymore. It’s been mostly about Facebook this past year.

And I just deleted about 250 Friends on Facebook. Many of them didn’t use their accounts much, but some of them used their accounts so much that I felt I had to remove my connection to them because I was overwhelmed by all their updates. Some of them, as I said before, weren’t even the people I thought I was following. Every single one of them was someone I spent more time with online than I ever did in real life. Yet, you know what’s sad? I now look at my Facebook home page and click Refresh because it looks so dull. But that’s real life! My real life doesn’t have that many people in it, so why should my online life be so peopled? I had Friends on Facebook from theatre, photography, interpreting, Flickr, the gay community, the deaf community, the deaf gay community, San Diego, Phoenix, Junior Theatre, the School of Creative & Performing Arts– and those are not the only communities I’ve ever made friends in! If I added all the friends I’ve ever known, my Friends list would be in the thousands.

But you know what saddened me even more? The fact that some of my friends from the past didn’t want to be my friends in the present. Sure, they added me as Friends, but they didn’t do anything with their accounts, didn’t call my cell phone when they said they would… or they didn’t add me as Friends at all. Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the past.

A lot of this struggle is about the distinction between past and present, reality and fantasy. The fantasy is that friends are forever. The reality is that friends are the people you spend time with, either in the present or the recent past, with plans to see each other again in the near future. When people aren’t doing things together, there’s less reason to remain friends. Due to the joy and pain I’ve experienced in life, I tend to want to heal my past and sooth my present with it, or reach back to my past and validate it with my present. I see the past, present, and future as a circle, and I want to mend that circle, let it be unbroken, integrate it. I want to be integrated, to have integrity.

The struggle is far from over. May we all find peace.

When I got a Flickr account in 2006, I felt compelled to publish every good photo I took. In turn, I felt compelled to document my life in photos so I could share those photos — my life — on Flickr. Then I got a Facebook and Twitter account, and I began to feel compelled to share my life there, too. I enjoyed the response, and that drove me to share more. There’s nothing wrong with the impulse to share experiences, but I have to believe that my life is worth living regardless of whether I’m acknowledged for it.

Maybe I’m having a midlife moment. I’m 42 years old. It’s unclear whether I’ve made a mark on the world. And it’s time to decide whether or not I care. I don’t have kids, my parents are getting older, and I don’t have a lot of siblings or cousins. Who is going to remember me? And does it even matter.

On the one hand, I am coming to terms with my nature. I need to communicate with others, to create my own expression and share it with the world. Looking at people’s enthusiastic self-expression in social media outlets, I can see that I am not alone.

On the other hand, I must resist the compulsion to share photos and status updates in order to add value to my experiences. I don’t need to be applauded for being cool or interesting or cultured. I don’t have to be told I have good taste or talent. It feels good, but becoming addicted to acknowledgment leads to a letdown when I don’t get it.

For a year or two now, I’ve debated whether to take my camera on certain adventures. I want to “show the folks back home!” but the equipment weighs me down and cramps my ability to enjoy my own adventure. I told my husband that I was beginning to question whether I could really experience a moment and record it at the same time, and ever since then he tells me, “live the moment, don’t record it.”

I’m not about to stop publishing to social media, but I will continue to remind myself that what matters is not whether people love your life when you’re dead. What matters is that you love your life while you’re living.