Page 231 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

216 Reading Between the Signs

dent contractor—no sick time, no paid vacations, slow periods
when there is little work, having to pay one’s own medical insur-
ance, and so on—but the facts, I suspect, are not as important as
the feelings evoked by this subject. Putting myself in Deaf people’s
shoes, I can understand the resentment built up from experiences
like seeing interpreters getting paid for what looks like “not work-
ing” (even more so when an assignment is canceled at the last
minute or we are compensated for the entire day though we end
up interpreting for only a short period of time) or interpreters
with less than a fluent command of ASL still being paid high rates.
In the end, it is probably true that interpreters make more money
than most Deaf people, and it doesn’t seem right to some that we
do so through the medium of their language.
An additional factor is that some Deaf people’s conception of
“work” varies considerably from our own. It may have been in-
spired by the quintessential Deaf job, printing. Following that tem-
plate, “work” would be seen as something physically demanding,
where you go to the same place every day, get dirty, and sweat.
Some Deaf people who work as computer programmers have
mentioned to me that other Deaf people chide them for their easy
life of “just sitting all day and playing with the computer.” Teach-
ers are also viewed as not working very hard—they don’t sweat;
they spend the day talking; they get to go on those fun field trips;
and they take summers off. Interpreting does not fit the mold of
“hard work” either. Interpreters often travel around and meet dif-
ferent people in interesting situations. They sit while interpreting
and, when they switch off with their team interpreter, it looks like
they get a break every twenty minutes! They also get a double
benefit, earning money and learning new information while do-
ing so. Many Deaf people have no idea that interpreting is a diffi-
cult mental task. It seems as if we are just talking and using sign
language. In this context, it’s always interesting to hear the com-
ments of relay interpreters, who admit that they never appreci-
ated what hard work interpreting was until they began to do it
themselves.
The sticky question of how much money an interpreter makes
will probably not disappear until Deaf people as a group obtain
higher salaries. It is up to us, therefore, to handle the issue as
tactfully as possible. Here are a few suggestions we may employ
as alternatives to “None of your business!” One well-respected
interpreter, who is in constant demand by many segments of the

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