Page 27 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

12 Reading Between the Signs

Our Profession
It is a rare profession that can pinpoint its origins, but ours can:
the meeting at Ball State Teachers College in 1964, where the
Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) was founded. As
chronicled by Lou Fant in Silver Threads, the era preceding the
establishment of the first professional organization of sign lan-
guage interpreters was a far cry from the situation today.
No one worked full-time as an interpreter and to say
that anyone worked part-time is misleading…. [We] vol-
unteered our services as our schedules permitted. If we
received any compensation it was freely given and hap-
pily accepted but not expected…. We earned our living
as school people, rehabilitation counselors, religious
workers, or were primarily housewives. We perceived
our work as interpreters as just another way of helping
deaf family members, friends, coworkers or complete
strangers. It was a way of contributing to the general
welfare of deaf people, not a way to make money, much
less earn a living. We did not expect to be paid, we did
not ask to be paid, because we did not do it for the
money. We felt it was our obligation, our duty to do it,
and if we did not do it, the deaf person would suffer
and we would feel responsible. (Fant 1990, 9–10)
Because of a shortage of competent interpreters, the deaf and
hearing people present at the Ball State meeting formed an orga-
nization whose purpose was to recruit new members, promote
training, assess competency, and compile a list of qualified inter-
preters for consumers to use. In the 1960s, ASL had not yet been
widely recognized as a language, and although practitioners rec-
ognized that Deaf people had different ways of doing things than
the hearing majority, the concept of “a Deaf culture” had not yet
been widely disseminated.
A little more than thirty years later, RID counts over seven
thousand members, most of whom consider themselves profes-
sional sign language interpreters and earn some, if not all, of their
living from their work. The organization has numerous local chap-
ters, holds biennial national conventions, has a testing system
that awards various types of certification, requires its members to
pursue continuing education, and is involved with lobbying and
public awareness activities.

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