Diane Curhoys, ASL Interpreter

It's always lovely to read a profile of a great interpreter, but it can be downright fascinating when the interpreter happens to work in a diverse array of settings, such as those encompassed in the From Our Lips project, shedding light on the impact interpreters have on our ability to communicate and interact with each other.

Chrissy Casilio's recent report on American Sign Language interpreter Diane Curthoys gives us a glimpse into the life of this professional.

Diane interprets in every mode common for interpreting today: in person, through videoconference and even phone calls, via videophone.

She also interprets for a wide variety of settings.

She works as a medical interpreter, she interprets at her local church and does quite a bit of conference interpreting, having interpreted for many politicians (Al Gore, Howard Dean, Colin Powell and President Clinton, to name a few), and popular comedians, such as Conan O'Brien and Stephen Colbert.

Read more about Diane in Casilio's full article here.

Remembering Dith Pran

In memory of Dith Pran, Cambodian genocide survivor, inspiration behind the Academy Award-winning movie The Killing Fields, photojournalist for The New York Times...

... and an interpreter who made a tremendous impact on the world.



He passed away yesterday in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Interpreter Helps Thwart Public Health Outbreak

For anyone who ever had doubts about the important role interpreters play in society at large, here is a story worth noting.

Carol Hidalgo, an interpreter at the Mayo Health System's Austin Medical Center noticed a pattern among patients for whom she was interpreting described the same symptoms and happened to work at the same pork processing facility.

Eventually, a partnership was formed that included the plant, Austin Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, the state health department and the CDC, who are continuing to prevent against further outbreaks of the disease.

Read the full story here.

Arcelia Paskett

"Everybody has 10 fingers," she said in explaining the sophistication of interpreting over simply translating words. "That doesn't mean they can play the piano."

This was court interpreter Arcelia Paskett’s pithy and accurate retort to the notion that anyone who speaks two languages can be an interpreter.

Arcelia recently passed away, working right up until just weeks before cancer took her life.

In a tribute to her in The Stockton Record, Scott Smith interviewed Arcelia’s daughter, who stated that “courtroom interpreting was her mother’s way of participating in the judicial system and helping right the injustices the poor often suffer." The full story is available here.

Gratitude

Medical Interpreter, thank you for enabling countless people to access health care services, helping to prevent public health outbreaks and improving the health and wellbeing of individuals so that they can contribute more productively to our society.

Court Interpreter, thank you for helping ensure equal access to justice for all those who are engaging with the legal system in order to help build a society that is fair and just.

Conference Interpreter, thank you for making sure that millions of people can understand the words of our political leaders and subject matter experts, enabling our governments to make decisions with key information, and to raise the levels of knowledge of our society.

Telephone Interpreter, thank you for enabling individuals to access services where they otherwise would have no ability to communicate, from filling a prescription to making a payment arrangement for a bill, you are the linguistic glue holding much of society together.

Community Interpreter, thank you for providing critical support in an array of social and public services settings, helping our native populations, refugees and immigrants alike to better understand each other, strengthening the bonds of our society.

Interpreters Everywhere, thank you for the work you do, as you impact the lives of individuals each day, helping to shape society as a whole.

Thank You.

May individuals across the globe be full of appreciation for the work of interpreters of all kinds, as they continue to help our world go 'round.

And to the American readers, Happy Thanksgiving.

Changing the World, One Life at a Time

Many readers may be familiar with the wonderful work of Hablamos Juntos, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to bring national attention to the issue of language barriers to health care.

Some may be familiar with the fascinating compilation of true stories collected about interpreters by HJ. I am proud to announce that the From Our Lips to Your Ears project has received permission to publish stories such as this one from the Hablamos Juntos collection. Special thanks to Yolanda Partida and her team for enabling these stories to reach audiences far and wide.

In particular, the following story, shared with permission here, is an excellent reminder of why the work of interpreters is of such tremendous value to the world.

A moment worth of work, a lifelong memory: Patients value interpreters' help

A woman came into the hospital to have her baby. Being unable to communicate with her, the staff in the Labor and Delivery called me to provide interpretation services.

Unbeknownst to all of us, the woman’s husband had left her the day before. Being upset as well as afraid, she begged me to stay with her during the birth.

The next morning after my shift was over; I went home, never to see her again…so I thought.

Several months ago, I encountered the same woman again, this time in Wal-Mart. She introduced me to her son James.

She had named her son after me.

Interpreting the Unspeakable

Anyone who has ever interpreted material that could be described as "rough", be it a graphic description interpreted via telephone during a 911 call, a child abuse report interpreted at a local police station, or for victims of domestic violence through a counseling program... all of us who have interpreted in those settings know firsthand how tough it can be - emotionally- for an interpreter to render the words of a person who has been a victim of a crime, abuse, or both.

As interpreters, repeating those words in first person inevitably takes its toll on us as we mentally conjure images of the speaker, trying to reflect the meaning as accurately as possible while faced ourselves with the often heart-wrenching thoughts of what the person must be going through, or what she or he experienced in the past.

Now, imagine what it would be like to interpret for victims of torture every day from 9 to 5. Not exactly a job for the faint of heart.

Yet, that is exactly what Annmarie Fox does each day in her job as an interpreter, primarily for African Francophones, at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture in the United Kingdom.

In an essay regarding her work that first appeared in Context (a magazine for family therapy and systemic practice), she writes:

"Graphic descriptions of torture, intense emotional distress, loss, rape, bereavement and displacement are very difficult subjects to listen to and then to find appropriate and adequate words to render them into another language. Then there are the associative images - the more eloquent and articulate the narrator, the more powerful and intrusive are the images."

Born in Transylvania and raised in Israel, Annmarie is an interpreter for French and Hungarian.

And, she also debunks the common myth that interpreters can be likened to machines, that they are somehow "unaffected" by their work.

"I have a profound empathy with some of the clients - this is because of my own family history of persecution, because in my time I have also been a refugee in another country and because my working language at the Foundation is not really the language I was brought up in. I can identify with and understand many of the problems and emotions."

Many interpreters I've spoken with over the years admire other areas of interpreting and wonder what it would be like to work in those fields. Court interpreters have expressed to me how they admire the concept of "cultural brokering" so common in the field of health care interpreting.

Likewise, health care interpreters sometimes wonder how a court interpreter can listen to so much legalese and admire the fact that they actually find this work enjoyable.

Several conference interpreter colleagues have expressed their amazement to me about the sheer diversity of call types that a telephone interpreter might receive in a typical day's work.

And telephone interpreters, who mostly perform consecutive interpreting, often express that they admire the conference interpreters' simultaneous interpreting skills, among other things.

One wonderful thing about our field, in my opinion, is the profound levels of mutual respect and admiration that we frequently have for each other's work as interpreters, all of which is challenging and rewarding in its own unique way.

However, I believe there would be even stronger consensus that the work of Annmarie Fox should be regarded with a special awe and respect. Having dabbled in many fields of interpreting, I have a deep appreciation of what it takes to excel professionally in each and every one of them, but I cannot imagine the personal fortitude and the strength of self it would take to do Annmarie's job.

I also cannot imagine how fulfilled she must be, knowing that she is helping individuals on such profound and personal levels to deal with traumatic events each and every day, so that they can work through them and continue living meaningful lives.

Annmarie is definitely helping to change the world, one life at a time, in a very important way. She is a prime example of what the From Our Lips to Your Ears project is all about.

You can read more about Annmarie, and access her full essay, here.

Interpreters in Literature

I wrote in a recent post about Jesús Baigorri-Jalón, the author of Interpreters at the United Nations: A History, a former staff interpreter at the United Nations stationed in New York, who also authored La interpretación de conferencias: el nacimiento de una profesión, de Paris a Nuremberg.

Jesús is one of many wonderful people in the interpreting profession that I have been fortunate enough to meet as a result of this project.

As I mentioned previously, Jesús has also written a wonderful paper on interpreter characters in fictional literature, which is likely of interest to many interpreters.

Now, with permission from the author, I am happy to share this paper here as a free download for readers. Click here to go to the main From Our Lips to Your Ears project page to download the file, and enjoy!

Don't Shoot the Messenger!

Today, September 30th (St. Jerome's Day), is International Translation Day!

While not typically honored on the calendar of the general public, this is an extremely important day for recognition of interpreters and translators around the world.

This press release from the International Federation of Translators highlights the essential role played by translators and interpreters in society, with their 2007 theme of "Don't Shoot the Messenger!":

"From the embedded translator in the battle zone to the interpreter whispering in the ear of a visiting dignitary to the specialist translating the owner’s manual for your next car or subtitling a news report, the work of the language professions is present in every part of the globe, in every walk of life. Everyone, everywhere, is increasingly dependent on the services of those who
make language their business."

It is the mission of the From Our Lips to Your Ears project to bring some of these stories to life and celebrate these professionals.

How Interpreters Are Changing the Universe

I was recently delighted to be contacted by Irina Yashkova, a Russian<>English interpreter who has worked for the International Space Station Program for more than 9 years. She was interviewed by the Moscow Times regarding her fascinating work, and she noticed a similarity between the goal of the From Our Lips to Your Ears project, to highlight the important work of interpreters, and the objective of the Moscow Times interview, titled, "NASA Interpreter's Job Has Her Seeing Stars".

To quote from the article:

"As the ears and voices of these space dwellers, the interpreter's job requires perfect attention to detail and allows no room for error."

"'Irina was our top student in Russian interpretation,' said Dr. Peter Grothe, professor and director of the International Student Programs at the Monterey Institute."

"'She is one of only two persons who is certified to interpret in Russian-English on spacewalks, and if she makes a mistake, it could cost millions of dollars to the space program,' Grothe said."

Irina's story is truly a fascinating one, and a unique perspective from within our field. I am very happy to know that this type of interpreting exists, and am very excited about the possibility of bringing more of this insight to readers, so that the public at large can develop a greater awareness and respect for the essential work of interpreters.

Jesús Baigorri-Jalón

One of my favorite "side effects" of working on this project so far has been the surprise of encountering numerous other authors who have written books about interpreting, and who, in many cases, work (or have worked) as professional interpreters themselves.

Another author I've been exchanging emails with is Jesús Baigorri-Jalón, the author of Interpreters at the United Nations: A History, published by Ediciones de la Universidad de Salamanca and translated into English by Anne Barr, from the original in Spanish.

As a former staff interpreter at the United Nations stationed in New York, he is also the author of La interpretación de conferencias: el nacimiento de una profesión, de Paris a Nuremberg, published by Granada Comares. A version of this book was also published in French, De Paris a Nuremberg: Naissance de l'interprétation de conférences.

Jesús has also written a wonderful paper on interpreter characters in fictional literature, which may be of interest to many of you, titled, "El intérprete como personaje de ficción en la narrativa contemporánea: algunos ejemplos".

He also shared an excellent resource with me that I thought I would share with everyone here as well. It is a page devoted to the history of translation and interpreting, primarily in Latin America, from the Université de Montréal:

http://www.histal.umontreal.ca/frances/versionfr.htm

If you click on the bibliography organized by topic (Bibliographie thématique), and then click on 418.02 Traduction et interprétation, you will see an extensive listing of resources.

Jesús and I have discussed the fact that there are so many great stories to be shared, and so many wonderful interpreters out there who have yet to learn about the project. I am definitely pleased by the diversity of settings in which working interpreters have been submitting stories, and constantly encouraged by the prospect of contributions from interpreters of all walks of life!

Alice Kaplan - The Interpreter

The Interpreter. Most (if not all) of us are familiar with the movie starring Nicole Kidman. However, are you familiar with the book by the same name, also known by it's French title, L'Interprete, by Duke University history professor, Alice Kaplan?

If not, it may be of special interest. Kaplan is the author of French Lessons and The Collaborator and the translator of OK, Joe, all published by the University of Chicago Press. Her books have been twice nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, once for the National Book Award, and she is a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Here is what the publisher had to say:

"One of the least-known stories of the American liberation of France, from 1944 to 1946, is also one of the ugliest and least understood chapters in the history of Jim Crow. The first man to grapple with this failure of justice was an eyewitness: the interpreter Louis Guilloux. Now, in The Interpreter, prize-winning author Alice Kaplan combines extraordinary research and brilliant writing to recover the story both as Guilloux first saw it, and as it still haunts us today.

When the Americans helped to free Brittany in the summer of 1944, they were determined to treat the French differently than had the Nazi occupiers of the previous four years. Crimes committed against the locals were not to be tolerated. General Patton issued an order that any accused criminals would be tried by court-martial and that severe sentences, including the death penalty, would be imposed for the crime of rape. Mostly represented among service troops, African Americans made up a small fraction of the Army. Yet they were tried for the majority of capital cases, and they were found guilty with devastating frequency: 55 of 70 men executed by the Army in Europe were African American -- or 79 percent, in an Army that was only 8.5 percent black.

Alice Kaplan's towering achievement in The Interpreter is to recall this outrage through a single, very human story. Louis Guilloux was one of France's most prominent novelists even before he was asked to act as an interpreter at a few courts-martial. Through his eyes, Kaplan narrates two mirror-image trials and introduces us to the men and women in the courtrooms. James Hendricks fired a shot through a door, after many drinks, and killed a man. George Whittington shot and killed a man in an open courtyard, after an argument and many drinks. Hendricks was black. Whittington was white. Both were court-martialed by the Army VIII Corps and tried in the same room, with some of the same officers participating. Yet the outcomes could not have been more different.

Guilloux instinctively liked the Americans with whom he worked, but he could not get over seeing African Americans condemned to hang, Hendricks among them, while whites went free. He wrote about what he had observed in his diary, and years later in a novel. Other witnesses have survived to talk to Kaplan in person."

You can read an excerpt from the book here. You can also listen to an interview about the book with the author, from NPR, here. Here are some other quotes from reviewers:

“A cross section of a tragedy.…This is an extraordinary book.”
John Lukacs, Boston Globe

“A nuanced historical account that resonates with today’s controversies over race and capital punishment.”
Publishers Weekly

“American racism could become deadly for black soldiers on the front. The Interpreter reminds us of this sad component of a heroic chapter in American military history.”
Los Angeles Times

“A brilliant account.… Inventive, moving, and beautifully written, this is a major contribution to investigative history. Highly recommended.”
Library Journal

“With elegance and lucidity, Kaplan revisits these two trials and reveals an appallingly separate and unequal wartime U.S. military justice system.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Kaplan has produced a compelling look at the racial disparities as they were played out.… She explores both cases in considerable and vivid detail.”
Sacramento Bee

In the case of this interpreter, through whose eyes Kaplan allows readers to see a unique perspective in history, the issues surrounding racial disparities were impossible to ignore. While this is an extreme example, as interpreters, we assist members of minority groups constantly as part of our daily work, and many of us are representatives of minority groups ourselves. I am sure that many interpreters will find relevance and parallels in the viewpoints offered in Kaplan's book.

So often, interpreters are portrayed using the dry and inaccurate "parrot analogy", without acknowledgment of the fact that interpreters are human beings, participants, in many ways, of the events and communication acts taking place, not just in our presence, but with our presence. Given the significance of what Guilloux experienced as an interpreter, I venture to say he would probably agree.

I came across a discussion guide for this book online, and it posed a very interesting question:

For French writer Louis Guilloux, being an interpreter was much more than just a wartime profession. What did serving as an interpreter mean to him, and how did he embrace this role both during the courts-martial and throughout his life?

This question is an interesting one to reflect upon, especially in the context of our project. What parallels are there between Guilloux's view about his work, what it meant to him, and the views we, present-day interpreters, hold of our own? I hope that some answers to this question will be revealed through the From Our Lips to Your Ears project. Certainly, Alice Kaplan has given us a banquet of food for thought.

Finally, I'm pleased to share that I've exchanged emails with Ms. Kaplan, and she has kindly offered to support the project by putting us in touch with some of the interpreters she's been in contact with in relation to the writing of The Interpreter.

Janet Perez Eckles

Many years ago, I met a true heroine in our profession. From the moment I first heard her interpreting abilities, I knew she was outstanding in many ways. She was able to render information back and forth in her language pair (English<>Spanish) with utmost grace, retaining accuracy and making the speech sound absolutely natural, even conveying nonverbal information, such as hesitations, tone of voice and inflection. Not only that, but she always had an amazing presence about her, treating speakers of both languages gently, with respect and professional courtesy.

I worked with her for a long time, and always admired her as a professional. She quickly rose to achieve many things in her career as an interpreter, receiving awards for her abilities and obtaining her court certification in the state of Florida. Throughout her career, she has trained and coached hundreds of other interpreters in the United States, Panama, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.

What I didn't know about Janet Perez-Eckles when I first began working with her, and what may surprise many readers here, was that she was blind. When someone told me this, I became even more awestruck by Janet. We worked together for many years, interacting mostly via telephone. It became easy for me to forget that she was sightless, even when we were together in person. This became even more incredible to me when I learned that Janet had actually lost her sight as an adult. You can read more about Janet's incredible abilities as an interpreter in a feature article from Hispanic Times magazine, located here.

But Janet's achievements as an interpreter are not her only admirable qualities by any stretch of the imagination. In addition to losing her sight as a mother of three young children, Janet has overcome a great many obstacles in her life that many of us can never even imagine.

Janet is already a published author, and imparts wisdom to others about the many hardships she has successfully battled in her book, Trials of Today, Treasures for Tomorrow: Overcoming Adversities in Life, available for purchase online here.

Janet's writing - and her amazing life- have received wonderful acclaim in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Orlando Sentinel, and many others. Her work has appeared in countless books and publications, and one of her personal anecdotes will be featured in Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover's Soul, forthcoming in November 2007. Her blog is available here.

So, given this extremely impressive background, and even though I already knew her as a friend, I was extremely honored when I received a call from Janet yesterday. With Janet's trademark "smile in her voice", she shared her support of our project and offered to participate. Janet also informed me that, in her book, she has an entire chapter that discusses how she became an interpreter.

Those of you who have worked as telephone interpreters know the importance of note-taking. Now, imagine for a second that you could not take notes and had to rely exclusively on your short-term memory, even for the longest segments. Imagine interpreting a 16-digit credit card number without writing it down. Janet can do this effortlessly now, but in her book, she describes how she came to acquire and hone this unique ability.

Janet has kindly offered to allow our project to use excerpts from her book, especially from this chapter, which is very relevant. She and I are both thrilled about the chance of working together again, this time with another common interest - that of communicating with a wider audience, in writing, and sharing information about the interpreting profession with others.

Readers may also be interested to know that Janet is working on a series of novels at the moment, and one of her main characters happens to be an interpreter! As more updates become available about Janet's work, I will be sure to share them here.

Until then, I just want to say that I am very grateful for the opportunity to meet and collaborate with other published authors whose writing and work focus on interpreting, but are accessible to a broad audience. One thing I am finding in common with all of these authors is that we are unanimous in our belief that it is extremely important to give interpreters from all fields a chance to share their perspectives. There is so much great work being done, and there are so many great stories to share.

Valerie Taylor-Bouladon Barnes

I am excited to report that I've been in touch with another author, Valerie Taylor-Bouladon Barnes, former Geneva-based UN interpreter, and the author of A Foreign Affair (published by Random House), who currently resides in Australia. Here are what reviewers had to say about her book:

"Barnes' writing technique, which is heavily dependent on anecdotes and vignettes, is entertaining." - Sydney Morning Herald

"Oh, to have led Valerie Barnes's life. [...] British-born Barnes was 20 when World War II ended and she was looking for adventure. Brilliant at languages - she could speak both French and Spanish fluently [...], a chance meeting and a bit of good luck landed her a short contract at the UN in Geneva as a translator. From there she never looked back." - Vogue

Valerie is also the author of another book, Conference Interpreting, Principles and Practice. She has offered to give our project permission to use as many anecdotes and stories from her books as we would like (giving due recognition to the source, obviously.) You can visit her site by clicking here.

About the author: Valerie Taylor-Bouladon Barnes was born in England but lived most of her life in Switzerland, working for the United Nations in Geneva. She started work there in October 1948 as a trilingual reporter, became a translator (English, French, Spanish and Russian) and then a simultaneous interpreter (English, French and Spanish). She interpreted at UN conferences in India, most of the countries of Africa and Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, China, Korea, Japan, Iran, Kuwait and now Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Rarotonga, New Caledonia and others.

While this post focuses on conference interpreting, since that is the field that Taylor-Bouladon Barnes worked in, I want to again emphasize that the From Our Lips to Your Ears project will include stories from all types of interpreting. All of these stories are important, meaningful and interesting

Half a Century's Worth of Stories

Although it's only been a few days since this project was launched, I have already been very fortunate to receive many phone calls from interpreters interested in sharing their stories. It makes sense to me that, as interpreters, we love to talk about our experiences. After all, in our line of work, it isn't very often that we get to speak our own thoughts.

Today, I received a call from a wonderful man with more than 50 years of experience as a professional interpreter.

I was honored just listening to this gentleman and hoping to soak up some of the radiant wisdom being beamed across the phone line. We discussed our shared appreciation of the fact that, as educators, teachers and/or trainers of interpreters, we are extremely privileged to have learned from those we have taught. I encouraged him to submit his incredibly unique and important perspective in writing. I hope to include stories from new and seasoned interpreters alike, but I am also very interested in honoring some of those veteran interpreters who have seen our field evolve over the years by giving readers a taste of this viewpoint.

After all, it isn't every day that we get to hear from someone who has interpreted for half a century - and has meaningful lessons to share with us as a result of it.