白宫

2021年2月8日

官方声明从希瑟Mewshaw回应媒体报道关于我美国手语解释1月25日在白宫2021作者:2月8日,2021年4:39点格伦·伯尼,2月8日,2021我的角色从注册表的翻译(去掉)认证美国聋人手语(ASL)翻译是促进聋和non-signing政党之间的通信进行有效的、准确的、公正的方式。聋人社区,连同他们的盟友,继续争取权利平等获取信息,公众喜欢没有困难。关于我的解释在白宫。我在那里工作作为一个独立的承包商。我解释五(5)简报的特朗普政府2020年11月和12月。2021年1月25日,我为拜登解释政府在新闻发布会上。新闻发言人Jen Psaki宣布未来所有的日常白宫新闻发布会将有一个美国手语翻译,她甚至把我介绍给世界。这声明是一个巨大的进步的权利聋人社区和称赞。那天我很荣幸解释器。令我惊奇的是,拥有一个非凡的赢得美国手语翻译在每个白宫新闻发布会上已经黯然失色,由少数人没有证据或优点,选择中伤我能力客观和公正,因为我参与一个保守的社会媒体集团。 These unfounded claims about me were picked up by the media and numerous articles were written about this erroneous conclusion. As a child of Deaf parents, abbreviated as CODA in the Deaf community (child of a Deaf adult), I have spent my whole life participating in the fight for the rights of Deaf people to have access to the same information as hearing people. In fact, my first language was ASL as it was my primary form of communication with my parents. As a CODA, I am in-between two worlds, the Deaf and the hearing, and I am in a unique position to unite those two worlds together. Many videos on social media are not interpreted nor captioned. The ability for anyone to upload a video from their devices instantly brings an increased access challenge in this digital age. Groups formed on social media to interpret this video content for the Deaf community, however conservative content was generally not interpreted. Therefore, Michael Thompson, who is Deaf, created Hands of Liberty (HOL), formerly known as Right Side ASL, to fill the gap. HOL is an all-volunteer group, providing ASL access to videos requested by the Deaf community for free. The group has received over 2,000 video requests to date, since its inception in June 2020. The videos requested are of a variety of topics including but not limited to; speeches from the Presidential candidates, White House press briefings, Congressional hearings, television news segments and viral content. These interpreted videos support the Deaf community's right to participate in all aspects of society and the right to informed choice. For me personally, my interpreting of a video requested through HOL does not necessarily equal an endorsement of the content of that video. The mostly negative media coverage of me in recent weeks has been a disservice to the ASL interpreting profession. The message being conveyed is that ASL interpreters must have a certain set of beliefs or values that align completely with the consumers. We must remember that an ASL interpreter is relaying the message of another person and not their own. ASL interpreters are to be respected as objective professionals, irrespective of their own belief systems. There are examples of a double standard when it comes to ASL interpreters who openly identify as liberal activists working at events for conservative figureheads/politicians. These ASL interpreters are lauded by the media and their peers for having the ability to be objective and impartial. However, despite my undisputed professional work on January 25, 2021, I have been targeted and defamed by some in the Deaf community and the media because I worked as a Deaf advocate with HOL. My work as an ASL interpreter has been, is and always will be effective, accurate and impartial. That is a core tenant of my certifications with the RID. My past work, my credentials, my unvarnished reputation, and 21 years of working as an RID certified ASL interpreter speaks for itself. Here are the direct YouTube links to each White House briefing that I interpreted: November 19, 2020: https://youtu.be/AL-lrTAM3QM November 20, 2020: https://youtu.be/qqQD2Q7y-i4 December 2, 2020: https://youtu.be/Kf188yUG8Wk December 8, 2020: https://youtu.be/sP261kvVPYE December 15, 2020: https://youtu.be/Ikgv2mAPtw8 January 25, 2021: https://youtu.be/7tpHT1fKQaU Related Links: https://www.chesapeakeinterpreting.com/ https://www.heathermewshaw.com/