During a practicum block I was given the opportunity to interpret a college course related to photography. It was an introductory course that focused on photography techniques, camera elements, and different styles of photos. It was a class and a topic I am familiar with as I consider myself a bit of a photography enthusiast. During the first class I was interpreting- the students had sent the instructor their favourite pictures of a  model shoot they had done the week before. During this model shoot there were four female models that came in and the class had the opportunity to photograph them in different poses and different light. Three of the models were white and the fourth model was black. If I am being honest, I did not even realize the different races of the models as my mind was purely trying to interpret at that moment, but I digress. There came a time when the instructor was looking at one student’s photograph of one of the models. The model, one of the white women hired for this photo shoot, was on the screen, the picture was very well done and the colours used were a great match for the style of photo the student was trying to capture. The instructor then made a comment that the model’s skin tone looked really good. The meaning behind this was that the model’s skin tone and the colour of light that the student chose in combination with the colour of her outfit all really connected well and meshed the way the instructor wanted to see. What came off my hands was “skin-colour-good”. At the time, in my own brain, it made sense to me, the instructor had mentioned the importance of matching the skin tone and working with the model’s tone to get a clear and beautiful picture. Therefore, what I interpreted made sense to me.

The class went on and finished after 3 hours. After class was finished the three interpreters had a short feedback session where this utterance came up. One of the interpreters asked me what I had signed for that utterance of the skin tone looking really nice in the picture. Then she asked me to look at it through the eyes of the Deaf student, who is also black. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. Telling a person of colour that the skin of a white model is “skin-colour-good” looks terrible. Thankfully the Deaf student has a good knowledge of the topic and likely did not think anything more of it, but it was still a moment where I felt like I was being very unaware of the audience I was working with.

As interpreters we focus so much on being cultural mediators and existing in both the hearing and Deaf world. We understand our power as people who have access to both worlds and have the ability to control interactions. Sometimes, however, and in this case it happened to me, we forget the power we may hold over other minorities and/or marginalized groups. I forgot my place as a white male and the historic oppression that we, as white people, have been a part of for many years. We are asked to act bi-culturally in our interpreting practice but it is important to remember that cultures exist past hearing and Deaf. I had forgotten it in this moment and hope that the lesson I learned will stick with me and keep me from forgetting in my future work and life.

For those who know me they know that sports are an important part of my life. As long as I can remember I have played sports. Of all the sports I have played hockey has long been my favourite sport, the sport I am most passionate about. Therefore, when I found out that there was a Deaf hockey team that was set up in BC I was immediately intrigued. After some research I found that the BC Deaf hockey team – the BC Rockies – were playing against the Hockey Community team in a charity game. Hockey Community is a website that connects hockey players and runs leagues out of Vancouver and all over Canada. I reached out to the charity game organizers and got myself in the game. I had no idea what to expect, but as I laced up for the opposing team – Hockey Community – I couldn’t help but feel excited for a chance to combine two things that I cared about: hockey and the Deaf community. This game was held at the Langley Sportsplex on a Sunday afternoon. The game went well, I honestly cannot remember who won the game but I remember being asked to be the liaison between the Hockey Community team and the BC Rockies on occasion.

After the game finished I went up to one of the BC Rockies players and had a nice long chat with him about the Rockies history, who they play, how often, and who is on the team. I then found out that he lived very close to where I lived and we exchanged information.  He then ended up joining my hockey team and I was able to create a very strong friendship with him.

A little ways down the road he set up a beer league hockey team comprised of almost entirely Deaf hockey players and I was asked to join the team. I ended up playing with this team for roughly 8 months. It gave me the chance to meet a lot of Deaf people in Vancouver who share very similar interests as I do and allowed me to learn about ASL and sports together. As an interpreter student it has given me the role as the person who people come to for sports interpreting questions, a role I have gladly accepted.

Playing on this team also guided me towards working with one of the players as a referee in the same league that we play in. I am extremely glad that I got the chance to be a part of this hockey team. It allowed me to make some strong relationships in the Deaf-sports community and ultimately led to me becoming really good friends with one of the players on the team – so much so that he will be attending my wedding in the fall of 2019.

I have been incredibly lucky while living in BC and while attending Douglas College to have met some pretty amazing and interesting people. One of the most interesting things I got to do was take up the sport of Pickleball. Without going into too much detail, Pickleball is a miniature version of tennis. My partner, the Audiologist, and I met a Deaf man and a female interpreter while living in Coquitlam. On Wednesday nights we would drive over to the local community centre and play Pickleball for a few hours. The social interactions between the four of us was very fun and interesting to say the least. My partner knows a little bit of ASL so she had a chance to practice some of her conversational ASL. I would switch back and forth between ASL and English when I was talking to either my partner or the interpreter, and would occasionally try and speak English to the Deaf man by accident. It took some time to get into the rhythm of things. I tried my best not to intervene when my partner or any other hearing person at the gym who knew little to no ASL would try and communicate with the Deaf individual. It was always one of those reminders that Deaf people live their lives every single day being Deaf and do not have an ASL/English interpreter shadowing them all day. Therefore, more often than not, in social situations I let the situation play out the way it would if I weren’t there. If my partner was playing the game wrong or if she didn’t understand a rule it was a good lesson for her to communicate with her limited ASL and her gestural skills to figure out what the rule actually meant or what the proper technique for hitting the ball is.

I think it is really important for interpreters to sometimes stand back and let mistakes happen. I sometimes forget how uninitiated some hearing people are and how valuable these social interactions are. When a person is “forced” to communicate in a manner in which they are not entirely used to they not only gain a little bit of that skill but are also called into the Deaf person’s culture. I think this is an invaluable experience for people to go through and I try to keep that idea front of mind when I am out with a Deaf person at a Pickleball court, a coffee shop, a hockey game, or a bar. While I don’t mind interpreting a coffee order or a question about where to find the washroom, I also respect the individual’s decision to communicate with someone who uses an entirely different language and brings forth a new culture. Socially challenging situations that pull us into other people’s cultures are a valuable experience and allow people to grow as a whole, so why not let them happen.