Hi welcome back to our channel, ours meaning me and Zach who is not in this
video with me. Anyways I wanted to make a video for all of you who are asking
about my journey in becoming a sign language interpreter, how long it took me
to learn sign language, which I'm gonna answer right now, I'm still learning and
what my process look like, which I still feel like I'm on that journey and I will
always be on that journey. But I'll share with you what I have been through so far
So where should I start, some of you may have watched our first, second video
on how we met. I don't know why I keep feeling like
Zach is right here I'm just used to him being in the video with me but in that
video I talked about my first exposure to sign language I was about five years
old, my neighbor was deaf,
and I asked my mom if she knew any sign language. Fortunately she did, she knew
the alphabet and a few signs like eat and I don't remember what else she knew but she knew
a few basic signs, play maybe, and I remember talking with my neighbor, her
name was Emily and I fingerspelled a lot. She had taught me a few signs here and
there but I mean mostly we just played. We're like five years old we played tag,
hide-and-seek, there wasn't a lot of communication going back and forth but
we had a lot of fun together and that was my first exposure to sign language
and to someone who is deaf and hard of hearing. So remember we moved away when
I was about 7 years old and unfortunately I forgot pretty much
everything I learned. I still kind of knew the alphabet but if I'm being
honest I really didn't remember the alphabet I knew A and BC. I thought
this was D like most people but this is the is D, it was pretty bad. Going into college (I MEAN HIGH SCHOOL)
they offered Sign Language classes and I thought, hey I've heard about sign
language this sounds really cool and I took Spanish in middle school wasn't
that great at it and so I thought wow I'm gonna take sign language this is
gonna be great and I loved it. I didn't learn a lot about the culture but I did
learn a lot about the language and I fell in love with it. So when I was
getting ready to go to college my dad was asking and my mom what I wanted to
do and at that time I thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher I
loved being with kids in the classroom, I loved seeing them develop and grow and
all that stuff but I also really loved sign language. I wanted to still learn
the language be involved in the culture so I was trying to figure out what that
would look like for me in regards to my career choice but I continued studying
to become an elementary school teacher I went to a community college just because
I still wasn't that sure what I wanted to do I thought it would be a safer
route for me. So I went to Long Beach City College near my home and I
re-took American sign language 1 & 2 with my mom. Even though I
learned it in high school I never really practiced it and so I didn't really know
how to use it but thought it would be good plus my mom and they wanted to
learn because I like Zach. So I took sign language again and I started to get
more involved within the Deaf community. There's a school called, California State
University Northridge and they used to have they still have these retreats it's
just a different name it used to be called silent weekend now it's called
the Deaf Studies retreat and so I remember going to that my first year and
it's this weekend getaway with Deaf people, signers, people involved in the Deaf
community and I loved it because at this retreat it's the first time ever where
it's just a group of people involved in the Deaf community, voices are off, you're
not supposed to talk at all. At that time I still don't really know a lot of
sign language so it was really challenging for me. The workshops I went
to were not interpreted so I missed a lot of information but it was such good
exposure for me to be immersed within the Deaf community in the Deaf culture
and I loved it and at that point I knew okay as much as I love children
I love the Deaf community. I love Deaf culture. I want to be involved in
this for the rest of my life. I felt really the way to do that was to become
an interpreter and so coming back from that retreat I spoke with my advisor at
Long Beach City I said okay, I know I wanted to do Liberal Studies but I'm
thinking about changing majors I heard that California State University
Northridge, CSUN, offers an interpreting program I would love to be able to
transfer there one day what do I need to do? So I took the classes I need to
take at Long Beach City, general ed and the more I talked to Deaf people and
other interpreters they all kept saying the same thing, get involved in the Deaf
community, get involved in the Deaf community, get involved in the Deaf
community. I think that's what I'm going to
tell everybody else who's watching this video, get involved in the Deaf community.
I did take, I mean I took a lot of sign language classes... I went to
another Community College El Camino and I took American Sign Language 2
again there they had a different Deaf teacher and I really wanted to be in her
class I heard she was an amazing teacher. I took ASL 3 there. I took Deaf
culture there which was all great and I learned a lot but really being involved
in the Deaf community was the best and that's really again why I wanted to
become an interpreter was to be involved in the Deaf community. So I feel like
that's where I really learned the language, that's where I understood it
that's where I was able to practice it and really just get connected with
people. And that's what I love, I love connecting with other people.
I moved up to Cal State... well I moved up.... this is why I prefer signing because I
stutter a little bit less. haha I moved up to Northridge which is an hour and a half
away from where I live and I actually didn't go to Northridge at first I went
to another Community College, Pierce College and I continued to take ASL 5
there and a few other courses just for a short time before I transferred over to
CSUN.I transfered over to CSUN finally in 2014
yeah 2014, and I applied for their interpreting program. I was so
nervous, obviously we all compare ourselves... and so I'm looking at the other
students who are applying and like wow their signing is so beautiful. I love
their hands like their fingers. It's so weird when you interpret or when you're
involved you just look at people's fingers and you're like wow they sign
so beautiful. We're all a little insecure, maybe not, but I definitely was
and can still be definitely insecure about my signing. So I remember just
being really nervous, I was talking to Zach and my other friends, I applied
super late, I was like I'm not going to get in, there's no point but I'm
really lucky to have people who pushed me and said you can do it, just give it a shot,
believe in yourself. So I did and fortunately enough, I got into the
interpreting program and that's, I mean, I am super grateful for that program.
I feel like that's really where I got to look at the language and dissect it
and figure it out. Then figure out how to interpret it, because
it's one thing to know how to sign and it's a totally other thing to learn how
to interpret because there's so much going on while you're processing
everything while you're taking one language and then putting it into
another language and making sure they're equivalent and makes sense and they
match the consumer it's just it's crazy how much goes on in the brain while
that's happening. I learned so much that I never thought I would learn. It
was, it was intense and amazing and great I loved all of my professors,
Cole, Allisun, Cass, and even all my other professors before that, I mean I
learned so much from them. I'm truly really grateful for all of
them. On top of that being involved in that program and finally being at
CSUN I got more involved within the Deaf community, I went to more Deaf events
Deaf Starbucks. I went to the Deaf Studies retreats and again...
My professors and the Deaf community is really the reason why I'm an
interpreter today. I've really learned so much from them and the Deaf community
has been continuously patient with me and all my errors and you know I'm not
being clear I'm signing too slow or I'm just not making any sense but really
teaching me and correcting me and helping me grow and learn about their
culture and their language and their community and you know it's something
that I really treasure and I'm really grateful for. So for any of you who are
watching who have been involved in my process and
I'm at today I'm really grateful for all of you and all you continue to do for me
and I continue to teach me. Anyways, so I went through that program
which was pretty rigorous but exactly what I needed. Right before graduation
actually a few months, I heard about this program in Utah called VRSII, School
to work, and I decided to apply. I was also again very nervous and insecure,
wondering am I going to get accepted? I'm good enough? This program
focused on is helping graduates transition from being a student and
going into the professional world knowing how to network, knowing how to
use the skills they learned in their field of work, obviously for interpreting
So in this program we focused a lot on medical interpreting, VRS interpreting.
educational interpreting, post-secondary interpreting, a little bit on legal
interpreting, mental health all the different fields, we were able to practice
and have a safe environment with another interpreter in these settings with us
and have the Deaf person be able to give us feedback on our work. Which I think
was so great to be able to have the Deaf person's feedback since that's really
who were working for, for the rest of our lives as well as the hearing people's
who were interpreter for both, both parties but I really loved that program
because I was able to really go deeper into my work and assess my work and put
it into practice and assess it and then put it back into practice again and
improve within each time. So after that program, I applied at Sorenson, that
program is actually through Sorensen it's like this internship and so I had a
little taste of what that looks like working in VRS setting. I applied for
Sorensen and I also applied to work at CSUN and since then I've been working at
both places for the past two years and I absolutely love both of my jobs. I
definitely feel like I'm still on my journey,
just like we've taken English classes you know elementary through college we
had to take English, the reason is because English is always changing
language is always changing. So I don't feel like my journey will ever end
I'll always be constantly learning new things, learning new lingo,
learning new slang, continuing to develop myself as a
professional but anyways I hope this helped you if you have any other
questions feel free to leave it in the comment send us some messages on
Instagram if you're a little bit more personal and yeah I think if I you know
have any advice again it's to get involved in the Deaf community, don't
compare yourself but compare yourself at the same time like don't compare
yourself and say that oh I suck, I can't do it, I'm not good enough, but think wow,
like okay that person has strengths that I don't have, I want to learn that, how
can I learn from them. And I have strengths that that person may not have
how can I help them as well rather than just comparing and feeling defeated and
discouraged, continue to work on it, don't give up, get involved in the community
ask questions, ask for help, and just be humble, always. Always be humble in your
process in becoming an interpreter and being a human it's just, you can't go
wrong with being humble. So again for any of you who are watching this video who
have been a part of my process I want to say thank you again because without you
I wouldn't be where I am in my profession today but I hope this video
was helpful.
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