2021 Indiana Deaf Educators and Educational Interpreters Conference

Growing up in Puerto Rico I didn’t have interpreters during my entire K-12 experience. The first interpreting service I ever received was when I went to University in Puerto Rico. It was overwhelming at first, but I eventually became comfortable using the interpreting services. During my time at university I only had one interpreter for all of my classes, which were all engineering, math and science courses.
Later, when I moved to San Diego from Puerto Rico, I felt overwhelmed by all of the changes. One major obstacle I faced was learning two new languages- American Sign Language and English. I attended San Diego State University to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, but I struggled communicating with the ASL interpreters at the university. I therefore had to work even harder for my education than I was used to.
I have had positive experiences with interpreters, but I have also had negative experiences with interpreters. I will share videos with the audience to state what is appropriate and inappropriate actions are for each video.
Video #1: A scenario when an ASL interpreter tells me not to interrupt the professor when I have a question.
Video #2: A scenario when an ASL interpreter shows up in the class and interprets for me. She realizes this class is not English, and I have to explain to her that this class is engineering.
Video #3: A scenario when an ASL interpreter signs stress improperly. This class isn’t psychology.
I also will provide a mini activity for the audience. I will pull up a sentence from my engineering textbook and share it with them. I will break the audience into groups and ask them to work together to come up with a way to interpret it. I will give feedback to them and help them to interpret it in the right context. At the end of my presentation, I will provide the engineering terminology in ASL for the audience.