Alicia Monique Wright

ALICIA WRIGHT, University of California – San Diego, La Jolla, California, was awarded a grant in October 2021 to aid resaerch on ‘Identity, Interpreting, and Ideology: Negotiations between Black Deaf signers and hearing American Sign Language ‘ English Interpreters in the US.’ Deaf people of color in the United States have repeatedly called for more racial and gender diversity among hearing interpreters, most of whom are white women. Finding appropriate interpreters for Black Deaf people, specifically, can be challenging due to a lack of widespread understanding of how sociocultural factors affect interpreting interactions. To understand these aforementioned relations, the researcher spent one year in Rochester, New York examining the sociocultural and linguistic relationships between Black Deaf signers and hearing American Sign Language-English interpreters. This hybrid, in-person and remote, project utilized engaged watching and listening, semi-structured interviews, and observations of interpreting encounters. Interviews with deaf signers and interpreters focused on their educational and linguistic journeys, their general experience with interpreting, and how they believe their identities impact deaf client-interpreter interactions. The observational data centers on wider matters related to living in a multilingual society such as issues of language access, language barriers, and how to meet different language needs through community organizing, research, and legal changes. In general, increasing the understanding of how sociocultural and linguistic factors influence deaf client-interpreter interactions will help inform educators who train interpreters and future sign language interpreting research.