Sign Languages Commons^™

Resiliency: Experiences Of African American/Black Sign Language Interpreters., Jordan Satchell, Campbell Mcdermid, Lindsey Totten, Anna Yarborough

Journal of Interpretation

There is a growing body of literature on the experiences of African American/Black sign language interpreters (Carpenter, 2017; West Oyedele, 2015), but still many challenges faced by this community in the field. For example, many experience isolation in their interpreter education programs and later in the field, and they described the programs they attended as White-centric and oppressive (Carpenter, 2017; Cokey & Schafer, 2016; West Oyedele, 2015). To understand their experiences better, a qualitative study was conducted which involved interviewing ten African American/Black interpreters. The findings indicated many barriers in the field, including racism and discrimination in systems of networking. …