National Federation of the Blind
Live the Life You Want
ANIL LEWIS: Hi, my name is Anil Lewis. I’m the Executive Director of Blindness Initiatives for the National Federation of the Blind, the most transformative membership organization of blind Americans.
The unemployment rate of blind Americans has hovered around 70% for decades. The root remains the fears and misconceptions that people have around the capacity of blind people. And the lack of knowledge around the tools that blind people use to be competitive every day.
Through this series, we will be educating blind job seekers and employers about the variety of different careers that blind people are actively pursuing today. And the tools and strategies they use to be competitive on the job. We are hoping that this will help put a dent in the unemployment rate and create greater opportunities for blind people.
So let’s take a look at Where the Blind work.
NIKKI: We will go ahead and get started. The National Federation of the Blind advances the lives of its members and all blind people in the United States. Blindness is not the characteristic is that defines you or your future. Every day we work to raise expectations.
Low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams.
Our collective power achieves aspirations. I would like to welcome you to the Where the Blind Work webinar. Tonight, we are going to highlight professionals working in the field of Braille transcription and language interpretation. My name is Nikki Jackson.
I work as the Employment Program Coordinator for the NFB.
And I'm super excited to be with you all tonight.
So a few things before we get started. We ask that everyone please remain on mute as our presenters are sharing about their careers, and about themselves with us this evening. We will definitely take some time for questions and answers towards the end of our webinar.
If it happens that we do not have an opportunity to answer your questions, we will share contact information at the end so you can get those burning questions that you need answers to.
And we'll be sure to contact you after the webinar.
Also, I would like to introduce a wonderful person who serves on our employment committee and is a longtime Federationist, Ms. Jennifer Wenzel, serving as our Zoom host this evening. Thank you so much for being here and being a part of this event.
The final thing is, as our webinar is ending, we encourage you to take our survey. This is how we work to improve all of our programming here at the National Federation of the Blind.
So if you would please take a few moments once the Zoom has ended to complete the survey that will appear on your phone, or your tablet, or your computer screen.
So with that being said, let's go ahead and move over to introducing our wonderful, fabulous panelists this evening. So we have three people here who are ready to share about the wonderful work that they are doing in the areas of Braille transcription and language interpretation.
And -- I accidentally muted myself. (Laughing)
So our first panelist -- Let me get to our panelists.
Okay. Here we go.
So our first panelist actually works here at the National Federation of the Blind.
And they work as the Director of Braille Advancement. Hailing from Minnesota, snowy Minnesota. (Laughing) I guess I could say that about most of the country now, because everyone's experiencing a little snow. I'm sure she's more used to it than some of us.
But I would like to give a warm welcome to Jennifer Dunnam.
JENNIFER D.: Good evening, Nikki, and everybody. Am I coming through okay?
NIKKI: You are.
JENNIFER D.: Great. It's really an honor to be with everybody. I think probably most of the country has more snow than Minnesota does right about now. I hope everybody's enjoying the winter wonderland.
I'm going -- I've worked in a variety of jobs. Braille transcribing is the focus tonight.
But I want to give a little bit of context on the winding path on how I got into this field. Bear with me for a few minutes, and then I will circle back to working as a transcriber and how that works.
So I will start by saying I had a lot of opportunities. I'm very fortunate and grateful for the opportunities I've had. But so much of a person's success about what we do with the opportunities that we have.
So whatever a person has access to, the best we make of it is a good thing.
I was born totally blind.
And I went to public school. There was never any question about my reading method.
And that was going to be Braille. In a lot of ways, that was a blessing. For the first three years of my school I was in a self contained classroom where it was part of the public school, but it was a classroom where blind and low vision kids were. And we learned the skills that we need. I was able to get a good foundation in reading and writing. No one ever said to me, Braille is slow.
Braille is hard. Poor thing, you have to learn Braille. It was always, here's how you're going to read.
By the end of second grade, I had finished the learning part and I just needed to build up speed and fluency. Starting in third grade, I was completely mainstreamed and went to a school that was a little closer to home and nobody else used Braille for the most part. And luckily, I had someone in the school that was a Braille transcriber.
So I had access to the Braille that I needed throughout my school. For a little while, the transcriber was my mother, which was not very lucky for me. Whenever I got in trouble, she was one of the first people to find out, because she had relationships with my teachers. That didn't last throughout school.
So the point is I had whatever I needed in Braille, which was helpful. I also learned skills like typing. This was before computers. And typing was clearly very important in order for me to get my work in a format that the teachers could read and grade.
People talked a lot to me about, you know, think about what you're going to do when you grow up. How are you going to handle this when you're an adult and you have kids? That was always in my mind. Fast forwarding to college, I had found out I had a facility with learning languages and I was very interested in doing that.
I was going for a career as a language interpreter, like some of these other folks that are going to be talking with us this evening. I had a double major in French and Spanish. I studied German and Russian as well. I was also -- took time off during college to go to one of our NFB training centers to make sure I had skills I needed like cane travel, to get around where I wanted to go.
By the time it came time for some study abroad opportunities, I was ready for that. I knew I could get where I needed to go, read what I needed to read, advocate for the things that I needed.
So during college, I spent a couple weeks in Germany. I studied for a month in France one year. And for a month in Russia one year as well.
And I won't go into details about those experiences. I did put an article in a Braille monitor in the early '90s. But then school was over.
And I knew there was a lot of school left if I wanted to be an interpreter. Because of a variety of life circumstances I didn't pursue that right away. The first thing I did when school was over is I went back home with my parents for a few months.
And that was one of the scariest things ever, to think about what am I going to do? It's time to know.
So I looked at a variety of jobs among cleaning my parents house and things like that. I looked at a variety of them.
And if we have time at the end I can come back and tell you about one particularly embarrassing cringe job interview I did, but did not get that gig. But ultimately, about five or six months later I had learned of a job for a Braille instructor. It was across the country. I was living in the South. Was going to move north.
That's something. It's at least getting away from home.
I knew the importance of rehabilitation and how important that was when it's done right. I applied for that position and got it and worked for four years teaching Braille. It was a good work experience. It was important about learning how to work with all different types of people.
I also ran some of the summer programs there as well. I got some leadership experience.
But I really hadn't wanted a career in rehabilitation.
And so it so happened that when I was at a chapter meeting one month, an NFB chapter meeting, I happened to be paying good attention and heard a very brief announcement for an opening at the University of Minnesota for someone to coordinate the transcription of materials in Braille there.
I thought, I could do that! I know about Braille translation software. I had been working on certification as a Braille transcriber like the course my mother took. I applied for that position at the U and got it. And worked there for about ten years.
When I started there, I was a part time worker doing Braille and by the time the position was over I had I think about five -- full time staff and 30 student workers working in my department. I was able to work through some levels there to get more work experience.
The next job I got, though, was because I was at an NFB convention, the national convention and happened to be paying attention during the very brief moment when it was announced from the stage that they were looking for someone to lead the contract for Braille transcribing certification program, to run that program.
So in the right place at the right time, paying attention. I applied for that job, got it, and have been doing that for 18 years. That job doesn't involve too much direct transcribing, but it certainly does involve training and work with transcribers.
At the U, my transcribing job, what it was like day to day was a lot of attention to detail, scanning, typing, working with readers. And my goal was always to make sure that the person who needed that Braille was getting a complete, accurate, and timely transcription of the document that they needed.
And that's really just so much the key about that job. Is that it's about the end user and about what they need to make sure that you can get it for them. I feel like I'm going on and on a bit. I do want to take a few minutes to talk about some of the misconceptions that happen about the field of Braille transcribing. One is -- I have a feeling this audience will not have this misconception.
A lot of people think that Braille is a language. Braille is not a language in and of itself. It's a way to write whatever language you want to write. There's hundreds of languages.
Those six dots are used to do most all of those languages. If you need to write about ice skating in English, whether it's in print or Braille if it's English people you're writing for.
Other misconceptions -- this may be a little bit of a more harsh one, but it's an important reality, is that a lot of people may think as a blind person if I am fluent in Braille in reading and writing Braille, that's all it takes to become a good transcriber of Braille. The important thing to remember is that you need a lot of other things as well.
Paying attention to detail, really being able to focus on a project, and having tools to access the print. Again, the goal is to be focusing on the end user and what they need in transcribing. And for me, I can't see the print, but I have technology to access it and I work with human readers, because the technology in and of itself is not going to be necessarily 100% reliable, although it's a tool that will help speed up the work of doing transcribing.
There's more I could say, but I will stop for now, Nikki, unless you had other things you wanted me to talk about right now.
NIKKI: Thank you, Jennifer. We will definitely get to some questions for you.
But we will go ahead and move to our next panelist. So this next panelist hails from Texas.
And they are currently working as a Medical Interpreter for a company known as Globo.
So everyone, please give a warm virtual welcome to Jose Marquez.
JOSE: Good evening, everybody. Can you guys hear me?
NIKKI: Yes, we can hear you.
JOSE: Wonderful. Thanks, everybody, for joining us tonight. I appreciate you guys giving up time from your evening to listen to this evening. I hope that you guys learn something from our presentation.
And I'll be glad. And I know that the other panelists will be happy to answer any follow-up questions.
Well, I am from Houston, Texas. I'm currently employed as a medical interpreter with Globo. I am a remote worker of a contract medical interpreter.
So basically what I do is I set my own work schedule. I determine the amount of work that I want to do. So basically, like an Uber driver or Door Dash worker. I set my own schedule. I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I'm Mexican American.
I guess growing up you can say that I was always being trained to be an interpreter without realizing it. Since I was the second oldest child of seven, my mother, who didn't speak any English at all, would rely on me to interpret conversations for her over the phone when she wanted to call the light company, when she wanted to call the doctor. She'd always drag me by the phone. Could you help me out? Help me interpret this conversation into English.
Because I grew up in a Spanish speaking home.
And the rule in our home was that you speak Spanish at home, and you speak English at school.
So that is what really helped me develop my bilingual skills. I also watched a lot of -- back in the day we didn't have cable. I watched a lot of public television. The public channel, Channel 8 in Houston, Sesame Street.
They're big on the alphabet. So I learned how to speak English that way. So by the time I was in elementary school, third, fourth, fifth grade, I was pretty fluent in both languages. So I was the child that my mom relied on the most to help her interpret conversation.
I was mainstreamed. I went to classes with all the other sighted students, sighted kids. At one point in my school career, I wanted to be a lawyer. So I went to a magnet high school to become a lawyer.
But after I went to that high school for four years, I quickly learned I did not want to be a lawyer. I was too soft. I was too weak. I could just imagine myself, never mind, judge. I didn't mean to say that.
So it just wasn't a fit for me. So I went to college. I went to Texas A&M University. I received my Bachelor of Arts in international study, class of 2006. I did an international study abroad experience in Costa Rica for a summer.
That was very exciting. I almost didn't have the opportunity, because once the university found out that I was blind, they were actually willing to waive that requirement for me. They called me up one day and told me, Mr. Marquez, we see that it's a requirement for you to go study abroad, but we can waive that for you due to your blindness.
You can do something in Texas. I'm like no, thank you. I want to do this, because this is something that you never forget. This will help me grow. And it did.
So I did that. I worked at the National Bank of Costa Rica. I graduated in 2006. Afterwards, I moved back home with my parents trying to figure out what am I going to do.
I did give myself like six months off from studying, from looking for a job. I gave myself half a year off to unwind and figure out what I wanted to do. I first applied for a health and life insurance job. I got my license to sell health and life insurance policies in Texas.
Realized that I was not a very good salesman. I only did that for about nine months. It was straight commission and I was not going to make a living off of myself, I can admit to that.
Afterwards, I did apply to a position that was up in my area of study. I was a representative for an international warehouse company and we promoted warehouse products to the Mexican market. We -- I did that for about six months. We were doing pretty well until the economy went belly up in 2008. Since I was one of the new guys, they laid me off.
And that job was really helpful for me to expand even more my bilingual skills, because the owner didn't speak any Spanish.
So he needed a bilingual representative to make contacts in Mexico.
And that was really exciting, getting to talk to people in Mexico, promoting our products and our services. But it just didn't work out in the end for me.
So after that, I was just kind of, what do I do now?
So I basically just told all my friends and family, I'm unemployed and I'm looking for a job. If you hear something, you see something, please send it my way. Thankfully, a good friend of mine, Hilda Hernandez, also from Texas, told me about an interpreting position with a company called Language Line Solutions.
And at first I was dumbfounded. I'm like Hilda, I don't know a thing about interpreting. What am I going to do? I don't know anything about interpreting.
She convinced me. She told me you took Spanish in college and high school. You did international studies in Costa Rica. You should have enough professional experience.
I went for it and I got the position! It was basically customer service interpreting, which is the hardest type of interpreting there is. I did that for a couple of years.
And I backed out. I took some time off because I still wanted to pursue another field of employment. I wanted to be a business owner. That's when I took time off to do the Business Enterprise of Texas, the vending program and the cafeteria program in Texas.
I did that.
And I realized this is not for me. And thankfully, when I was there at the Chris Cole Center in Texas, I had a really good (inaudible) and he asked me Jose, what would you do? I told him, I guess I'm going to go back to interpreting. He told me, is there anything you can specialize in?
We did research and found out that medical interpreting is a specialty. He convinced me to get certified. At first it sounded very daunting, but I'm glad I did it and I passed the exam. And ever since then in 2014, I became a certified medical interpreter with the certification commission for healthcare interpreters, the national organization for certifying medical interpreters.
And I've been doing that for ten years as a certified medical interpreter. I've worked for about three different interpreting companies and one hospital.
So currently I'm with Globo. I've been with Globo for six years. I love it because I get to work from home. I get to make my own schedule.
I don't have to ask for permission to get time off. You do have to be very disciplined. You have to be very organized with your time. There is a lot of responsibility involved.
I can go more into detail about that later on.
But it definitely takes a lot of work out of you.
But I really enjoy it.
And I really enjoy what I'm doing, because I get to help people who otherwise would not have the assistance that they need.
NIKKI: Awesome. Thank you so much, Jose.
All right. And we will definitely have an opportunity to ask Jose some questions.
So let's move on to our final panelist. So this individual hails from New York. They currently work as a legal interpreter for their own company.
So they are an entrepreneur. Their company is called Clear Speak Interpreting. So everyone, please give a warm welcome to Richard Fernandez.
RICHARD: Hello, everyone. My name is Richard Fernandez. I was born and raised in New York. First generation born parents from the Dominican Republic.
At home, we only spoke Spanish. I have two older brothers. I'm the youngest of three. And I always thought it was disrespectful to speak English in the home, being that Mom spoke Spanish.
She wanted me to teach her, I just didn't have the know how on how to speak English to her. It didn't come natural to me. I went to junior high school. I wanted to be a guitar teacher and player in junior high school.
When I got to high school, state agency turned me down. They said they don't have any blind music teachers.
So I turned away from the system and became a vendor, a BEP vendor. Had a stand in the Queens motor vehicle. Then I had a new stand in Harlem.
And then I moved to Albany where I had a quarter of a million dollar a year business selling lottery and had employees, vending machines throughout the state capitol. When session was in, I had to restock 12 vending machines.
Sold newspapers. Had about three or 4,000 dollars a month in newspaper accounts. The governor alone was about 300 dollars a week. All kind of newspapers from New York, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA.
And then 9/11 hit. The security in the Capitol Building changed. People couldn't walk in from one end to the other, going underground, since it's really cold.
That stopped. They didn't want to go through metal detectors. So I gave up my job. I was jobless for a year. I knew a friend in the city.
And he says, listen. Would you like to consider being an interpreter? I interpreted for my mother for years.
My mother used to say when I interpreted, people would stare because I spoke both languages without an accent.
So you know, I admired that about myself. And then, after about seven months later, when I didn't have a job, a friend of mine said, Bellevue Hospital is testing for medical interpreter. So I went. I tried. I passed. I was in.
I did a three month crash course training in Bellevue Hospital in New York. Learned a glossary frontwards and backwards and became a remote simultaneous interpreter, interpreting in survivor of torture, psychiatric interviews, primary care interviews, any type of medical setting that you can think of, I was in.
I started working from home to make extra money. I love money.
And so I was doing -- working for the company that Jose said he worked for. At first I worked for Teleinterpreters California. Then it was Pacific Interpreters in Oregon. Then it was Language Line. Moved to Florida.
And I didn't -- Worked in Bellevue for 3 1/2 years. Moved to Florida. And didn't want to work from home anymore. I did it for a couple years. So I went to Florida International University, and did a two year certification program for medical interpreting and legal interpreting.
And I passed.
And I took the written test for legal interpreting. All along doing medical interpreting from home.
And passed the written test.
And I did an internship at the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, in Miami. They let me in provisionally appointed with the caveat that I pass the oral test. First time I took the oral test I didn't pass.
Second time I took it I passed. There are three modes of interpreting -- consecutive, where the English speaker will say a few words, a few sentences, you have to memorize the sentences.
You can write them down or whatever.
And then you interpret them into Spanish. And there's also simultaneous where you interpret at the same time into the other language. You may lag a little bit. They call that decollage.
And side translation. At the time, side translation wasn't a thing for me because I don't see well. I'm legally blind, of course.
So I passed the test. Worked for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court for 14 years. While I was working for them on the side, which I should not have been doing, I was doing depos for attorneys over Zoom.
And then I left the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in July of 2023, opened my own business, Clear Speak Interpreting.
Did depos in person and remote simultaneous -- and remote depositions as well. And then I started getting hired by lawyers in the courts in Miami, charging like 125 an hour. So if you do an eight hour trial, you can imagine how good that is.
And the trials usually last three or four days. I really got a lot of connections in Miami, but I got tired with Miami weather after living there for 14 15 years. I decided to move back to New York. Started working for the Supreme Criminal Court in Manhattan as a per diem, as a vendor, while doing depos at the same time.
And they finally picked me up provisionally appointed. I just took the written test. I have to take the oral test because here they're civil service employees. Still have my business.
Thinking about maybe going back to doing my business. You work all day. You can make a lot of money.
You don't have insurance. You don't have retirement. You don't have a 401(k).
But with the money that you make, you can get your own insurance, and start up or continue with a 401(k) that I contributed to.
That's about it. I mean, I think that if anyone here wants to be an interpreter, you definitely -- if you're a legal interpreter you definitely have to wear a suit every day. When they confuse you with an attorney and they say, counsel, what are you here for, that's when you know you're dressing sharp and doing your job.
Out of the three modes of interpreting, I like consecutive. I love doing trials. I love public speaking. I think it comes from being a musician.
And there's nothing -- -- there's nothing that satisfies a person more, I think, than being complimented on the job you do. I think it was Martin Luther King that said you can be a street sweeper, but if you're the best at your job, it will show and people will compliment you.
And not to brag, but as an interpreter, I do get many compliments. Not too many blind interpreters who are out in the field.
But I go in with the confidence where I say, yeah. I may be blind, but, you know, give me a shot. And I'm going to do great.
And that's the way it always turns out. And interpreting, sometimes you have an assignment and if you can't handle it because you don't know the jargon, you back out. I did that once in New York. I don't know international finance. I know legal, medical, car parts because when you do depositions you have to know a lot about a lot of things.
A lot of depositions are about construction workers getting injured, civil depositions, car accidents, etc., houses, roofs.
I fancy myself knowing that stuff because when I was growing up, my mother owned a seamstress shop. She had women from all over Latin America. I know the different colloquialisms; I can imitate accents. You don't do that when you interpret, but I fall into it.
That's about all I have to say about myself and my job. It's a great job. If you want to be an interpreter. If anybody has any questions and we don't have time, please shoot me an email and I'd be more than happy to help you any way I can. Thank you.
NIKKI: Thank you so much, Richard. So I have some questions for you all.
So you all gave such great detail about what you do overall, what your job looks like.
But let's talk more about that in detail. Can you give us, the audience, a typical day? What does a typical day for you look like?
What are your responsibilities? What are your duties? What do you do from day to day? And anyone can answer. You all don't have to go in any particular order.
RICHARD: I get up in the morning, go into work. And assignments come in different courtrooms. They call them parts. They call.
I can do anything from an arraignment, that's where someone's been arrested, and they're going to go over their charges, and obviously they're going to plead not because their attorney tells them not to plead guilty because he hasn't seen all the evidence, he or she hasn't seen all the evidence yet.
Then they have a motion schedule where the public defender or a lawyer will put motions up based on the evidence that he or she has received.
And then they give you another date for the state attorney to give their response to the public defender's motions.
And then they set a date. During that date they present an offer, or before that date they'll present an offer to the defendant to either accept the offer and close the case, and he'll be sentenced or she'll be sentenced, or they go to trial.
If they go to trial, from the moment that trial is started, I'm in the process interpreting everything to the defendant. All the questions that they ask the jurors. After they pick -- while they're picking the jury, I'm interpreting everything to the defendant. When the trial begins, I interpret the open arguments, opening arguments.
All questions, if there are Spanish witnesses, I get up and I interpret for the witnesses while at the same time interpreting to the defendant with equipment.
And I do the closing arguments. And when they read the verdict, the president of the jury, I interpret that. And sentencing, if I get lucky, they call them back and I'm sitting in on the sentence. If there's an impact statement, I've interpreted in murder cases.
And the family wants to let the judge know how they've been affected, how this crime has impacted them.
I have to interpret that. And you really have to be tough, because they really get into it.
And I've seen people tear up. You're not supposed to. And so that's what I do. Sorry for speaking so long.
(Chuckling)
JOSE: Wow, Rich. Like an episode of Law and Order.
(Laughter)
JOSE: My day -- I get up every morning. Even though I don't go out in public, I follow a routine. I get up, get ready, get dressed, have breakfast, wash up, clean up, and everything.
And I log into a website with my credentials. And I start taking calls through the internet.
Now, the nice thing about my job is that I can work from anywhere in the world as long as I have a Wi-Fi connection.
I've done it from Mexico, from France, all over the U.S. So I take my laptop with me, log in wherever I'm at and I can do that.
And I take a plethora of calls, whether it's hospitals, clinics, health insurance companies, automobile insurance companies.
I do a lot of workers comp.
So basically it's someone who's going to a doctor's office for a regular checkup. A woman giving birth. Somebody getting colonoscopy instructions or doing a workers comp claim because they had an accident at work. I handle all those type of conversations.
I interpret for calls from all over the U.S. Sometimes we do international calls. We have to call to Mexico, the Caribbean, Spain, or South America. Basically, from 9:00 to 5:00. I pick my breaks throughout the day.
You have to really know how to pace yourself, because it can get very overwhelming. Like Rich said, there are intense situations. I've had to interpret conversations for children who were physically and sexually abused, women who have been raped, people who are suicidal.
So you always have to keep that professional composure. You can't break down. You have to keep that professional barrier there.
So it's really exciting. I've learned a lot about medicine, about the medical field. Sometimes I feel like a doctor, but when I get my paycheck I'm like no, I'm not a doctor.
But the pay is decent. Not as much as a courtroom interpreter, but it is decent. I don't have any benefits because I'm a contract interpreter. So I have Medicare.
And then I invest in an ABLE account and a Roth IRA. You have to get creative and set aside a rainy day fund so when you're not working you have something to fall back on.
It's a field where you have to be organized. You have to know where to put your money. When I get paid, my taxes are not taken out. I pay them on April 15.
You have to be organized with your money and not blow the entire check off when you get it. So you have to work with other professionals.
I have an accountant who helps me with my expenses and helps me organize them. And I have percentages that I withdraw. This is for my savings, this is for retirement, this is for a rainy day. Whenever I know I'm going to be off for a few hours, or a few days, I make up for it on other days.
I work later into the evening. Or I might work on a Saturday to make up the time difference.
JENNIFER D.: I can probably be a little more brief. A lot of what has just been said applies to transcribers. Most transcribers work as independent transcribers. Some may work within a school system, or be like me when I was transcribing and work at a university system.
But a lot of folks are independent contractors and need that discipline, organization, planning, etc. One of the biggest challenges for Braille transcribers is that things don't always come in with enough time to do it at a reasonable pace. Sometimes that child needs this test transcribed within a couple of hours, or tomorrow.
So you might stay up all night to do it. Whenever possible, having relationships with the people that are making those decisions about timing just so they know, hey, we're here. Please remember that you need to plan ahead.
But that's not always possible.
So just really pacing one self. -- Being able to prioritize the projects you have going on. At the U, you'd come in in the morning and have a whole list. Here's what I've got on the docket for today. Something new and pressing would come in.
You just have to be able to juggle those multiple priorities and be as planful as possible. But a transcriber's job is not as much out in the public, either. It's a lot of typing, reading, sitting at one's desk.
So taking those breaks and planning one's day is very important as well.
NIKKI: Thank you all for that. I have a question to follow up from the first question. What are some of the tools and technology that you use to assist you with your work?
JOSE: I use a Windows laptop computer. I use Fusion, because as an interpreter, you take a lot of notes, unless you have an outstanding, incredible memory. Obviously, you're not going to write down everything you hear. It's impossible.
So you have to have good listening skills. So I use Fusion. I use magnification somewhat, but my vision is getting worse, so I'm relying less and less on magnification.
But I take notes on Notepad. And basically, whenever I'm listening to the conversation, I'm typing out my notes. Wherever I need to relay that I listen to them quickly through JAWS and it guides me on how I'm going to present the information that was expressed in either language.
So I don't use a lot of technology. We do use a website that we have to log into. Some aspects of the website are actually inaccessible.
And that's a major issue I'm having with my employer right now. I actually had to file a federal complaint against my employer.
And that's a whole other issue for another day. Luckily, that was enough to get them to the table. We've been in discussions. They're actively working on trying to get that resolved.
JENNIFER D.: As a Braille transcriber who's blind, I use a variety of tools. Most transcribers use translation software, which is if a document is already in electronic format in some form, you can import it into that software, do a Braille translation, and then fix it.
Because there's going to be things that need to be manipulated, whether it's adding descriptions of pictures, or changing headings so that it's easier to navigate through the document when the end user is using it.
So we'll use that translation software as a tool and then to make it go faster, and then we fix it.
I use a refreshable Braille display so that I can feel what's on the screen. I use JAWS in conjunction with that and other speech programs as well to drive that Braille display so I can really check all the details and make sure it's accurate.
I also use an older piece of technology which is called an Opticon. If there's something in print, a strange symbol, I will print out the document or a page of the document and can feel it with this old piece of technology that allows you to -- there's a camera to it.
And you run the camera along the lines. And it presents a raised tactile version of it. It's called an Opticon. You can probably look it up on YouTube. It's not made anymore, but it's helpful to me.
I use human readers quite a bit. There's no way to read a picture with an Opticon. And if I want to be a transcriber, I need to have ways of providing all the info for the end user.
So I'm going to use human readers at times as well.
RICHARD: I use a Braille note taker for numbers, names, addresses. Those are things that come in your -- they go into your -- one side of your head and it comes out the other. One ear and out the other, excuse me.
I use an iPad for glossaries. My iPhone for glossaries. I use a digital recorder sometimes when testimony is long. You can ask permission to record the testimony and then basically you're hearing it back and you're interpreting, so that's kind of consecutive interpreting.
Yeah. That's about all I use. Yes.
NIKKI: Thank you for that. So Jennifer, earlier you mentioned that during your introduction, you mentioned that sometimes people will have the idea that oh, I know Braille, so I can go into the field of Braille as a transcriber.
So my question to all of you is, what are some of the common misconceptions about your profession?
RICHARD: Go, Jennifer. Ladies first.
JENNIFER D.: And my screen reader is also speaking to me, too.
(Laughter)
JENNIFER D.: So I talked about Braille as a language. Talked about all you have to do is know Braille.
Another one is, which -- another one is that -- well, the Braille translation software makes Braille transcribing obsolete, because just import the document and spit it out from the Braille translation. No, a transcriber not only makes sure the content is right, but that the format is right.
There was a really excellent article in the Braille Monitor not too long ago from a person who was in law school and needed to know what page numbers were in her book. The transcriber has to make sure that if there's page numbers in the print book, the Braille user has that information.
If there are diagrams and charts that you've got to be able to make those available and really know Braille and know if it's correct and be able to check what you've got.
RICHARD: I get this all the time where someone may speak Spanish. You'll get an attorney who learned Spanish in college, or maybe perhaps has a friend, or significant other who speaks Spanish.
And they think that they can speak it.
I remember when I was working in the capitol. I made fun of someone for being an interpreter, only because I spoke the two languages and I didn't know the intricacies of what an interpreter really does.
So when I became an interpreter, I really thought back on that -- the time that I laughed at that person and really felt bad.
And always wanted to meet that person to apologize to her, because it was not right to mock someone when they say that they're a professional interpreter. A lot goes into it. I don't allow an attorney to speak Spanish to their client. If you speak -- if you think you speak Spanish, I'm out. You're wasting my time and your client's time.
They need to know everything that's going on. Their rights are at stake. Their liberty is at stake.
So let me do my job.
Also, another thing, going back to tools that I use, now that they have applications that can read a document on the phone, I would take a picture and sight read the document.
So after I take the picture I put an earphone, a headphone up to my ear. An Air Pod. And I read -- as the VoiceOver is reading it in one language, I'm interpreting into another language.
Now they have these Meta glasses where you look at a document and have it take a picture. I did that in court the other day, and that helped. That was really good. So sight translations have advanced for the visually impaired as well.
JOSE: One big misconception is -- I think Rich touched on this earlier -- just because you're bilingual, you can be an interpreter. And thinking of being an interpreter, it's not like an easy job. Some people say wow, that sounds awesome.
And it sounds easy. It maybe looks easy. But it really isn't. I really want you guys to take a step back. Imagine how many dialects there is of English. You've got Australian. You've got England.
You've got Canadian. And then inside the U.S. you have different areas where they speak different colloquialisms.
So you have to listen to all of those forms of speech. And an English person will come up to you, do you want to hang out in my flat? If that's the first time you hear that you're thinking, what in the world did this person just tell me? Flat in England is an apartment.
So those are things that we are exposed to. When you really get behind the detail, it's not as easy as it seems. Like what Jennifer said. Just because you know Braille doesn't mean that you're going to be a great transcriber.
Just because you're bilingual doesn't mean you're going to be a great interpreter. Another thing that I really want to point out -- an interpreter and a translator are two different things. People will call me translator all the time. Or they even make up words. They call me the interpretator.
A translator does text translation. I'm pretty sure, this is very common in the legal field.
Somebody will give a statement.
And they need -- it's in Spanish. That need that to be translated into English. That's what a translator will do. They sit behind a computer and translate it into English or whatever language.
I'm an interpreter. I do the oral interpreting. So I will interpret a conversation. So those are two major differences. Please, so that next time that when you're at a business, or your employer tells you, John, I need a translator, verify with them, do you need someone to translate a document?
No, I need someone to interpret a conversation. That's an interpreter. I even see this on TV all the time where they get these two mixed up.
So I would say those are the two biggest misconceptions out there about the interpreting field, that it's really easy. It really isn't, because you've really got to train your ear to listen to a lot of different dialects.
And sometimes people talk differently. My Caribbean friends are known for talking really fast Spanish.
They talk at a thousand miles per hour. For Mexicans, we're kind of more slow when we talk. So it was really hard for me in the beginning to interpret for Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans because their Spanish is a lot faster. They have different words for different things.
But thankfully over the years, I've gotten more used to it.
RICHARD: I want to add that if you want to be an interpreter, make sure you have a good command of both languages. Register is everything. You can be interpreting for a super educated individual and you have to adhere to that register of the language. Or you can interpret for someone who's from the streets, who never really had a good education.
You have to be able to dumb the English down or the Spanish down to where you're using the equivalent or a lot -- very similar to the equivalent in the other language. That's where Jose says that in Texas, they say mueble which is furniture to me, but they mean a car.
So you know. Some people do that. And many other words.
So if you want to get into interpreting, be sure that you have your colloquialisms down, idioms. He's on the lamb, rowing up the creek without a paddle, so you know how to interpret it into the opposite language, because they're used a lot in court sometimes.
NIKKI: Thank you all for that. So really quickly, because we are running out of time, and this is really interesting. I wish this was a little longer.
But I would like to take at least one question from our audience. And then we will close. Oh, we already have a hand raised. Can you . . .
>> I have a question for Jennifer, the Braille transcriber. I was planning on being a Braille transcriber. I could maybe take a picture of the book with my camera and with my computer attach it to my 120 printer and Braille print it out. Can I do that, just take a picture the piece of paper?
JENNIFER D.: That's a great question. Those tools can help, but OCR technology it's like any technology. It's going to get you part of the way there. A lot of the way there.
But you're going to have to have a way to know what all the punctuation is. If it left out a comma, or if there was a picture on the page that it doesn't describe, you have to have a way to do that. It's very important to have a lot of tools in the toolbox.
I do use scanning technology, but I also need to have other ways to verify that what came out of that scanner is correct. It's not about my access. It's about making sure the person I'm Brailling for is getting all the info they need.
SPEAKER: You don't just use one camera.
JENNIFER D.: I use -- I'm going to use not just the scanner, not just the camera, but I'm going -- if it's a long document, I take the time and do everything that I can and use my skills as a Braille transcriber.
But I'm going to use whether it be Ira, a human reader that I have that comes from time to time to just make sure, was there a picture on here, did I get the paragraphs in the right spot, did I get the headings right.
The person doesn't do the work. Most of the time is spent by me doing that work.
But it's important to verify.
SPEAKER: Braille transcriber.
NIKKI: Thank you for question. Really quickly, for our panelists -- I'm sorry. We really don't have any more time for questions.
But, I would like to offer two things. One, our panelists, if they're willing to provide contact information so that if you all have questions, you all can reach out to them to ask questions and learn more about transcribing and interpreting.
And two, I wanted to give you all an opportunity to say some closing remarks. But before I give our panelists the opportunity, I want to remind all of our participants to please, if you have a few moments after we're done to complete our survey. We really appreciate your feedback.
And we want to hear about some of the topics that you're interested in learning more about.
So please, please complete that survey when we're done.
So anyone can start. If you all would like to share how our audience can get in touch with you beyond the webinar, if they have any additional questions?
RICHARD: Sure. I'll start. You can reach me at [email protected]. Shoot me an email. If you want to talk, I'll give you my number. If you need any help with anything as far as interpreting goes, I'll be here for you.
And willing to help.
JOSE: I'll go next. Go ahead, Jennifer.
(Laughter)
JENNIFER D.: To get in touch with me about transcribing or proof reading -- we didn't talk about that tonight, but that's another Braille career that's really in demand.
NIKKI: We'll have to have you back on for that.
JENNIFER D.: Yeah. So my email address is [email protected]. There's also a web page, www.nfb.org/transcribers that has a lot more information about all the courses and the certifications.
JOSE: And my email, it's long, but easy. [email protected]. I'm used to doing career interviews. I get a call at least once every two months from different people.
So I'm glad to help out in any way, to answer any questions or do an interview or whatever. All I say is that do your research.
If you're able to shadow an interpreter like me or anyone else, do it. I really want you to get your -- there you go. I got stuck with the saying here.
But, really expose yourself to the field to really find out what it is, what it entails. There's a medical course you can take online, several of them to figure out if this is something you want to do.
I'd hate for you to end up in a situation where you did all the work, got certified, did the coursework and then you're like, I don't really like this. I don't really enjoy this.
So yes.
NIKKI: Thank you for that. So really quickly, 30 seconds from each of you. Before we close. What is the most rewarding part of what you do?
RICHARD: The recognition and the money.
(Laughter)
RICHARD: I'm honest. I'm a New Yorker. I have to be honest.
JENNIFER D.: Getting Braille into the hands of people who are maybe going to be our future meeting leaders, and people who are going to -- making things available so that they're going to be learning, literate, and running things in the future.
JOSE: My parents don't speak very good English. And my aunts and uncles, some of them don't.
So I really get a nice feeling that I'm helping someone just like my mother, just like my grandma, just like my uncle. Although sometimes it requires a lot of patience, especially with the 90 year old who wants to tell you their entire life story.
But it's just really nice to help people who otherwise would not have that help.
NIKKI: Awesome.
RICHARD: I gather that Richard is Shallow Hal. I'm kidding.
JOSE: Richard is going to take me out to a nice steak dinner. He can afford it.
NIKKI: Everyone, thank you so much.
RICHARD: It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
NIKKI: Absolutely. Learned so much. And Jennifer Wenzel, thank you for serving as our Zoom host. We really appreciate you all for participating in our Where the Blind Work webinar.
Be sure to take our survey and look out for our next webinar coming soon. Everyone, have a great night.
National Federation of the Blind
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