Being deaf or hard of hearing requires a lot of logistics. From weddings and funerals to festivals and musicals, interpreters are often needed every step of the way.
“From birth to death, we see it all,” interpreter Maria Kielma says. Kielma holds various certifications in court, medical and other areas of interpretation. “I do cool stuff; I can stand on a stage and interpret music and it looks amazing,” she says. “But I’m also there when people die, I’m there when babies are born. I am a part of people’s lives that they permit me to be in.”
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Kielma works for Professional Interpreting Enterprise (PIE), a women- and deaf-owned organization that provides interpreting services throughout the state of Wisconsin, with offices in Milwaukee and Madison. Hollie Barnes and Amy Fryman are at the helm as CEO and COO, respectively.
“One of the reasons that Amy and I work so well is because we have two different perspectives,” Barnes, who is deaf, signs. “Amy brings what the interpreter’s perspective looks like, and I bring what the deaf consumer’s perspective looks like.”
The organization was launched in 1996 as an effort to improve the quality of services for a community whose needs were often overlooked or neglected.
“It used to be the Wild West, and anyone that knew a little bit of signing could show up to a doctor’s appointment and [act as] an interpreter,” Fryman says. “We’ve moved forward to enhance the profession,” she says. “And we’re hoping that we can fill some of those gaps.”
One of the ways that PIE continues to expand their services is by bringing in deaf interpreters, who often work in tandem with hearing interpreters and can have a deeper understanding of the deaf experience. Deaf interpreters also work with deafblind students, emerging signers and deaf students who can be helped by a deaf interpreter’s knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL). And the engagement of deaf interpreters with deaf immigrants who may not be fluent in ASL has increased in recent years.
“They can bring a whole scope of the language that I as a second language learner could never master,” Fryman says of deaf interpreters. “There are individuals who prefer to see information and understand it better coming from someone who has the cultural experience as well as the language experience to interpret in a way that is more readily understood.”
Barnes, Fryman and Kielma would like the burden to be lifted from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community to have to ask for interpretive services – that high-quality inclusion efforts would become the default.
“I feel as a deaf owner, I’m able to have a voice,” Barnes signs. “I have a voice for the community that I’m also a member of and it allows me to be a leader. It allows me to dream on how to support our people.”
For more information about hiring interpreters for your events, visit pieinc-wi.com.
