| Each of us carries around a type of “baggage” that cannot be checked at the airport. Because it is invisible, we may not even be aware of its existence. What does this set of hidden luggage contain? Our cultural inheritance of values, attitudes, and beliefs, which, although we may not want to admit it, still infl uences our daily behavior and the way we interact with others. Stopping to “unpack” and examine the contents of this baggage will not only make us more culturally sensitive interpreters and sign language students but may also improve our dealings with many others who carry around their own sets of cultural bags.
In 1999, Reading Between the Signs: Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters was published. I am humbly gratifi ed to say that it has been widely adopted as a textbook, not only in interpreter preparation programs but in American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf culture classes as well. Since that time, I have presented many workshops on the material it covers, either alone or in collaboration with my esteemed Deaf colleagues and consultants on the book, Dr. Thomas K. Holcomb, Daniel Langholtz, and Priscilla Moyers. In my travels I have found students eager to grapple with the cultural issues raised in the book. I have also come to the realization, although I am certainly not the fi rst to do so, that there are two paths to effective learning: the knowledge acquired through books and instructors and the wisdom gained from personal experience. |
