Letter to the Editor

July 8, 1997

just received my Spring issue of Proteus and, being in these remote and isolated parts of the world, I just found out about Jim Farrell’s plight in New Jersey.

I wish to publicly commend and applaud James Farrell’s integrity and courage, risking his own well-being for the well-being of the profession everywhere, not just in the United States. We have very few heroes left in this world, and even fewer in this field. Jim Farrell’s actions are inspiring, but foremost in my mind right now is his immediate survival if he is not working.

I strongly believe at this point that judiciary interpreters need a solidarity fund, and if need be channel work from around the country to those whose income may be suffering as a result of retaliatory practices by their local courts. In fact, greater professional solidarity, not just moral but monetary as well, could be just the incentive needed for more interpreters to take a firm stand on transcendental issues such as team interpreting.

We should all feel insulted and outraged at this intrusion by non-interpreters attempting to dictate performance quality standards for our profession when they don’t have the slightest idea what interpreting entails.

I would ask those judges and administrators who insist on undermining our professional standards to stand in our shoes for one day, or one hour. They should go into a courtroom and repeat—simply repeat—with no additional cognitive process involved (i.e., interpreting) everything that is said on the record, non-stop, for one hour, two hours, three hours... a whole day?

I dare predict that those judges and administrators will be absolutely exhausted after the first 20 minutes, and probably hyperventilating after a full hour of this exercise. I base my contention, not on empirical or lab-controlled research, but on my own experience with interpreting students. It takes a great many hours of interpreting practice under classroom conditions to surpass that 5-minute fatigue threshold experienced by beginners. However, surpassing the 30-minute mental fatigue threshold reached by even the most experienced interpreter requires and extraordinary effort. That effort cannot be sustained for too long. Soon the interpreter’s concentration capacity is reduced to levels of unacceptable judiciary performance (i.e., errors and omissions that constitute gross incompetence for this profession.)

Anyone claiming that s/he can work alone all day long and not suffer the consequences of mental fatigue and loss in accuracy is either not doing the job as it should be done, or is not a professional interpreter (pardon the redundancy.)

I would like to suggest three courses of action to be spearheaded by NAJIT, but not necessarily limited to NAJIT:

(1) Take immediate steps to create a solidarity network to provide specific moral and material support to judiciary interpreters who may be victims of retaliatory or unfair labor practices from employment providers because these interpreters openly advocate professional standards and working conditions;

(2) Create and disseminate sensitivity training modules for non-interpreting court personnel that individual interpreters anywhere can use in their respective courts;

(3) Call upon the Communications Workers of America (CWA) to support and possibly provide legal assistance in administrative or judiciary remedies on behalf of all judiciary interpreters in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. (The CWA is the parent union for the Translators and Interpreters Guild, which should be made aware of this situation without further delay and asked to join NAJIT in a nation-wide effort to stop court administrators from subverting the working standards we have struggled so hard to achieve through our own professionalization efforts over the past 20 years.)

Janis Palma, USCCI
San Juan, Puerto Rico