How Trying to Provide Deaf Interpreters for a Camp Bit Me in the Ass
There is a concept many live by: "don't do any more than is required of you". I've always lived in the opposite manner. Here is how it bit me in the ass.
WordCamp Phoenix will be a circus. We tried to take every SINGLE aspect of it and make it huge, better, aspirational. A very small part was my commitment to trying to make our camp accessible- I was going to provide interpreters. I said it six months ago, and everyone I know who's run a camp or tried to do it before said, "DON'T. You will regret it. If you are not required to do so, then stay away."
But... I'm an idealist. I refused to believe the stereotypes and truly believed that by having interpreters, we would set a new standard, a new model. We would show it COULD be done- and that other camps would follow.
It started almost six months ago, by a deaf attendee contacting me an offering his help in organizing interpreters. Recognizing a good volunteer, I empowered him to help out and he set a budget of $2000 for interpreting the entire conference, and based on his information we expected a lot of deaf attendees because we'd offer the service. We didn't have that money, but I was sure I could get sponsors to cover it. And then I waited. And waited. We only had one deaf attendee besides being told others would register, and my volunteer wasn't being active in finding interpreters. I communicated with him that if he was it, I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
Being proactive, I went to a variety of resources and asked for help. The City of Chandler did some digging and then sent me to an interpreter (I thought it was an agency.) I was floored. The interpreter painted a very bleak picture. I was hoping we'd find interpreters to work for a discounted rate or volunteer, but this interpreter suggested this was a $15000 endeavor. They wanted to be paid for prep time, travel time, lunch time, overtime and said we needed a ridiculous number of interpreters (I was prepared for the fact that interpreters worked in teams of two).
I called an agency... this just confirmed the bleak numbers. At this point, I relayed to my deaf attendee my frustration that I couldn't conquer this situation when I'd been able to conquer every single other one. I mean, I'd convinced large companies to do insane things and set up crazy things like live bands. We've provided services to every single other attendee who requested, from gluten free foods to other special needs. The attendee sadly understood. I just kept the lines of communication open.
I googled.... not terribly helpful. Try it: Interpretation services, Phoenix. ASL interpretation, Phoenix. Deaf interpretation, Phoenix. Nothing useful.
So I tried the state. The situation wasn't looking better: we couldn't use students unless they had provisional liscences and couldn't pay them at all. We HAD to use professionals, and from the sounds of it, they don't volunteer or discount. They offered two resources: a yahoo group that clearly stated they were shutting down and a facebook page. I posted on the facebook page a plea for interpreters and asked for acceptance to the yahoo group, as a last act of desperation. I was accepted some days later and posted, and then waited.
I never got a response from either. Apparently because my post didn't go live until Xmas Eve, some time after I'd posted.
So I offered our attendees (We now had 2) our three sad options: we'll refund your money (the tickets were otherwise non refundable), we will allow you bring as many people as you'd like for free to assist you, or we can try to find volunteers to transcribe via Gchat, which my attendee had suggested. I also said I was open to subsidizing an interpreter if they could just FIND one, we had $450 to put towards it.
Suddenly, 2 weeks before camp, a student stepped forward. I let her know she was the only volunteer I'd gotten, so I wasn't sure what to do with that since clearly she couldn't work alone. Then suddenly, an ACTUAL interpreter stepped forward, and I immediately asked he call and explained the whole situation. I said I'd be happy to pay $50 an hour and he was great because he said this was totally reasonable. I asked him to find other interpreters for an honorarium, his job was to manage interpretation services for Saturday because we were so busy. He asked for a budget, and I said to interpret all three tracks, it was about $2k, which was $50/hr per interpreter working in interpreter/student teams, which at the time, he advocated. He said he'd look and try to find others. I wasn't terrifically hopeful, but I'd been so unsuccessful, clearly I wasn't the right person.
At the same time, now having only 1 possible interpreter and 1 student interested, when we heard back from one of the attendees in a way that made clear she'd grossly misunderstood our email with the accomodations we could offer (refund, bring people, have volunteers help) so I restated that. It begat a string of emails where I tried to continually communicate this, and she instead became ruder and more threatening each time, telling me (the event director) I was wrong, had no idea what I was talking about, etc in very broken English. I assured her that at this time we were NOT providing services because we couldn't find anyone, what avenues we'd pursued, that we were very sorry, but that if it changed, we'd let her know. I say she, but honestly the entire time I was pretty sure she was a male interpreter, not a deaf attendee, because of her name and that she kept saying she was an interpreter. At the final point she simply told me quite rudely I had no idea what I was talking about and set off to take over that aspect, writing on email lists, etc with bad information. I quickly learned that in the deaf community, everyone is a captain, no one is a sailor- the situation was out of control immediately and suddenly the job we were paying someone to do was now something we were effectively doing, with calls every 5 minutes. The yahoo group leaders emailed me, saying I was going about it wrong and they were closing the list anyways... I wondered if there was ANYONE in the state who was trying to make the process easier, not harder.
Maybe it was the 60-70 hours I'd been putting in the last week for this event. Maybe it was the fact that the phone was ringing off the hook and others were dropping things in my lap constantly to handle, or that I was overwhelmed, or maybe it was just that it was late at night, but something just broke in me. The last email was just enough. Until then, every SINGLE person i'd talked to regarding camp was grateful, positive, thankful, appreciative. They saw how we were bending over backwards to provide, provide more and then provide again, at no personal benefit. We just truly wanted to create this gift to the community. At that point, I realized.... no sucky attitudes. That is NOT the attitude we want at camp. So I politely let her know I was refunding her ticket. Again, at the time I thought this was a male interpreter, not a deaf attendee, but it wouldn't honestly have made a difference. I expect the same behavior from all attendees.. and that attitude was simply unacceptable. Not when we were all working SO hard.
And that was that. I let the other attendee know that he could have an interpretation team follow him, giving him a richer experience, since they could follow him to the genius bar or whatever track he wanted to go to, with complete freedom. When another attendee requested a large area listening device, we moved our track rooms around so the tracks he wanted to hear would take place in the rooms with one. We accommodated every single other need. I was proud.
Until we heard back from the attendee we'd refunded who of course, called it deaf discrimination and immediately filed a complaint. We weren't worried. We'd tried to communicate to her it was based on her behavior, and we'd tried to communicate that we WERE providing services, just to the other attendees. We let it go.
Then the problems with the interpreter began. He kept offering to interpret days other than Saturday... when those classes were full. We'd communicated early that those classes were just not able to be interpreted. They were highly technical and booked ridiculously full. We'd been overwhelmed with response and were cramming people into the rooms for the free classes. Basically, he refused to take direction. He heard a number and he was going to find a way to make the money either way, not embracing the "this is a volunteer non money making event... gotta save wherever possible". Suddenly, it was no longer OK to have students... we needed interpreter-interpreter teams and he wanted to offer it on Friday. I tried to explain.... this meant interpreters sitting on the floor or displacing other people who were registered. That we couldn't afford it. Please, JUST do Saturday. Didn't listen. The calls continued. Emails. More calls. more emails. I gave in and said, "fine. Do Friday. With student/interpreter teams". More emails, more calls- "but you said you could interpreter-interpreter teams!" This ONE issue, for 2 attendees was taking up more time than any other issue regarding camp. I could do absolutely nothing to make the situation resolve and I was staying up nights worrying about this state complaint that had been filed. The attendee was creating websites saying" WordCamp Phoenix=Discrimination". The irony is: I was practicing the exact opposite of discrimination: I was expecting her to behave like everyone else, not treating her "differently" and SHE thinks the only reason that anyone could take any action against her is because she's deaf. If she'd ever just apologized, I'd have felt differently, but the bad behavior just continued.
So here it is, a week before the event. We've managed to throw the biggest camp in the US arguably. We've provided services to everyone as requested, we've created a zero waste event, we've flown in speakers from all over the country, we've secured sponsors from all over the world. We've worked with almost every single state creative or tech group, and a huge number of community members to make this happen. We offered FIVE DAYS of programming for $25-35. We're feeding people four meals and giving them a t shirt, stickers and swag for that amount. But I am beyond frustrated I cannot honestly recommend that anyone should TRY to provide these services if not required by law and that makes me crazy. I am the MOST persistent person anyone knows.... if I can't get it done, there's a problem.
The two deaf attendees couldn't be more different: one is angry and quick to accuse and jump to conclusions. The other is kind, and helpful and understanding and willing to put in the work to help make things happen. But he's the first to point out he is unusual in the community. I don't know. If I were deaf, I would probably be very angry, too. The system isn't set up to be helpful. We've empowered the deaf community to feel entitled to a service that there are no easily accessible tools to provide. Its not that people don't WANT to provide services, its that its insanely tough and offensively expensive to do so.
The cost per attendee at camp is about $50 (notably, almost twice what they paid to attend). I'm happy to provide good services to anyone who asks.... spending extra on a gluten free lunch, paying a reasonable (or far more than reasonable) fee for interpreters... but why should one person get top of the line services when everyone else is accepting the best we can do? Even if I had a budget of $10,000 for lunch, if I could get a pretty good lunch for $1200, it would be irresponsible to spend it anyways. Being asked to spend $2000 or even $!500 for one attendee, when we can provide completely reasonable service that was acceptable a few days ago for just $1000 is just silly.
This situation has crushed me. Crushed. Other camp leaders have come to me asking about how to institute a zero waste event. How to throw free classes. How to bring in local vendors only. Those I can help with them. When they ask me how to provide services to deaf attendees though, I am left with nothing but to want to piddle myself for fear of ever having to go through this again. But, its important people know how hard we've worked and why, on Saturday, we'll be employing a "no sucky attitude" tolerance policy. Particularly given the last month: this is about thanking everyone, being nice to everyone, showing gratitude for this amazing event taking place.
update 8-1-11
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After great thought, I've proposed a solution to the problem. http://ahb.posterous.com/just-solve-the-fucking-problem-a-proposed-sol
