Kodas

 

A koda is a kid of deaf adults, usually referring to a younger child -- maybe up to the teenage years.  When I was a koda, there were no professional interpreters for the deaf.  As the oldest, I was the family interpreter.

There are lots of issues with koda interpreters.  Among them:

1.  not having adequate skills (a lot of kodas learned to sign but I didn't).  When I interpreted for my parents as a kid, I mouthed my words slowly and carefully but didn’t realize there were easier-to-read substitute words to use.  When my parents didn’t understand, I would try pantomime.

2.  not having adult vocabulary, especially the jargon of different professions.  Yeah.  Like the time my Uncle John (mom’s brother) sent a telegram to call him.  He was taking care of my parents’ property on LI after we’d moved to MD.  There was a troublesome tenant not paying rent.  My uncle kept talking about escrow and I didn’t understand the word.  He couldn’t break it down so I could understand so I latched on “crow” and told my parents the bank was putting the house in a bird cage.

3.  emotional involvement (after all, these are your parents)

The earliest disaster when I interpreted for my parents was when I had to call Uncle John about our house on LI.  The new tenants weren’t paying the rent and the mortgage wasn’t getting paid.  Uncle John was moving to have the tenants evicted but it was a time-consuming process.  I managed to get that across to my parents but then Uncle John began talking about escrow.

Escrow?  I’d never heard the word before.  Uncle John explained something to me but I couldn’t grasp what he was talking about.  My parents stood by, looking at me expectantly and impatiently and I panicked.  I told them Uncle John needed to put our house in a bird cage.  Escrow.  Crow? Must be a birdcage.  My parents looked completely confused and I realized I’d made a mistake and now was really panicking.

Uncle John realized what was happening and said he would write a letter to my parents explaining everything.  He did and they must have understood the letter because they became very grim and irritable.  A few weeks after that, they had a big fight.  My father was ranting that this was Mom’s fault, Uncle John was HER brother and she’d picked him.  After a few rounds of this, I figured out what was happening:  we’d lost our house on Long Island.

After my leg healed somewhat, my parents wanted to consult a lawyer.  They felt that the miniature golf course was liable for what happened to me because of negligence:  they should have cut the grass and noticed the broken pipe and fixed it before I got hurt.  They had me make an appointment with a lawyer and I went there with my mom.

I was scared to death.  He intimidated me, an older stern man in a dignified suit.  He used lots of big words that I couldn't understand.  I explained what happened to me and he began to rip holes in the story, asking me questions that confused me.  He gave me to understand that we didn't have a case because I must have been careless or messing around when I got hurt.

My mom was furious.  She knew better but was frustrated in that there wasn't a good enough way for her to fight with this attorney -- other than through a scared kid.  She was angry with me, too, and I was very upset by that.  Remember, I was just a little kid and was frightened enough to begin with.  My mom told me I must have told the story wrong and ruined everything.

Looking back now, as an adult, I see how awful it must have been for her, too.  She sat there watching me become flustered.  She didn't know what was going on because no one told her.  The attorney was too busy confusing me and I was too busy having a meltdown to try and explain what was happening.  I don't think the attorney and my mother exchanged any written notes at all.  They may have but it was such an awful experience I just blanked most of it out.  Anyway, mom must have been extremely frustrated not to be able to express her own thoughts and feelings.  That happened more often than not with my parents and hearing people.

That's why, in the late 1970s, interpreting became a profession.  Deaf people needed an impartial person who could interpret for them without making judgments or editing what was said.

What happened to me is why kodas should not ever interpret. #memoir