Veronica Day, a former dancer, current ASL interpreter, and now ASL teacher at Oak Hills, was interviewed on Thursday, October 16, to discuss her experience with the high school ASL program.
A graduate from Ball State University, Day was originally a freelancer. She earned her bachelor’s degree in dance, and performed in various places, such as Holland America Cruise Lines and tap dancing in New York City.
Unfortunately, her dance career came to an end when she had a detrimental injury that prevented her from exercising her previous mobility. She moved back to her hometown here in Cincinnati and enrolled in Cincinnati State’s Interpreter Training Program for ASL. She earned her bachelor’s degree in ASL interpreting and graduated in 2015.
Growing up, she had always been interested in Deaf culture and ASL. After her fall from the stage, she chose a new path in interpreting, taking her freelance knowledge into a different field. She hoped to use her prior experience with the Deaf community and become a point of access for those unable to communicate effectively with hearing people.
“My friend was hearing, his brother was Deaf, and his mother was hearing. So I’d watch them all sign together and … something inside me was just drawn to that,” Day recalls. “It was very cool, very expressive, it was neat to see the language flowing so well between people. I didn’t have … much exposure to it.”
Throughout the interview, Day would often simcom, or simultaneously communicate, using both ASL and English. She would sign the ASL equivalent of important terms, such as “hearing”, “Deaf”, and “ITP” (Cincinnati State’s Interpreter Training Program) as she spoke. This is indicative of her interpreter training and experience in the field of hearing-deaf communication.
“At Cincinnati State I would then bring people into the school … that is a big goal of mine, is to get Deaf people in on campus, … get interpreters here for them to actually see the language from a Deaf person because that’s their native language,” Day explains with a chuckle. “They keep asking me when they can come back, because I think they love seeing what’s up and coming, what are students learning, what … can they add to the Deaf community?”
When asked to describe her experience in two words, Day chose “connection” and “trust”. She gives a theoretical example of a medical interpreter’s duty. “Let’s say, you have a hearing doctor, you have a … Deaf patient, and I’m kind of the middleman in the middle of all that. The doctor has to trust that I’m going to be able to tell them, the patient, everything that they need … the Deaf client has to feel like they can ask questions, they can understand the diagnosis … so there’s a lot of trust that goes into facilitating that as well.”
Day seems like a very promising addition to Oak Hills’ foreign language department. Her real-world experience with Deaf clients and her professional interpreting career gave her vital knowledge she can share with her students.