What DTF St. Louis Gets Wrong

I wasn't planning on watching DTF St. Louis on HBO Max. I know what the acronym stands for and despite the cast, it just didn't seem like something that would interest me. My guess was a show about infidelity and/or dating after divorce and neither topic really entertains me. Then some podcaster I like, probably Lizzie Bassett from What Went Wrong, said it was well written and very well acted so I decided to give it a try (she's right on both counts).

But as usual, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Nope, I want to talk about how this show escaped my attention on two fronts: One of the main characters is an ASL interpreter. Another one is a youth baseball umpire. Both of them are terrible (but potentially realistic) representations of these two occupations. How do I know? I am an ASL interpreter and a youth sports official. (Caveat: I don't umpire baseball yet, but I have an application in with the city.) Not only that, but I was the chair of an interpreter training program and I have been a coordinator and educator for rugby referees. I know ball.

So, what does DTF St. Louis get wrong about this? Let's take a look.

Interpreting

On the show, Floyd Smernitch (David Harbour) is a down-on-his-luck former printer toner salesman who stumbles across an ASL class on his way to a job interview. He realizes that he has found his calling but instead of enrolling in the class, he picks up a pamphlet and starts teaching himself ASL on the train ride hime from Chicago to St. Louis. We don't know how Floyd ends up as an interpreter, let alone on TV. At one point he says he's been signing for about a year. Later, it's implied that he came across the ASL class several years prior to the start of the show. 

What we do know is that Floyd is not a fluent user of ASL. His signing is stilted and lacks the use of cohesive signs that show relationships between propositions. It's possible he could have picked up that level of fluency in about a year, but unlikely without a class or knowing any Deaf people. If he's still that bad after several years, that would be surprising unless, again, he's learning on his own. If that's the case, it's no wonder he can't make ends meet, because he must not be getting much work outside of occasional gigs with the TV station and an odd concert.

While there are some crappy interpreters who find work, it's alarming that Floyd would get such high profile gigs. Especially for his first job to be on TV when we know there are plenty of qualified interpreters in St. Louis. The other thing is that Missouri has certification and licensure laws for practicing interpreters, which my MO based interpreter friends say Floyd would not pass at the skill level he shows. So there's basically no way this character could exist like this in St. Louis.

Floyd is a poor representation of interpreting as a field and it's sad that many people will watch the show and get the idea that this is what we do and who we are. On the other hand, there really are interpreters like Floyd out there doing a disservice to Deaf people around the country. We've seen real life terrible interpreters show up on TV during extreme weather events. So while the show got a lot wrong, it does show an aspect of the interpreting world that is sort of accurate. Just not in St. Louis.

Umpiring

I admit, I have less experience on this one than I do as an interpreter. I have been a manager of youth rugby referees. I play in a rec softball league that has umpires. The show inspired me to apply for a job with our city's parks and rec to become an umpire. Carol knows nothing about baseball and says they gave her a rulebook when she was hired but indicates that was the extent of her training. I know how hard it is to recruit people to officiate youth sports, but Twyla must be super desperate. For most sports leagues, officials need to have some kind of certification. This is especially true now when abuse of athletes is a very public concern. The website for the fictional city of Twyla where the show is set requires umpires to take a certification course, and lists Carol as a certified umpire. She also says she earns $85/game. I guess that's possible. Youth rugby refs in my area earn $75/game. However, the city of Twyla's website offers a high of $38/game. In my hometown, sports officials for all games earn between $22-$37/hour. While the money thing isn't super important, it is very unlikely carol would be hired as an umpire without some kind of training. The show's depiction of her side gig is odd and a little annoying.

So there it is. Is any of it important? No. Does anyone care? Probably not. Did I enjoy the show in general? Absolutely. Give it a watch if you can get someone's login.

Guesting on the Uncle Nacho Podcast

Me, Uncle Nacho and Grandma Yo

There are potential big moves going on here at IDL headquarters and I haven't been free to write much here lately. I'll be excited to reveal all that's been happening as it closes in on being released, but for now I'm excited to share my recent appearance on the Uncle Nacho podcast.

Full disclosure, Jiro Ignacio Palmieri aka "Uncle Nacho" is my younger brother. He's been involved audio, media, and radio for a few years now. He had a radio show in the San Francisco bay area on KPOO radio. Now he hosts the Uncle Nacho podcast, which "examines the intersections between sports, politics, art, and culture." The interview is a great overview of how I came to lead An Interdisciplinary Life and what that's meant for me. It's sort of this whole site here compressed into an hour of story telling. So if you've enjoyed reading IDL think of this as IDL on the go, a chance to get your Berto time and also do dishes.

This is part one of our interview. In this episode I talk about going to elementary school as a vagabond in Europe for a year and comparing it to American public schools. We discuss racial identity, how flipping over a white water raft full of Deaf kids led me to a career as an interpreter, my dad teaching me how to make a zip gun, and the creation of "Your Mom is So Berkeley." We also touch on alternative educational paths, growing up with a single mother, and a Berkeley High School legacy I had totally forgotten about. Within all of that we do indeed intertwine sports, arts, and culture.

If you scroll down past the embedded podcast there's some expanded info on things we didn't have answers to during the podcast.
 

There was a question that came up about how my family ended up in Chicago. I asked the branch of the family that stayed in Chicago and got a great response relating to Japanese American history. From my cousins Midori, Vince, and Rea who are all amazing artists and writers. The block below is edited together from their responses to my question.

Because jobs and housing weren't available to Japanese Americans post WWII on the west coast a Japanese community developed in Chicago around that time probably to support each other. Vince and his wife were in Hattiesburg Mississippi and they heard there was more work in Chicago for JAs (editor’s note: Vince is my grandma Yoshiko’s brother). Also, the American government had already taken our family’s home and real estate. They came up and settled in Hyde Park/South Side along with many other friends from camp and Hattiesburg. Hattiesburg was the home of the 442^nd all Japanese Battalion. I'm not sure what Vince's first job was in Chicago before he became photo editor at Playboy. He only moved back to California once his job made that available to him. Yoshiko must have joined them at some point.

The folks who ran the camps were mostly liberal, though their good intentions generally did as much harm as good. They had an idea that you could solve racism by sending JAs out of camps into areas away from the West Coast, a few at a time and that they'd be accepted and assimilated if they kept apart from other JAs. This was obviously a terrible idea because (1) segregation wasn't a choice and (2) you try living among people who hate you without allies. So, there were serious programs to resettle folks out of camp, but the ones who left had to create new communities. The largest migration was to Chicago, which was possibly the most important JA city for a couple of years after the war, before everyone who hadn't made a stake there pretty much decided to go back to the West Coast. I think Larry's (another of Yoshiko’s brothers) JACL ties also meant a lot--there were some serious divisions among JAs about how to respond to incarceration and I suspect going to Chicago probably said something about you/your family.

Thanks for reading and listening. If you have any other unresolved questions from the interview let me know in the comments. I'll post the second part of the interview when it becomes available.

The ADA and You. Yes, You.

It seems like more and more often these days I'm seeing articles about organizations pushing back against following ADA requirements. On a day-to-day level this isn't new. Anyone who has had a prolonged relationship with any disability community sees it constantly. For me it's usually doctor's offices telling Deaf people that the office isn't responsible for providing interpreters. (This is wrong by the way). Seriously, doctor's offices are the worst for this, and yet you can kind of understand how they wouldn't know. After all, they are usually small offices that specialize in being doctors, not in legal matters. While I'm sure they all have a lawyer they work with for the things you need to be a practicing doctor, they don't have anything that would approach being a legal department, and they probably contract out the business end. Basically, even though they're wrong and need to know that they are wrong, you hope that they'll listen to reason. (They often don't). What I can't abide are huge huge institutions that don't seem to understand their responsibilities under the ADA. Seriously, it's disgusting.

Part of why this irks me is that it touches on the two courses I teach regularly, Business and Government Interpreting, and Medical Interpreting. I teach a units on HIPAA and on the ADA. So here's what I'm going to do, even though I do ADA consulting as a business, I'm going to give away some of the milk for free. I am going to give the quick and dirty on your responsibilities vis-a-vis the ADA. I will try to be brief, I will try to not be sarcastic. I will add the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer and that this blog entry should not be construed as legal advice. (I don't know why we always have to say that, but there, it's said, don't sue me.) I'm going to try to do this in plain language.

Quick Primer

The ADA has five titles.

Title I: Employment

This commonly misunderstood title requires accommodations in places of employment. This means that you must accommodate your employees and cannot discriminate against disabled people in hiring. The part of this title that is misunderstood is that it applies only to employers with 15 or more employees. This is done to protect small businesses. The problem is that many businesses totally misunderstand this and thing that if they have less than 15 employees they don't have to accommodate customers. These people are wrong. (As we'll see later). Remember, Title I only applies to your employees, not your customers.

Title II: Non Discrimination in State and Local Government Services

The Feds are already unable to discriminate so this law was set up so everyone below the Feds have to play nice. It's a shame we even need this kind of law. Basically, if you're a government you can't refuse service to people based on disability.

This is what makes stories like this one, in which a Deaf man was held in an Arlington, VA jail for six weeks without and interpreter so inexcusable, because by law it's totally avoidable. And I'm no policing expert, but we do kind of tend to rely on the police and the corrections system to, at minimum, know the law. However, this quote from the sheriff's department lawyers shows that they're either complete jerks, or totally ignorant of the ADA:

"even if the discrimination were intentional, the lawyers write that it would not violate federal law because there is a rational basis for the discrimination: "it takes extra resources and creates additional security considerations to bring in an ASL interpreter,''

That's right, these lawyers think that federal law allows for discrimination on the rational basis that it's expensive, and requires more work. But hey, what's six weeks of totally unnecessary incarceration when there's a couple hundred bucks to be saved? The weirdest part of this story is that it happened in an area with the highest concentration of Deaf people in the country. So you'd think they'd know better. It's inexcusable and the tax payers of Arlington are about to be at least several hundreds of thousands of dollars lighter.

In another instance I had a state university fight me on paying for interpreters for clubs and organizations. They're stance was it was it was expensive and that if they had to pay for interpreters for all clubs they'd be ruined. They also claimed that their use of federal funds didn't necessitate that they follow the ADA. They were wrong on both counts.

Title III: Nondiscrimination on the basis of disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities

Here's where all those businesses with less than 15 employees need to pay attention. Regardless of how many employees you have, if you serve the public, you have to provide accommodations. "Oh ho!" you say, "But interpreting is expensive. I can claim this 'undue hardship' loophole thing and then I won't have to pay." Yeah, you're out on that "cool life hack."

The cost of service is in no way contingent on or related to the price the customer is paying. So let's say you charge $100 for a patient visit, but an interpreter costs $130. Too bad. Seems unfair? Sorry, that's the cost of doing business. But if you think of it the way the government does it hurts less. You see,the undue hardship test is based on your total annual operating budget. So, assuming you turn a profit of more that $130, you have to pay for the interpreter. It might also interest you to know that the last time I checked (2014) no organization had ever won an undue hardship case. Ever. Never, ever. Ever. If you think you're going to claim undue hardship to avoid accommodating a client, be ready to pay way more in a law suit than you were going to pay for an interpreter.

"Ah, but I'm a non-profit. Obviously I don't have to provide accommodations, I have none of these profits you speak of." Sorry. The ADA doesn't distinguish between for profit and non-profit, again, the standard is annual operating budget. You would be shocked (shocked!) to know some of the enormous, well known, national non-profits that have contacted me for volunteer interpreting. These are organizations that are paying huge staffs of lawyers and marketers and web designers, and writers,have huge paid boards and management structures and so on. But when they have to pay for accommodations, all of a sudden they're poor.

Sorry non-profits, if you have any employees or pay for any services, you should be paying for accommodations. Do you call around for free plumbers, or free electricity? Do you ask for student volunteer accountants? Do you petition for free Internet service? No? Then why do you think you should get your accommodations for free?

That said, if you're a non-profit there are ways to get low cost or free interpreting services, please contact me for a consultation. I'm kidding. If you have people who are already a part of your organization who are qualified to provide accommodations, ask them. But make sure they're qualified. Seriously. Not just someone who knows some signs. Or ask for donated services, for which you will provide a donation receipt. That way everyone understands that services aren't free, and that in the event that no volunteer is available, you know how much you can expect to pay for service.

I recently saw this story about a Deaf family suing a peewee football league for failing to comply with the ADA. I encountered this in a local league as well. A Deaf kid made an All Star team and the league had no plan as to how to provide an interpreter at the All Star show case tournament. If you are a non-profit you must come up with an accommodation plan right now. Right now. You have to put it in your budget. You have to add it to your fundraising. Seriously, if you have Deaf people in your realm at all you have to have a accommodation slush fund. If you don't you're setting yourself up for trouble.

Oh, and for you medical providers, that means you have to provide services for immediate family members of the patient (parents, spouse, children). 

Title IV: Telecommunications

Title V: Misc.

These probably don't apply to you, but you can look them up.

Conclusion

 
I can't stress this enough, you can't get around this stuff. You think you can, but you can't. I once worked for a company whose lawyers told them they could do all kinds of things they were sure were totally OK according to loopholes in federal law. They did this even though many of us employees warned them they were breaking the law. They ignored us, the Feds hit them with a $20M penalty and the company almost went under. Seriously, don't mess around here, just go ahead and do what you're supposed to do. Plan ahead. Understand that like taxes and insurance, ADA compliance is part of your overhead. It's not extra, it's not a surprise, it's a standard. Get used to it.

Really, I shouldn't have had to write this. There's a million guides out there for you. The problem is, you're ignoring them. So now there's one more. If you want more legalistic resource they're out there. In fact, I'll even give you some resources below.

Resources:

http://www.ada.gov/regs2010/smallbusiness/smallbusprimer2010.htm

https://www.ada.gov/effective-comm.htm

http://www.ada.gov/smbusgd.pdf

http://www.ada.gov/business.htm

http://www.cct.org/2015/09/renewing-the-commitment/

https://nonprofitrisk.org/tools/workplace-safety/nonprofit/c5/ADA.htm

http://www.adachecklist.org/about.html

I Also Got A lot of Jerseys

I'd say I probably have 60 jerseys. About a fourth of them are for teams I played on. Another fourth are for reffing. The rest are from various sports teams. That said, I only have one jersey for which I support neither the team nor the player.

My RBI single off of Spaceman Lee

I am lucky in that once my jersey collecting actually became a professional asset. I was interpreting for a Deaf participant at the Red Sox fantasy camp in Ft. Meyers, Florida. The Sox didn't provide a uniform for me (I should have negotiated one in my contract) but I was on the field with my client eight hours a day. Luckily I was able to cull several full uniforms from my collection which lasted me until the camp staff finally hooked me up with some Sox gear.

2007 AL All Star jersey


Santurce Cangrejeros away jersey

Puerto Rico World Baseball Classic jersey

But the fact is, I got nothing on this guy: