Photo: Arkady Belozovsky, certified deaf interpreter, translates press conferences for Gov. Gina Raimondo. [The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo]
By Mark Patinkin
Journal Columnist
Posted Mar 21, 2020 at 7:20 PM
Updated Mar 23, 2020 at 5:30 PM
Providence Journal
The thing about excellence — you know it when you see it.
That’s what I thought as I watched Gov. Gina Raimondo’s sign language interpreter on TV during her daily coronavirus briefings.
I would soon learn why — his name is Arkady Belozovsky, and of 12,000 certified U.S. interpreters, he’s among the 130 or so with the highest rating.
Then I learned something astonishing.
Arkady, 46, is fully deaf himself.
And yet somehow, he stands next to the governor doing instantaneous signing translation as she speaks.
So on Friday, I went to the State House to see the press conference in person, only to be told that new rules barred media members because of social distancing.
I was sent to another room with a feed, except — get this — the TV’s sound didn’t work.
But that let me experience the reality of Arkady’s audience — watching a silent presentation brought to life by the interpreter.
As in previous conferences, Arkady was dressed in black jacket, black shirt and black tie.
He would later explain that it’s because colors could be distracting. And not just from his hands — his face, too. At the highest level, interpreters heavily use expression to add nuance.
Arkady does it at a theatrical level, and I later learned he has that in his past, too.
In what is now Ukraine, where he grew up, he was a folk dancer, actor, magician and tightrope walker.
He came to America at 16, graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology, ran the Deaf Studies Program at the University of New Hampshire, then taught eight years at Brown as its first full-time deaf faculty member.
But he’s been sign-interpreting for 28 years, and for the last seven as his main job, often doing teaching seminars around the world.
Because Governor Raimondo’s coronavirus messaging is critical, Arkady was assigned the job through the Rhode Island Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Earnest Covington, the commission’s director, told me thousands of Rhode Islanders depend on its 140 interpreters, either through public events or personal translation in schools, health care, courts and other settings.
Covington said Arkady was chosen not just as a master interpreter, but because of his deep grasp of deaf culture.
I would soon find out why that matters
But first — how does someone who’s deaf translate an English speaker in real time?
I got my answer after the press conference when I sat down with Arkady and his teammate, another sign-interpreter named Rayne Depukat, 36.
She has full hearing, and her job is to sit in the front row and sign the speakers’ words for Arkady, who simultaneously reinterprets in higher-level “native” American Sign Language for the TV audience.
I asked Rayne, why the double translation? Why not just her up front?
Her first response was to sensitively say that my talking directly to her was leaving Arkady out — I should instead ask him, while she translates.
She was right.
So I asked, as she signed my words.
Arkady said he’s third-generation deaf — his grandparents, his parents and now him.
He told me many parents of deaf children steer their kids to learn speech more than signing, thinking that’s more inclusive.
Arkady disagrees with that, and so did his folks. He was taught to sign in infancy. It’s his “native” mother tongue.
For Rayne, he explained, signing is her second language.
Arkady said she’s great at it — certified as an American Sign Language Interpreter. But he is among the very few at the highest level — a Certified Deaf Interpreter.
One big difference is, he’s a master at using the face and body. “Non-native” signers find that harder.
Both Rayne and Arkady told me her signing the press conference would come across to deaf audiences the same way a spoken interpreter with an accent would strike hearing audiences.
Arkady, by contrast, can make the message fully accessible.
He and his family came to the U.S. in 1990 when he was 16, in part because of bullying and anti-Semitism. He pushed his folks to leave.
They settled in Brooklyn, where Arkady worked hard to learn American Sign Language. That got me asking if this wouldn’t make it a less-fluent second language for him, too.
No — the basic skills of signing are similar, and he was already a natural at adding expressions — called “facial grammar.”
As one example, instead of “federal government,” he just signs “government,” then points upward with an impressed look.
To convey the message to stay home, Arkady makes a stern face to emphasize that it’s a must.
Basically, he uses expressions as adjectives, saving words and adding clarity.
I asked if a Certified Deaf Interpreter can get rich. He laughed and said it does pay better than teaching, and it helped him buy a house.
He lives near Sturbridge, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children, three deaf, one hard of hearing. His wife, who is hard of hearing, also identifies as deaf.
Although Arkady has begun to get cancellations because of the coronavirus, he normally has a packed daily schedule and .often drives hundreds of miles around New England.
“I have to do an oil change every 25 days,” he said.
His work takes him from conference stages to prisons, psych wards and even baby births. He does lots of videos for government websites.
I told Rayne and Arkady that their dance as a hearing-deaf interpreting team seems exhausting.
Arkady said it helps that the two often work together. They “get” each other’s nuances, critical to making the double translation seamless.
But he agreed there’s no room for error. You can’t say, “Hold on, can you explain that again?”
Rayne, who lives in Warwick, learned signing because of a family member who was deaf, and found herself intrigued with deaf culture, which she calls “collectivist” as opposed to America’s more individualist philosophy.
Arkady said he loves that about his culture — deaf folks bond deeply.
It’s another reason why Certified Deaf Interpreters are sought for TV jobs — the deaf audience culturally relates more to a deaf interpreter.
Arkady had another job coming up, so I asked him one final question.
Does he ever wish he could hear?
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Never. If there was a miracle cure, no, I’m happy to be deaf. We have a beautiful community and a beautiful, visual language.”
He told me deaf people don’t need to be fixed, because they’re not broken.
His deafness, Arkady Belozovsky said, is a blessing.
Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY1qY4CVGog&feature=emb_title
