'Subject To Interpretation' is a weekly podcast that deep dives into the topics that matter to interpreters.🎙 Hosted by Maria Ceballos Wallis.
This week we speak with Robert Joe Lee about qualified interpreters, training, why it is important to do research, and how his role has changed over the years.
Robert has a very extensive background. Robert has a bachelor's degree in Bible with a Spanish minor from Abilene, Christian University, a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice from Rutgers
Graduate School of Criminal Justice; two graduate degrees in theology from Princeton
Theological Seminary (M.Div. and Th.M.); and completed ten graduate courses in
linguistics, psychometrics, and ethnolinguistic/ethnographic research methods at the
Graduate School of Education of Rutgers University toward an M.Ed. in Language
Education.
He was staff to the New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreters and
Translation Services (1982-1985) and managed the New Jersey Judiciary's program to
ensure equal access to courts for linguistic minorities from its inception in December
1985 until his retirement at the end of 2008.
After serving as staff to the New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreter and Translation Services, he founded and managed the NJ Judiciary's language access program for 23 years.
Robert served on the team coordinated by the National Center for State Courts that formed the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification, then chaired its Technical Committee (which oversaw the testing program) and served on the Executive Committee for 13 years.
With language experts in many other languages, coordinated the development or revision of certification tests in about twenty languages.
Robert Joe served on the following advisory boards:
1. Court Interpretation: Challenges for the 1990s, and Court Telephone
Interpretation Services: Pilot Program, both administered by the National Center
for State Courts;
2. Introducing Immigrants to the United States Justice System, a project of the
American Judicature Society; and
3. The Master of Arts Program in Legal Interpreting, Department of Spanish and
Italian, College of Charleston.
He is married to Caryl Raye Tipton, a church choir director, singer, concert manager,
voice coach, office manager, and self-employed businessperson. He has four children
and four grandchildren. He is an elder in his church (First Presbyterian, Bordentown)
where he serves as Mission Commissioner.
'Subject To Interpretation' is a weekly podcast that deep dives into the topics that matter to interpreters.🎙 Hosted by Maria Ceballos Wallis.
This week we speak with Robert Joe Lee about qualified interpreters, training, why it is important to do research, and how his role has changed over the years.
Robert has a very extensive background. Robert has a bachelor's degree in Bible with a Spanish minor from Abilene, Christian University, a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice from Rutgers
Graduate School of Criminal Justice; two graduate degrees in theology from Princeton
Theological Seminary (M.Div. and Th.M.); and completed ten graduate courses in
linguistics, psychometrics, and ethnolinguistic/ethnographic research methods at the
Graduate School of Education of Rutgers University toward an M.Ed. in Language
Education.
He was staff to the New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreters and
Translation Services (1982-1985) and managed the New Jersey Judiciary's program to
ensure equal access to courts for linguistic minorities from its inception in December
1985 until his retirement at the end of 2008.
After serving as staff to the New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreter and Translation Services, he founded and managed the NJ Judiciary's language access program for 23 years.
Robert served on the team coordinated by the National Center for State Courts that formed the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification, then chaired its Technical Committee (which oversaw the testing program) and served on the Executive Committee for 13 years.
With language experts in many other languages, coordinated the development or revision of certification tests in about twenty languages.
Robert Joe served on the following advisory boards:
1. Court Interpretation: Challenges for the 1990s, and Court Telephone
Interpretation Services: Pilot Program, both administered by the National Center
for State Courts;
2. Introducing Immigrants to the United States Justice System, a project of the
American Judicature Society; and
3. The Master of Arts Program in Legal Interpreting, Department of Spanish and
Italian, College of Charleston.
He is married to Caryl Raye Tipton, a church choir director, singer, concert manager,
voice coach, office manager, and self-employed businessperson. He has four children
and four grandchildren. He is an elder in his church (First Presbyterian, Bordentown)
where he serves as Mission Commissioner.
Welcome to subject to Interpretation, a podcast which takes us deep into the topics that matter to professional interpreters. My name is Maria Siva, and I'm your host. As you may know, this year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the De La Mo Institute of Interpretation. And to that end, we've launched a special series celebrating the accomplishment of those individuals who have shaped this industry and are sculpting its future. In today's episode of the Founders series, we are honored to be joined by Mr. Robert Joe Lee, known by some as the grandfather of court interpretation. A little background on Robert Joe. After serving a staff to the New Jersey Supreme Court Task Force on Interpreter and Translation Services, he founded New Jersey's Judiciary Language Access Program, which he managed for 23 years. Robert Joe served on the team, coordinated by the National Center for State Courts that formed the Consortium for State Court Interpretation Certification, and then chaired its technical committee, which oversaw the testing program. He served on the executive committee for 13 years, and along with language experts in many other languages, Robert Joe coordinated the development or revision of certification tests in about 20 languages. Robert Joe became involved in justice issues while working as a part-time chaplain for Spanish speaking prisoners at Trenton Andwe State Prisons in the early 1970s. Wallace, a seminary student. Welcome, Robert. Joe.
Speaker 2:Thank you, delight to be here.
Speaker 1:So, Robert, Joe, tell us how did you transition from a se being a seminary student to working in the judiciary
Speaker 2:<laugh>? Well, um, after working with, uh, Latino inmates for three years in two different, uh, facilities, uh, I learned a lot from them. And one of the things I learned from them is that they spoke a lot about when they had gone to court, they, uh, often did not understand what was going on, or the interpreter was not particularly interpreting everything or a variety of reasons relating to interpreters. And I even accompanied a couple of inmates to, uh, post to conviction hearings and got to see for myself what was going on in the courtroom. And that really made me angry as a person who believes in justice and fairness. And so after I finished that, uh, degree, I went and did a master's in criminal justice and wrote my thesis on Hispanic, uh, experiences in the criminal, in the correctional system. And, um, once I finished that master's degree in criminal justice, I got a job working for the judiciary already to dive in work on Hispanic issues. And I was working in the probation division and, um, learned that probation was equally bad for everybody, not just Hispanics. And so it was a few years before I had a chance to tackle anything peculiar to or particular to, uh, Hispanic population.
Speaker 1:Robert Joe, would you paint us a picture of what it was like in the courtrooms or what it was like for Spanish speaking defendants who needed interpreters at the time?
Speaker 2:Well, um, sure. When, when I, uh, was working at the, a administrative officer of the courts, which we call AOC for short, um, what we basically learned in that task force from 82 to 85 was that court interpretation was pretty much the area of court administration that's about the most dysfunctional. And when we submitted our report, the Supreme Court was aghast at the breadth and depth of the dysfunction. Uh, in this particular area of court administration, uh, there are no policies, there are no standard for who could become a staff court interpreter. There was no court of conduct for interpreters. Uh, courts were cussing into service whoever was available to interpret some, A few courts had full-time staff interpreters, but none of them had any particular credential to be in that job other than having perhaps been a judge's secretary. And perhaps they helped the judge out a few times, and the judge said, oh, this works great. The judge didn't complain, the party didn't complain, the attorney didn't complain. So everybody assumed that's what I call the appearance model of competency. But if, uh, someone's interpreting put quotes around that, uh, and nobody complains, therefore they're competent. So in a nutshell, there was absolutely, and, and of course, the need for an interpreter was viewed to be, uh, an annoyance, uh, a pain in the, you know, what for judges in the courts because oh my gosh, now we have to slow down. We have to find an interpreter. So there's absolutely next to nothing positive about the experience for anybody. Judges are frustrated, lawyers are frustrated, litigants didn't know what was going on. Witnesses, um, hard to imagine, uh, how the courts limped along for so long.
Speaker 1:So this was what we're speaking of. State corporate, of course, for a few years prior. There was in federal court, they had the, um, court Interpreters Act, and there was, um, some kind of testing and there was certification for federal interpreters, but not state court interpreters. Why do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, because the bill that passed Congress have planned only to the US district courts nationwide. And so there's a federal judiciary, and then each state has its own judiciary. And so there's, there's no federal oversight of state and local courts. So that bill was specifically targeted to the federal courts. Why? Well, that's, that was Congress acting on it. So they don't have any jurisdiction over how local judiciaries function.
Speaker 1:And was there any appetite for their local judiciaries to emulate what was happening at the, um, at the federal level?
Speaker 2:Well, there was, it was an evolutionary process starting in the seventies. There were some research done in, in state courts and local courts, municipal courts, uh, that pointed out some of the issues and concerns. But they largely fell in deaf ears. At the time, it did not get much circulation. That was in the late seventies. And then after the federal court attempt to act passed and was beginning to be implemented by the, uh, administrative officer of the United States Courts, uh, there began to be something of a ground swell, but I wouldn't call it a huge ground swell. It would start off very slowly. New Jersey was one of the first states, of course, uh, specific county jurisdictions around the country had gotten a head start, like Los Angeles County, uh, uh, and, and Phoenix, uh, I forget what the name of that their county, it was, uh, Miami and Dade County and, and Florida look, uh, in some locations with large Latino populations. There were some initiatives, uh, but not much at the state level. Uh, California did pass, uh, according trip to Act Bill in, uh, 1976, I think it was. So they got a, a something of a head start. So once New Jersey started, people started hearing about our testing, and we got requests from a couple of jurisdictions to use our tests because they didn't have the resources to develop their own. So there were a couple of counties in Florida, uh, Denver County and, and Colorado, even a federal court in Rhode Island,<laugh>, go figure. So, uh, there began to emerge a slow growing awareness that there's an issue here in court administration. And, uh, Gonzalez and I were invited to speak to gatherings of state court administrators for the western part of the country. Uh, and we also did it for the eastern part of the country, uh, at a conference in Boston and planting the seeds. And those seeds slowly, some of them began to, uh, take root and, um, and then the National Center for State Court got interested in the project. And, and once they started advocating for it, then they started growing pretty rapidly in the mid eighties, the mid nineties.
Speaker 1:So the legal background for language providing language access services, um, that are competent and is, is really the fact that, uh, in order for a person to participate in due process, they have to be able to meaningfully participate. And in the case of a non-English speaker, that means that they require interpretation. Was that a a, was that well received, or is it, you know, kind of like yet another, yet another unfunded mandate by, you know, government?
Speaker 2:Uh, well, before I answer that question, I should backtrack one little bit and say that there was also some key case law that prompted the Federal Court Interpreter Act. So it's not just Congress that get the credit, it's the US XL Negron case in New York State that really, uh, got the ball rolling and was one of the inspirational, uh, backdrop backdrops for the Federal Court of Tempera Act. Um, it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Ev every state has a different structure, a different court system had different structure of his court system, a different approach to funding of the courts. Uh, for example, in some states, they have to do a budget request every two years, and then the legislature and the governor decide how much money the court gets for specifically court determining programs. Well, I never had to deal with that because in New Jersey, there's a judiciary budget and whatever the administrative director and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court put into the state judiciary budget, the legislature didn't get involved in the minutia. It's just the budget. It, it wasn't an issue of an unfunded mandate, although, uh, when there was a court terms act pending in the state legislature that we were supporting, uh, there was opposition to that. And, uh, some conservative, uh, senators were objecting to it on the grounds of, it's just the AOC saying, uh, one, one more money. They're, they're just a money pit. Uh, but that there wasn't really much of an issue over the long haul, because once we, once the administrative director started issuing directives, which he had constitutional authority to do, the New Jersey judiciary saw the poem from within. What
Speaker 1:Prompted the Court Interpreters Act?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm sure the US X L Negron case is one of the factors, uh, remember that's right. At the end of the Civil Rights Movement and the US Commission on Civil Rights had done a nation, uh, a, a study in the southwestern part of the country on, uh, the experience of Mexican Americans with the, with the justice system. Uh, and that report was a public report that found numerous deficiencies. So it has several different levels in terms of research, publications, case law, and some, I'm sure there are some court administrators somewhere who cared about it and wanted to push for it. I'm not really familiar. I know in the federal courts, the administrative office of the United States courts have first opposed the court attempt to act. They were not supportive of it. Uh, and only toward the end did they support it. Um, so I'm not sure what all the other factors were, but, um, I'm sure ex Ro Negron was a major factor and just growing awareness coming out of the Civil Rights Movement, I would say.
Speaker 1:How did local AOCs respond and receive the Court Interpreters Act?
Speaker 2:I think the Federal Court Interpreter Act passed in 78. The A O U S C began to implement testing in 1980. Uh, new Jersey's task force began in 1982 and worked to 85. Our program was, was, uh, established in the December of 1985. So it was a, and then in the ensuing years, we made those presentations at regional gatherings of state court administrators and planting the seeds, uh, some expressed interest and, and moved forward, some didn't. Uh, and over time, the National Center State Course be, became the major engine for generating interest in moving forward with quarter certification testing. And of course, the, in the early days of the, of the consortium starting in 1995, the focus was almost exclusively on testing with some focus on training. Uh, after about 10 years, once this testing was pretty well established and there were like 20 or 30 states that had become members, then they began to realize this is a broader issue than just certification of court interpreters. It, their issues were regarding policy codes of conduct standards for managing in terms of proceedings and all sorts of other things that are part of a larger issue, uh, in terms of language planning and, um, and managing a language access program broadly understood. And that was an evolutionary process. Uh, I think New Jersey was ahead of the game because from the beginning we had a comprehensive plan to address just about all the facets of what we did a called a language access plan. Uh, we were able to implement everything as quickly as we wanted to, but at least we had a vision of where we were heading. And, uh, we move forward with that. But it, it, it vary from state to state. Uh, it, it depends on who the state court administrator is. It depends on if there's a judge who's very, um, forward looking and very committed to the issue. It depends on if there's a Chief justice who's the head of the, of the Supreme Court, who wants to move forward, or a justice or Supreme Court. It's very personality dependent.
Speaker 1:So, in your, um, Robert Joe, in your role as the, um, language Access program manager in the state of New Jersey, um, tell me what it is that you found with the interpreters that you did have working for you. What were your main concerns?
Speaker 2:My main focus has been trying to establish clear standards for what the profession stands for and what does it takes to, in, what does it take to enter the profession and succeed as a professional court interpreter. Uh, that's a tall order when you've inherited staff interpreters who aren't competent. Uh, when we first started, uh, we tested all of our inherited staff court interpreters, and I, if I remember correctly, only one or two were able to pass the test the first time. And so we were persona non grata in that community, uh, as soon as we started testing. Uh, and so our credibility was negative. Not being Hispanic myself didn't help at all. Uh, there's this perception that, well, Robert Jones just this, this, uh, white guy who's out to get us, which I understand, uh, if I've been working for years and everybody told me I was doing a great job, the judges, the bilingual attorneys, and the litigants, nobody knew any different. So if I've been told that all those years, then who, who's this white guy coming in to test us and tell us that we're not doing our job? Right? So establishing the credibility of the test was a huge, huge, uh, political challenge. So, uh, we had our primary test, uh, Raider, go sit down with each person, play their test back to them, show them the Raider scripts and how they were graded. And boy did that, introduced a shift from arrogance and anger to humility and embarrassment. And so when you could hope, when we held up a mirror to people so they could really see what they were doing, which nobody had ever done before, these people had been working in the dark doing what they thought was best in, in the best in, in all honesty and sincerity, uh, to discover that they've been living something of a not non-professional, uh,<laugh> life. Uh, we, we went from being their enemies to being their best friends almost overnight. And, and to their credit, they began to see what they needed to work on. And so we established a tuition reimbursement program, and people who, uh, were c committed and, and wanted to stay around, uh, they went and took advantage of free tuition tuition to start improving their knowledge and skills. And I'm proud, one of the things I'm proudest of is that we did not dismiss a single staff court interpreter. They either ultimately passed or they decided, you know, I really, this is really not for me now that I know what it really is. And they went on to other jobs within the courts. No one lost their job. So I'm very proud of how we implemented that, uh, very humanely and with great consideration of people who have been just working in the wrong environment with the wrong expectations, all in all innocence.
Speaker 1:So with regards to the testing program that you created and implemented, could you talk to us a little bit about how that went? It went from, uh, being a New Jersey only test to then contributing and participating in the consortium, which later became the National Center for State Courts.
Speaker 2:Sure. Well, again, this, this whole field has been evolutionary. One of the things I'll always say is there's, there's no such thing as a, an immediate solution to problems. Cause courts and institute, large institutions don't just change overnight. Um, it was an evolutionary process, as I said. And once we started, people started hearing about us and we started sharing our tests. Uh, and the way we shared our tests was we required a representative of a guilty court system to come to a seminar where we talked to'em about what a test was, what it did, how it was measured, how it was administered, and they had to agree to administer the test according to our procedures. So also, um, I forget who I was with, but I had, had, I taught a, um, a letter session at, at the Northeastern regional office of the National Center for State Courts up in Boston, and planted the seeds of what needed to be done. And in that audience was a fellow named Bill Hewitt, who was a relatively new employee of the National Center for State Courts. And he took a personal interest in it. So again, this is another example of how personality driven the field had been. So he took an interest in it, and a few years later, guess who got a grant to do a national study of court interpretation, bill Hewitt at the National Center for State Course. So he formed an advisory board, which I was happy to serve on. And, uh, from 19 80, 19 93 to 1995 or so, uh, we, we did the national, uh, assessment of court interpretation. And Bill wrote the report called Model, uh, court Interpretation Model Guides for the, I think the 2000, something like that with the title and being at the National Center State Courts, which is, um, an organization that has, uh, membership from all of the state judiciaries in the country. He had a platform from which to preach the gospel of court interpretation, certification, and everything beyond that. And that report was something of a roadmap for doing that. And it, it, in 1990 and during the course of those years of working in that group with Oregon, Joanne Moore and I and Bill were the three people who, uh, did most of the work and conceptualize moving forward with this concept of sharing tests based a little bit on the New Jersey model. But the basic idea was why should every state spend money to develop, to develop its own tests? Let's pull resources, let's pull, uh, tests, let's pull money and let's draw, make them available to everybody. So that was the idea that formed a consortium. And, uh, Minnesota and Oregon joined in. So those were the four charter states. And as soon as it started, within a year or two, several other states joined. And then it started exploding. And year after year, we had annual meetings to plan, uh, the growth and states were joining left and right. Uh, some states joined but never implemented testing, but, but they wanted to at least know what was going on. Uh, it took California years before, for example, to use consortium tests cuz there was a lot of, uh, feedback, uh, pushback on abandoning the tests that they had historically used and used the consortiums test instead. But lot of states joined just cause they wouldn't be aware of it. New York joined, they still to this day have never used, to my knowledge, a a sort of a consortium exam or national center exam nurse doing test, still doing testing their own way. But they were members, in fact, someone from New York was even on the technical committee helping us design our testing program. So it exploded. And in the early days, it was sort of like a small club of people getting together to talk about how are we gonna do this? And then I'll never forget, we had an annual meeting in Tampa, Florida about five or six or seven years into the life of the consortium. And California had just joined and about 10 other jurisdictions seems like they had just joined. And we went from this little mom and pop operation to this gigantic gathering of people. It became unwieldy. So we realized we had to find a, a more professional model to make the consortium function to meet the needs of all the, all the state courts coming in.
Speaker 1:Now, the test that you developed in New Jersey, w did that test come from another state that was creating a pilot program? Did you use the federal exam as a template?
Speaker 2:We basically tried to follow the general methodology of the federal exam. There were no other exams on the horizon for us to even look at. So we basically did our own thing. We took transcripts from New Jersey cases, uh, adapted them to the testing model of the federal courts as best we thought we could. We had, uh, four people who had been involved in developing the federal test, do a validation study of that early exam that led to some revisions thanks to their professional input. And then in 1987, we went live with our own real validated exam. Uh, that did not rely on any other specific exam other than generally following the test construction model of the federal exam. A couple of differences. We didn't have a written component because that's just too expensive to develop. Uh, and it only had one simultaneous, instead of two simultaneous components. We wanted something that was sleek and, uh, efficient to administer and efficient to rate. Um, and so that was our model. And, uh, when, uh, Oregon passed, I'm sorry, not Oregon, Washington state passed, its, uh, had his court interpreter task force looking at the field. Joanne Moore wanted to, uh, develop their own tests, which they did, but they borrowed our, the, the, the person who was our primary expert, Eli Del Bandera, who went out to Washington, helped them, uh, formulate their tests. So their test was largely modeled after hours, but again, with their own local, uh, variations, which weren't that significant. Uh, and then by the time the consort, uh, bill Hewitt formed the consortium in 1995, those two test models were the framework that led to the framework that the consortium established it. Joanne Moore and I got together for several days and hammered out a compromise<laugh>, uh, of testing models so that the consortium would have its own testing model. So I gave up some things that were important to me. She gave up some things that were important to her, and we agreed on the consensus model. And that gave birth to the model that the consortium has used ever since.
Speaker 1:Now it's important to note that, um, we're really speaking mostly about the Spanish exam on a state level, but that other states have actually developed their version of, of other languages exams in other languages, which they have contributed in part to the consortium or later to National Center for State Courts. How has that worked actually? Well,
Speaker 2:Uh, initially the way you could join the consortium was either of two ways. One, you could pay a fee, uh, a one time fee. Originally it was one time later became annual, uh, but a one time fee to become a member or you could donate tests, New Jersey and Washington never paid a fee because we donated all of our tests. By that time we had Portuguese, uh, and Haitian Creole on top of Spanish, uh, Washington because of their population also had Mandarin canton, uh, I'm sorry, uh, several Asian languages, Korean lek. I forget now exactly what they all were. But, um, so those original tests were donated by both states. But after that, I don't think any state developed a test on its own in any language. After that, the consortium itself developed the tests. And I remember every year when we had our annual meetings, we would talk about, well, what's the next language we're gonna develop a test in? And that in the early years, that was an easy question to answer because most people's knees was, were fairly similar Russian, Vietnamese, um, et cetera. And of course, New Jersey we developed at the time, we were finishing developing up tests in six other languages. Uh, and then the consortium went on to develop its own tests, uh, and now there's tests in like 20, 22 languages.
Speaker 1:So, Robert, Joe, what about the testing model that the federal exam was using? Is that a valid, um, template or a valid model for other languages?
Speaker 2:Well, to borrow a phrase from Sadam Hussein, the F C I C E is the mother of all court interpreting tests. Um, yes, uh, it, it's un it's unassailable as far as I'm concerned. Uh, you may not, I don't know if you're aware, but there was a test case right after the test was administered. There was a, there were two interpreters who had failed the test in New York who filed a suit against the test. And they lost, uh, the court ruled that the test is valid and reliable. It measures what it, it proportion to measure. And, uh, I'm a huge fan of the federal test.
Speaker 1:So what about, you know, once you started testing in New Jersey, you realized that there's this problem of interpreter competency. Now you had to figure out what to do. What were your options?
Speaker 2:Necessity drove a lot of the decisions we made in the eighties and nineties. And by that I mean, for example, when we started using our validated and deemed reliable test in 1987, um, the first time we administer did it was to about 22 people who were applying for a staff interpreter position. In the early days, we were not certifying in, in fact, New Jersey never has certified, we don't use that language, but we were, we were testing as an employment exam to see who's eligible for this position. And outta those 22 people, only one person passed the test at the, we're using a passive cut score of 70% and each of the three sections of the exam site, consecutive and simultaneous. And that person didn't want the job. She was wanting to take the, she just took the test cuz she wanted a credential. Now there's a professional interpreter,<laugh>, the rest of them were just people who were looking for a job and had no clue what they were getting into. Um, so you have to fill a position, you can't, you can't go years and years with the vacant staff court interpreter position. Cause one of the people in, in X County who don't speak English, gonna do when they go to court, you're gonna tell them to wait for a couple years until we find somebody. So they introduced, uh, my solution to that was to create a probationary level of outcome, which at that time we called critical range. And later we changed to call it conditionally approved. So we lowered the cut score, uh, to an overall average of 60 and a score in each of the three sections of the exam of no lower than 50. And with the presumption that they would be hired on a probationary basis, they have to be retested within, uh, 12 to 18 months. They would be eligible for the tuition reimbursement program. They would be given assignments, the least legally significant assignments. So they could do the minimum risk present theri minimum risk to the litigants and to the, uh, integrity of the justice being administered in that county. Um, and be close and improvised. So, uh, that worked pretty well. F almost all of those people who, who were hired at that level ultimately did pass the exam and some decided that this is not for me. They moved on to other things. Not one person was ever fired because of that. Another thing that I'm very proud of. So we created a, an alternative path that would get, cuz there was no pipeline, you know, in 19 85, 86, I'm sorry, uh, not, yeah, 1987. Where do you find people who've studied court interpreting and can have, have been acquired? The develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to pass the exam. There's no pipeline. And so we had to do that for a long time. A lot of people hired were people who were condition approved, but eventually they all, uh, either passed the test and moved up and of course they were paid less as well. It's a lower level of compensation, lower level of skill, um, and of course the ultimate goals for people to function at a higher level than even the journeyman level. So we instituted a master level outcome as well. Cuz in my view, uh, one of the biggest mistakes we've made is, I don't know if it's a mistake, but we had no choice. And, and 80% cutoff would've meant we never had, we would never hire staff court interpreters. So 70% was a compromise with a view toward creating a master level that people would hopefully test up to pay them more. And they would be the cream of the crop somewhat equivalent to the F C I C E because that's their cut level. On the oral exam,
Speaker 1:You mentioned that there wasn't a pipeline for training for interpreters. What about universities? What about linguistics programs at universities and other places like that?
Speaker 2:Well, if you talk to people like Virginia Bin Maman or Nancy Sweta Nicholson, who, who tried to run these programs, uh, you'll hear that, um, departments of foreign languages are not real friendly toward court interpreting, uh, programs. They're interested in literature, they're not interested in the applied use of the language. Uh, they might sometimes be interested in translation because sometimes translation's connected to literature, but not interpreting. Uh, and linguistics is really so far a field from what an interpreter needs to know and be able to do that. I, I think that University of Delaware was the only place that had interpreting in their linguistics pro department. Um, and both of those programs have folded now. Uh, Nancy left, uh, Jenny left and those pro, the master's program at College of Charleston, uh, died. So, uh, in New Jersey, we had a college that, uh, started a, a minor in legal interpreting. And when the professor who started that retired, the program died, but it would've died anyway because of lack of enrollment. And so New Jersey, we have, uh, two or three colleges that still offer courses of interpretation and legal, legal toward interpreting legal translation, but it's not a full fledged program. They're like, I would like to see mm-hmm.<affirmative>, we have a couple of junior colleges that offer a course or two, um, what other people would call community colleges. And I'm aware that around the country there have emerged other programs at the bachelor's level and so on and so forth. But in terms of any nationwide program or resource that generates hundreds of people to come in and pass the exams and raise the passing level, that's just not there for Spanish. And if it's not there for Spanish, it sure as heck not there for any other language.
Speaker 1:So have you, do you have any suggestions for either academics or trainers or even other AOCs regarding, you know, what approach they should take to increase the number of trained interpreters? And also what level of training are we really talking about?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, that's a very complex question. Um, you know, since the early days, a number of places have tried to offer, had not have tried, have offered what I would call ad hoc bandaid efforts to provide some training. University of Arizona, uh, a lot of individuals, uh, groups like Del Lamore, uh, and in California and, and other places, there are a lot of ad ad hoc, uh, what I call ad hoc training to fill the gap. But tho those, those are not what I would say is the most desirable approach forward. They're filling a need because there's nothing else. So god bless. But I would rather see, uh, an undergraduate degree in court interpretation, where you can take an array of courses in law, uh, culture and a applied courses in the techniques of the various modes of interpretation, uh, people to understand, uh, a lot more terminology, uh, a lot more of the legal framework within which they're working. Uh, in my view, any profession that's a profe, you know, medicine, uh, ministry, uh, psychology, almost all the professions have a degree attached to them, a minimum level of education, law lawyers, and not just a bachelor's degree, but three years of law school. Well, when people ask me what are, so why do people, so many people fail, fail the interpreting exam? I say, well, imagine trying to take the board exam without having ever been to law school or college. I'm sorry. It is just, it's just, just because you're bilingual doesn't mean you're an interpreter. Uh, that's, it's a necessary condition for sure, but it's hardly adequate. And so my, I've always dreamed for, uh, undergraduate degrees with majors in court interpretation, and a handful of places where there are graduate programs in court interpretation. So we can get, generate more research. So the field has a better theoretical foundation to undergird, uh, professional growth of the field.
Speaker 1:So why would research be important and what could research projects contribute to this profession?
Speaker 2:Okay, let me just throw out a few questions. Uh, people debate about which is more difficult, consecutive or simultaneous interpreting. Well, you're gonna have a lot of people expressing their professional opinions based on their per personal experience. But empirically, how do we know which one is more difficult than the other? Can that even be known empirically? Does it matter? Um, my position is, I, I can tell you which one people find to be more difficult because I have the data to back it up. Cause we kept data in New Jersey on every person who took an exam. And I can tell you that for every person who could pass the site, only half of those people could pass consecutive. And for every person who consecutive, only half of those could pass simultaneous. So the data show that the people who take the tests do the worst on simultaneous the best on, on site and in between, on consecutive, that doesn't necessarily mean that cons simultaneous is more difficult than consecutive. I would argue that consecutive might very well be more difficult than simultaneous. Uh, but, and also there, now what does interpreter do on the job? How much of an interpreter job per assignment does the interpreter spend waiting, doing nothing but waiting for their case to be called up then while they're on the job? What per how much of their time, how, what percentage of their time do they spend doing site or consecutive or simultaneous interpreting? What does the job really entail? When we first started, we didn't have site in our test because our staff interpreters are telling us they never did it. Well, you don't wanna test for something that people never do. Cause that would be irrelevant. Well, one of the things that happened when we had our tests validated was our four experts said, well, why don't you have a site? And said, because our people have told us that they don't ever do it. And they said, well, why don't you take another look? So he did, and guess what? They were then doing it. So we added sight. So, uh, another thing would be think like how well are these tests performing? Uh, did the test design, uh, having 10 or types of scoring units empirically, does that really pan out in the real world of testing, psychometrically speaking, uh, do they all play a, uh, a clearer, uh, role in, in constituting a competent interpreter in testing for competency? So, oh, there's lots of get me started. I can spend, uh, two days and talk about research possible. I'll send you a list.<laugh>,
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Now you mentioned psychometrics. Could you tell us what that is and how sure that is related to the tests?
Speaker 2:Of course, psychometrics is a subfield of the, of psychology, which specializes in, uh, making tests valid and reliable. Uh, it focuses on things like, uh, the s a t and the test that educational testing service does. It's, it's a field for licensing exams. So if you want to do tests, uh, if you wanna develop and administer test in a way that meet the standards of the profession of professional testing, you want a psychometrician involved to at least have input into the process so that you're meeting industry standards. And that's what psychometrics says. So psychometrics is the metrics of measuring mental constructs are professional skills.
Speaker 1:Now, when you mentioned earlier two interpreters who had sued the government for not passing the federal exam, what was the basis of their challenge? They
Speaker 2:Failed and they've been working for many years and they thought they were great interpreters.
Speaker 1:So did they have any scientific data to back it up? Oh, no. Did they have any?
Speaker 2:They were just offended because their professional self, uh, images were, uh, destroyed.<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Now many of us has taken these tests over the years, and some of us have passed some tests the first time around. Um, for others it's taken quite a number of times to pass some of these tests myself. Um, I'm not ashamed to say that it took me quite a number of tries to pass a federal interpreter exam. And, but it also took a lot of work. And I know that every time I took the test, I felt that I was more competent than the previous time. Does the test really, does a te good test result really mean that an interpreter, that the person is a good interpreter in more than just that particular sitting or across the board?
Speaker 2:Jack Leh, who was the person at the administrative of the United States courts, who oversaw the process that led to the creation and administration early years of the federal test, always said, the test is a measure of how you performed on the day you took the test. It's not necessarily a measure of how good an interpreter you are, so it is how good an interpreter you showed yourself to be on the test on the day that you took it. So that's the way he always described it, and it makes a lot of sense. Uh, but there's a lot of different reasons why people don't do well on the test. Uh, in fact, the consortium has issued a two or three page document that's, that identifies the common reasons that people do not succeed on the test. And that includes things like not having a clue what they're doing because they haven't had any training. And it's like those people we tested in the early days who just walked in off the street and cause they spoke, they thought they spoke two languages, uh, they were there for interpreters. But there are lots of different reasons why people don't do particularly well on a given test. Uh, some people just don't have a solid enough language base in one or the other. And sometimes both languages, it's amazing to me how many people have taken the test and they really don't speak very good Spanish or they don't have a very good mastery of English. And in some cases, either language. And I think that's one of the disasters of our, our approach to immigration. You have somebody who comes here as a child and you expect them to learn English and to forget their mother tongue. So they never really master the mu the language they came to the United States with and they drop out of school in the eighth or ninth grade. So they never really learned English. And you expect that person to be an interpreter. Uh, I don't think so. Uh, so it, it really depends a lot on each person. And there's a lots of different reasons why one individual may not do well on a test on a particular day. There's also such of thing as test phobia, a lot of people are just clam up and, and can't function very well in a testing environment. That's, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just a psychological reality, uh, that, that impedes their ability to perform at their what could be, uh, a much higher level. So
Speaker 1:I know that you are proponent of retesting in part, whereas there are other, there are other persons who say, well, if you can't pass the test as a whole in one sitting, then you need to take it all again. What's your rationale for taking it in parts?
Speaker 2:Well, several things. Uh, first thing is purely practical. Uh, in the early days when New Jersey was testing, we did not charge for the test. So we were fitting the bill for everybody who was tested. And so, as a matter of, um, being a, a responsible civil servant, making appropriate use of taxpayer dollars, why give a person, uh, if a person has demonstrated the ability to perform in one particular section of the task, why make them take it again? So that's one reason. The second reason is I, uh, it's easier to administer. Uh, and so when you have limited resources, you wanna do things that in the easiest way without compromis compromising quality. And third, now, if a person has already demonstrated they can do it, why do you have to do it again? So I I I just don't understand. I, I know what the argument is for the other side, but I never bought it.
Speaker 1:And you're also a proponent of providing as much feedback as possible, including, oh yeah,
Speaker 2:Sure. You know, like the federal test, you, you get a score and you don't know how you did in the psych consecutive or simultaneous. You don't know where your weak spots are. You don't know where your strong spots are. I, I find that abominable, uh, if you want, if you want to encourage people to improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities, how can you not give them more information and feedback about whether areas of strength are and their areas of weakness are. Uh, New Jersey was the only, juris is the only jurisdiction that has ever given feedback on how people did do it in each of the subparts of the consecutive, depending on source language, target language, uh, we give people the scores going English into Spanish and Spanish into English, so they know whether they're having more trouble with, uh, witnesses going into English or attorneys going into Spanish or the other language. Um, so I don't think New Jersey does that anymore because they don't, don't have the resources to do the database that I used to do. So we've lost that in New Jersey. Um, but, um, how can people improve if they don't know what they need to work on?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm completely in agreement with you there,<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we, we all talk about the scarcity of enough people passing the exam, and I don't feel I can support erecting what I view to be artificial barriers to getting more people to pass without compromising quality. Robert
Speaker 1:Joe, you have a unique perspective into the interpreting world. Um, as a court administrator, tell us what interpreters don't know is happening behind the scenes and what they should know to not only make maybe your life easier or the life of somebody who is in, in the positions you were, but really for them to succeed as interpreters in their court systems. Well,
Speaker 2:The, the first thing I say is that it depends on your state and your jurisdiction. Um, you, you would hope that every jurisdiction has a competent caring, a hardworking language access coordinator. And I'm, I betcha for the most part, that's the case. Uh, I've, I've known and worked with many of them, and some of them are still dear friends and they're the cream of the earth. But one of the problems is that, um, it's a job that doesn't enjoy often a lot of support. I've talked to many of my colleagues who would call me and cry on my shoulder, you wouldn't believe what administration did today. Uh, and I would try to counsel them and support them. Don't quit. Please don't quit. We need you to stay there. And a lot of, a lot of program managers don't last more than one or two years, which is one of the greatest things that inhibits progress in the field. I was there for a long time and my successor has been there now for like 13 years or so. So to succeed, it requires dedication, it requires longevity, it requires commitment, and it requires understanding. If you're only there one or two years, you haven't learned the job, you, you're still learning the job. So every, I would also suggest need to understand that large institutions, large bureaucracies, are not models of efficiency. Even though I was at the New Jersey aoc, people need to understand that I was com competing with all the other aspects of the judiciary. So for example, in New Jersey, probations in the judicial branch of government. And so if court interpreters get a raise and probation officers don't, how does that look if, um, court interpreters are being laid off far less than probation officers, are they getting preferential treatment? Uh, so the problem is court interpreters do not work in a vacuum. They do not work in isolation. They work in a huge bureaucracy, and everyone in that bureaucracy is fighting for the crumbs. And it's very difficult for court interpreters to get what they probably deserve. Lemme rephrase that, which they certainly deserve. Uh, it's, it's, and court administrators, if they don't get raised to the interpreters the way they think, the interpreters think they should receive it. It's not, it not necessarily has anything to do with the interpreters. Uh, in the last many years, we've seen many instances where state judiciary budgets have been cut. I know many times we had to lay off lots of employees in New Jersey because the judiciary lost millions in its annual appropriation. If was not political, there's no money. And so there are lots of, lot of factors involved and, and whether or not an administrator can accomplish certain things that interpreters think should be very easy to accomplish. And so what my advice would be to everybody is develop relationship with managers in the courts, find out what they're dealing with, become a friend to them, not a foe. Uh, the problem I had with some people from time to time, not very many, but a couple, is when a, a staff interpreter might take on something of a, what are we call a messianic messianic complex and want to save the world for quarter interpreters and lambast management. Uh, you don't make friends by alienating the people that you're trying to persuade. Uh, it it's just a difficult world we live in, and sometimes the money's just not there. Sometimes you're competing with greater commitments. It's just a hard thing and it takes a long time. The work, being a manager in this field and trying to get success is not for the lighthearted. It's only for people who wanna be around for a long time and are stubborn enough to not give up.
Speaker 1:How has the role changed over the years of the court administrators with regards to the interpreters?
Speaker 2:Hmm. Oh wow. There, I don't know how to answer that because every jurisdiction is very different. You have, and even in New Jersey, every county is different. Um, in some counties in New Jersey, you have a court interpreter who is the head of the court interpreting unit and makes the administrative decisions and reports to somebody above him or her and other counties In New Jersey, it's a non interpreter who supervises the court interpreter unit. Uh, and it's just a straight manager with no necessary expertise in court interpreting mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So I've never quite understood. Well, I, I have understood it because sometimes that court interpreter might have been a very good interpreter, but was not a very good manager. Uh, the skillset of an interpreter does not necessarily transfer into supervision. And so, um, and other jurisdictions, you know, a lot of, there's not enough workload for a full-time staff interpreter who does nothing but interpret. So they create a dual position where they are a clerk that does some things, and then they're an interpreter that does interpreting. Uh, and it's an environment where it's just sort of a compromise arrangement. There's so many different ways it's managed. I, I don't even know how to begin to answer that question.
Speaker 1:So you retired from Yes. The, um, New Jersey judiciary, and you're still very actively involved in the interpreting profession. Tell us about what projects you're working on and what you're looking forward to the future.
Speaker 2:Well, my, my involvement has declined over the years since I re retired, since I retired at the end of 2008, uh, in the first several years after I retired, I was still doing, uh, some work for the A O C here in New Jersey. I was still serving as a test, uh, administration, a test rating supervisor for the consortium or what was, was, uh, dissolved. And then the, the new arrangement that they formulated after that, I continue to help with test writing, test revisions. And over the years, uh, those have both, uh, uh, ended for a variety of different reasons. And so I've, I've always wanted to do more research. And so I've done some research, uh, the biggest of which was a, a certain national survey of quarter interpret compensation, um, which came out about, I don't know, six or seven years ago. And I'm not doing very much now. Uh, but I have things that I would like to do. But between grandchildren and, uh, uh, lots of other commitments, uh, my day-to-day involvement is unfortunately a lot less. I'm not as up to date as I would like to be. I still, I still serve on the advocacy committee for Nat, and so I get my foot in the door that way. And that's, that's a very enjoyable with, uh, Sandra Tamasi and my other colleagues. Uh, but aside from that and speaking at conferences from once in a while, uh, unfortunately I'm, I'm sort of out of the loop
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Well, do you have any parting words for, um, interpreters who are, you know, still having a difficult time passing those exams?
Speaker 2:Good, good training. Read, read, read in both languages. Expand your vocabulary. The test is not out to get you. Uh, it's a fair, reliable test. And if you develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities, it'll be a piece of cake, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:Robert Jolie, thank you so much. You have definitely, um, earned your retirement, but we are so glad that you're still involved in with magic and in the interpreting profession. We value your expertise, we value your knowledge, and most of all, we value your service. Thank you so much for joining us here on subject to interpretation.
Speaker 2:My great pleasure. You can tell unload it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us here on subject to interpretation, never Stop Learning.