Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Re­porter

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

This Moth­er’s Day, we shine a light on a woman whose hands speak vol­umes—on and off the screen.

Raeanne Hut­ton is a pro­fes­sion­al sign lan­guage in­ter­preter, a proud CO­DA (Child of Deaf Adults), and now, a first-time mom. As she em­braces the joys and chal­lenges of moth­er­hood, she con­tin­ues to serve as a vi­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion bridge for the Deaf and hard-of-hear­ing com­mu­ni­ty—in­ter­pret­ing live news broad­casts with poise, clar­i­ty, and deep cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing.

In ho­n­our of Na­tion­al In­ter­preter Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Day, which is cel­e­brat­ed on the first Wednes­day in May, WE sat down with Hut­ton to ex­plore the per­son­al sto­ry be­hind the pro­fes­sion­al skill.

Hut­ton has been in­ter­pret­ing in­for­mal­ly for 26 years and pro­fes­sion­al­ly for over 15. Her jour­ney be­gan at the age of six, dur­ing an un­ex­pect­ed mo­ment that shaped her en­tire fu­ture.

“There was a time I was six years old when I had to stand up on this box and in­ter­pret for a crowd of deaf peo­ple be­cause the in­ter­preter at the time ei­ther got in­to an ac­ci­dent or couldn’t make it to the event.

“My mom was just like, ‘Raeanne, you go, you go.’ So that was the first time I in­ter­pret­ed for a crowd of deaf peo­ple,” she said.

For Hut­ton, sign lan­guage isn’t just a tool—it’s a na­tive lan­guage, passed down from her par­ents.

“I’m what’s called a CO­DA, a Child of Deaf Adults. Both my mom and my dad are deaf. So, I learned to sign be­fore I learned to speak,” she ex­plained. “Speak­ing came when I start­ed to in­ter­act with stu­dents in school.”

That ear­ly start came with its chal­lenges. Hut­ton re­calls pro­nounc­ing words dif­fer­ent­ly from her peers, but she adapt­ed quick­ly, even­tu­al­ly find­ing her voice—both spo­ken and signed.

De­spite this deep con­nec­tion to sign­ing, she nev­er en­vi­sioned it as a ca­reer, but that changed with one un­ex­pect­ed phone call.

“One day my cousin-in-law called me, and she said they need­ed some­body to in­ter­pret (at an event) be­cause they didn’t book any in­ter­preter,” she said.

That gig led to a chance meet­ing with some­one from an in­ter­pret­ing agency—some­one she told she’d love to in­ter­pret the news one day. And just like that, her path shift­ed.

In­ter­pret­ing live news, she says, is a world of its own.

“Sign­ing for the news is a dif­fer­ent ket­tle of fish be­cause news is so much in­for­ma­tion, bun­dled with­in one hour, with words that do not ex­ist in sign lan­guage. So, you have to know the mean­ing of these words.”

Un­like oth­er in­ter­pret­ing set­tings, live news leaves no room to pause or ask for clar­i­fi­ca­tion. It’s fast, com­plex, and re­lent­less. And Hut­ton now man­ages all that—while rais­ing an in­fant.

“In the past, with­out think­ing, if some­one need­ed help in­ter­pret­ing, I could say yes and be on my way. But now, as a new mom, I’m bat­tling the anx­i­ety of leav­ing my lit­tle one, who’s un­der four months, to go and do an in­ter­pret­ing job. I now have to find some­one with the free time to look af­ter my ba­by girl if it’s with­in work­ing hours be­cause my hus­band would al­so be un­avail­able to do it,” she ex­plained.

How­ev­er, for Hut­ton, it’s not about choos­ing one role over the oth­er.

“In­ter­pret­ing is a call­ing of mine and it is some­thing that I re­al­ly en­joy do­ing it gives me pur­pose and so does be­ing a mom. So, to bal­ance the two, I have to tell my­self I’m on­ly tak­ing a few hours away from my call­ing as a mom to an­swer my call­ing as an in­ter­preter for some­one else who re­al­ly needs it—and that way, I don’t aban­don ei­ther of my call­ings,” she said.

Her par­ents—both deaf—now sup­port Raeanne by help­ing care for ba­by, Nico­la-Marie.

“One of the pri­ma­ry babysit­ters is my mom, who is deaf, and she speaks to ba­by girl us­ing sign lan­guage, and Nico­la-Marie seems very in­trigued by it. I think she nat­u­ral­ly has a pull to sign lan­guage, and her cu­rios­i­ty will get her in­volved in Sign Lan­guage one way or an­oth­er,” she not­ed.

When asked if she sees her daugh­ter fol­low­ing in her foot­steps, Hut­ton said: “She may be in­ter­est­ed in Sign Lan­guage sole­ly to com­mu­ni­cate with her fam­i­ly mem­bers, or she may even go in­to in­ter­pret­ing. What­ev­er she de­cides, of course, I’m go­ing to sup­port her.

“She may be in any pro­fes­sion, and de­spite the pro­fes­sion—be­cause there are deaf peo­ple every­where—her knowl­edge of sign lan­guage is go­ing to come in handy, I’m sure of it, even if she doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly turn out to be an in­ter­preter. And this shows how know­ing sign lan­guage can be an as­set to any­one in any pro­fes­sion.”

As some­one who has stood be­tween worlds all her life—be­tween si­lence and speech, Deaf cul­ture and the hear­ing world—Hut­ton al­so spoke about the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in­ter­preters car­ry and the in­tegri­ty the job re­quires.

“I try to stay hon­est. Let’s just say I can’t hear, so I’m not go­ing to pre­tend I’m sign­ing any­thing. I will ac­tu­al­ly say, I can’t hear. I say it,” she ad­mit­ted.

To her fel­low in­ter­preters, es­pe­cial­ly those nav­i­gat­ing chal­lenges or doubts, she of­fered a mes­sage of en­cour­age­ment: “What in­ter­preters do is so in­valu­able. It bridges worlds. And there’s a rea­son why it’s called an in­ter­preter ver­sus a trans­la­tor, it re­quires a lot more ef­fort, work, and un­der­stand­ing to con­vey that mes­sage to your au­di­ence. So, don’t give up, es­pe­cial­ly with peo­ple who may com­plain or not ful­ly un­der­stand why you’re do­ing what you’re do­ing, or even those that make fun of what we’re do­ing.”

And to those who may not give that lit­tle box in the cor­ner of the screen much thought?

“You can turn your back, wash your wares, and still be in the know of what is hap­pen­ing with the news, but a deaf per­son is go­ing to have to look at that box and con­cen­trate on that box for the en­tire hour,” she said.

She urged peo­ple of that opin­ion to be pa­tient with in­ter­preters—and per­haps even con­sid­er learn­ing Sign Lan­guage to keep up.