ALBANY — After more than two months of daily coronavirus updates, a new face is appearing on the Andrew Cuomo show, the popular program viewed around the nation.
Arkady Belozovsky appeared in a small right-hand corner box on the governor’s briefing screen on Wednesday, delivering sign language with a New York intensity to match Cuomo's and an Empire State assertiveness residents are proud to embrace.
“I get it — the way he speaks,” said Belozovsky, who lived in Brooklyn after emigrating from the former Soviet Union as a teenager in 1990. “He’s from Queens. His accent, his style, his mannerisms, it fits the New York stereotype. [People watching] in other states, they say 'Man you sign way too fast, Arkady.’ I say no, that’s how fast they are, they’re direct, they’re blunt.”
He actually has been interpreting Cuomo’s words since March 27 for versions of the briefing that appear online, but be hadn’t appeared in-frame until a judge ordered it Monday. All of the nation's other governors had provided sign-language interpretation for their briefings.
Belozovsky is a certified deaf interpreter, trained to interpret for individuals who might have a more limited knowledge of American Sign Language. There’s an emphasis on face and body communication that translates across various languages, he told POLITICO by video chat Wednesday. (He is deaf, as were his parents and grandparents.)
During briefings he watches feed interpreters Jeff Harris and Dale Neimeyer, who listen to Cuomo and sign to Belozovsky. Belozovsky then has his choice of signs to convey tone and persona to the audience, and he’s better at it because sign language is his native tongue, they say.
In addition to having to use multiple forms of communication growing up, his stage presence also was formed in his younger years in the USSR, where he performed as a folk dancer, actor, magician and tightrope walker in what is now Ukraine. He moved to New York at 16 without any knowledge of the language, but said he was instantly aware his deafness and his heritage would be less substantial barriers than they were under communist rule. He hasn't forgotten.
“I have a great debt that I want to pay back to New York, especially interpreting, I feel like that's my first entrance into this country,” he said. “New York gave me full access to everything.”
He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as three professional certificates from the Rochester Institute of Technology and then taught at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf. He went on to teach at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester and then became the first full-time deaf faculty member at Brown University, where he taught for eight years.
He’s freelance now, and travels as often as he can to present on immigration, interpreting, deaf history, ethics and empowerment. To prove that his deafness is not a limitation, he has gone scuba diving, has jumped out of planes and has his sights set on visiting a group of active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in eastern Russia.
He previously interpreted for Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo and is not immune to the emotional toll of reporting daily deaths and hospitalizations to the nation. But his two-hour drive from Albany back to East Brookfield, Mass., every day provides a respite. At home he showers, literally and metaphorically washing off the day, before spending time with his family.
He still hasn’t met the governor — which would be helpful as he attempts to adopt the precise messages Cuomo has been pushing — and he’s not sure if Cuomo has ever seen his work. Instead he drives to Albany every day and broadcasts the interpretation from a separate media room, whether or not Cuomo’s is briefing is also in town.
He doesn’t know why Cuomo has been so resistant to having an interpreter share the screen or even live in the same briefing room — “I can’t read his mind."
Cuomo’s media team is top-notch, he said, and the split screen ASL version of his briefings is one of the best in the country. But the live version is still one of the worst for the deaf community, he said. In fact his inbox "blew up" on Wednesday with both elation — that the in-frame signing was included — and devastation — it was so small it was was sometimes covered by news station logos or scrolling, depending on the station.
“I would love the opportunity to talk to him,” Belozovsky said. "I’d be glad to wear a mask and sit six feet apart. Whatever is necessary.”
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