Born of Mexican immigrant parents, Janet Valdez grew up in the Los Angeles County area. She earned her certificate in recording engineering, as well as degrees in music business and business administration. While in school, she attended various service trips to Mexico, where she acted as an interpreter while providing humanitarian aid to her team. Loving international service, she later became an assistant country director with Global Expeditions on various humanitarian trips to Panama and Mexico, where she unknowingly developed her consecutive and relay interpretation skills. After a decade of working at the Disneyland Resort as a multi-language sales specialist, trainer, and bilingual Traditions facilitator, she studied Spanish legal interpreting at the Southern California School of Interpretation with Nestor Wagner.   As part of her interpretation studies,  she completed internships with Teen Court, LACBA Domestic Violence Project, and Harriet Buhai Center for Family Law. She later completed the University of Arizona’s National Center for Interpretation Court Interpreters Training Institute.
 She is currently a traveling senior interpreter, serving different courthouses across the United States to interpret for the Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review (DOJ EOIR) and facilitating first-time interpreter orientations. She is a nine-time President of the United States Service Award recipient for her countless volunteer hours and the Harriet Buhai’s 2020 Community Volunteer award recipient. She currently volunteers for the Los Angeles Dream Center as well as for Catchafire.


Connect with Janet Valdez
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetvaldez/
Blog: https://interpreterlyfe.com/
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