Amber Galloway Gallego

Amber Galloway (born 1977) is an American sign language interpreter specializing in music. She is currently an Interpreting Instructor at Lamar University in in Beaumont, Texas.

Amber Galloway was born on 12 March 1977 in San Antonio, Texas.

When she was 5, her father dated a woman whose son was deaf. She first learned the signs from her son. A few years later, her baby sitter had two deaf children. When she met with a car accident, her roommate at the rehab hospital also happened to be deaf. Being in contact with members of the deaf community, she was able to develop the skills needed for sign language interpretation. For fun, she would often use the sign language to interpret songs for her friends. While she would interpret songs of every genre, her speciality was in hip-hop –– as a child, her dream was to be a rapper and hip-hop artist.

In 1998, she began attending San Antonio College in San Antonia, Texas, while also preparing to be a future rapper. At the college, she would often interpret songs for her peers. Her talent was noticed and she received encouraging feedback. A deaf guidance counselor at the college suggested her to consider sign language interpretation as a career. She attended one semester at the ASL interpretation degree program at the college. Her interest only grew –– in 2000, she graduated with an Associate's Degree in Interpreting for the Deaf.

Her ambition of becoming a rapper/hip-hop artist was not an easy one to tackle, and interpreting hip-hop songs seemed like a nice career alternative.

In the years 2008-2010, she attended Ashford University in San Diego, California and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. In 2014, she received a master's degree in American sign language from the University of North Florida.

After graduation, she interpreted her first live concert in 2001. In 2005, she moved to Houston. She began working as an interpreter and interpreting instructor at Lone Star College and Houston Community College. Over the years, she received professional certifications including R.I. D. CI and CT, R.I.D. and N.A.D NIC, Texas B.E.I. Level V and Texas B.E.I. Oral Certified:Comprehensive.

In 2011, she created a YouTube channel.

At 2013 Lollapalooza, someone took a video of her interpreting A$AP Rocky’s “Fuckin’ Problems” for the deaf audience.

The video went viral and she became famous! In 2014, she was made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with Wiz Khalifa.

In an 2016 interview with Chicago Mag, she said:

I would go to concerts with my deaf friends and watch the interpreters, and it was just really unsuccessful. These interpreters weren’t respecting the experience of the music performance or the amount of preparation that needs to go into it. What’s worse is that they weren’t engaging at all with the deaf individuals there. When I saw that I was like, “there’s something missing here.”

Galloway identifies as a lesbian. In 2011, she married a professor of psychology and her name then became Amber Galloway-Gallego.

On March 4, 2018, Galloway's son Elijah Goertz passed away at the age of 23. As a tribute, she posted a video titled "Elijah's Memorial Video".