>> Rosemary Church: ... And we want to talk more about the sign-language interpreter
at Nelson Mandela's memorial on Tuesday.
We're joined by Laura Peterson and Julie Rems-Smario in Freemont, California,
They work at the California School for the Deaf, as we mentioned,
and Julie herself is deaf and will be communicating through an interpreter
who is off-camera here.
Thank you for joining us.
Laura, I do want to start with you and get your reaction
to this sign-language interpreter: what did you think?
>> Laura Peterson: Um, well, when I first heard about it, actually from Julie,
I thought "OK, then maybe they weren't qualified,"
So I thought, in order to explain this here,
I really wanted to provide access to everybody in your audience
and so, because I understand that there is no captioning,
so Julie is interpreting,
so that everybody in the audience can have access.
So I just wanted to clarify that,
because people are maybe not understanding
why Julie is signing right now.
So, when I first read about it, I thought:
"OK, maybe it was somebody who just wasn't very good."
But when I actually saw the video, it was really clear that they were --
did not have the semantics, the hand shapes,
the normal attributes of *any* sign language.
I don't know South African Sign Language,
but there are things that are uniform in all sign languages.
>> Church: And it is worth mentioning that there isn't an International Sign Language,
which is there,
I mean there are different Sign Languages in each country.
But Julie, I do want to go to you:
Are you outraged? What do you want to see happen here?
>> Julie Rems-Smario: Well, really, I am upset,
because really, that shows a lack of respect
for human rights of language equality.
That was destroyed at this event
and Nelson Mandela represented human rights
and he's an icon and an African.
And this person exploited that on a very important day
to honor Nelson Mandela
and he also violated our human rights as deaf people
by showing exactly what, you know,
language apartheid looks like.
>> Church: And Laura, as we saw in the story that Errol Barnett brought us
just before the break,
this man, this interpreter, he has been in trouble before,
but there have been no consequences.
How does somebody -- as far as I was concerned --
he had credentials to do this.
How does somebody end up on the stage
next to all of those dignitaries
in such an important, historic day,
for not just South Africa, but indeed the world?
How does someone get through to that point
when they've been in trouble before?
>> Peterson: Right, so your question is
how does he end up on the stage.
Um, it's not, unfortunately, it's not that unusual.
It happens not just in South Africa,
it happens around the world,
it happens in classrooms here in California.
This -- oftentimes the situation is,
the person who is doing the hiring doesn't know the language.
And so, if the person says they are fluent in that language,
they take them, you know, just by their word.
Here in the United States,
we have the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf,
there's a whole certification process
and a code of ethics and professional conduct,
so we try to avoid that.
However, that doesn't mean that people don't hire
people who don't have those qualifications,
they don't include deaf people in that hiring process
so that somebody who knows the language can actually ascertain
whether they do have that fluency.
>> Church: And presumably, money is the motivator here.
But of course, across the world,
many deaf children struggle to get a proper education
and that's the big point here.
And Human Rights Watch has a campaign dedicated
to help raise awareness about SIgn Language education
in places throughout Africa, and indeed the rest of the world.
I want to just watch a portion of the video if we can bring that up:
>> Teacher: My name? Good!
Yours? Hey! Anne, Anne, good!
My name.
[Girl signs her name]
>> Teacher: Good good good! Yours?
Your name? Ah ah, you are not Anne.
My name? Who? Yours, yours, yours.
>> Boy: Yours, yours, yours.
>> Teacher: Mmm, What is her name?
[Girl signs]
>> Teacher:Yeah, beautiful.
She's very good in taking in the sign language.
It's very important to have because
she can now be communicating to other people.
While she was at home
there was no sign language being taught there.
>> Church: And Julie and Laura, of course advocates say,
one of the biggest problems
is the lack of Sign Language schools and instructors.
And of course that portion of that video, I mean,
really does bring it home, doesn't it,
the importance of educating these children who,
for some -- sometimes, it's not until they're 6 years of age
that they have access to this sort of education.
So how concerned are you that this fake interpreter's actions
could have a negative impact on this initiative?
>> Rems-Smario: Well, I'm very concerned
about the lack of acceptance of deaf people, deaf leaders,
and the input from the community,
because we're the experts,
and many schools don't hire the deaf people who know the community,
who know the language,
who know our human right to Sign Language.
We have a national and international epidemic
of deaf children who have language deprivation.
They grow up without full access, full competency in any language,
which means they struggle academically, socially, emotionally
and it's really a travesty.
>> Church: If there's one good point,
perhaps this incident has brought attention to that.
We will see of course.
Laura Peterson and Julie Rems-Smario,
thank you so much for joining us
and bringing attention to this incident.
We appreciate it.