Instead of designing for the community members, students designed with them. The volunteers shared their daily experiences, needs and preferences, guiding the design process from start to finish. Using interviews and observations, students worked in small teams to develop clothing tailored to each person. Their projects included developing shirts with magnetic closures for a wheelchair user, and custom mittens designed for someone living with rheumatoid arthritis.
The anthology is organized into four sections examining the experiences of disabled writers and writer-educators while exploring ways creative writing programs, classrooms and workshops can become more inclusive. Contributors represent a wide range of disabilities and health conditions, including ADHD, autism, blindness, dyslexia, cerebral palsy, bipolar disorder, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.
Mental health awareness within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community has long been overlooked and stigmatized, often due to things like fear of seeking help and the expectation of living up to the model minority myth. In media, these experiences are often tokenized, trivializing the stressors of achieving academic and professional success to repay the previous generations’ sacrifices, which seems to be the epitome of being in this minority group.
“I was very lucky to grow up in a school system where we had a really good inclusion model,” Matarrazza said. “From there, even just from an engineering perspective, it kind of gave me my why — why should I be an engineer? It made me really realize that people aren’t disabled by their impairments, but rather the barriers that surround us in everyday life.”
Cultural change and policy change go hand-in-hand; accurate media representation of disability helps show the public the challenges and triumphs of the disability experience, and what needs to change to ensure true access.
René grew up without ever seeing someone like himself on TV. He saw people with disabilities portrayed as angry, broken or dangerous. So he decided to change it: René helped create Elin, the first character with a visible disability in the German version of Sesame Street.
June 9, 2019. Ali Stroker wins Best Featured Actress in a Musical at the 73rd Annual Tony Awards. An actor, singer, and wheelchair user, Ali Stroker has been a trailblazer for disability representation on the stage. She was the first wheelchair user to graduate from the Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department at New York University. In 2015, she was the first wheelchair user to appear on Broadway, starring as Anna in the musical, Spring Awakening. For her performance as Ado Annie Carnes in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma!, Stroker became the first wheelchair user to win a Tony Award in 2019.
Take the quiz: Check Your Ableism!
Being Young and Disabled
By Noah Griffth, Auburn University
I Was a "Student of Concern"
By Kate Jackson, Rutgers University
In My Moment of Distress
By Anonymous, Temple University