vimeo.com/.../434965052

Hi, my name is Andy Imparato and I am the
Executive Director of Disability Rights California

I can think back to a lot of different
interactions I had with people with

disabilities growing up,
But I would say, that the most,

that the thing that had the biggest impact
on me is when I was starting my career

as a lawyer I ended up being diagnosed
with bi-polar disorder.

I was working in an organization that was
advocating for the rights of people with disabilities

and I learned the idea that shows up
in a lot of federal disability laws

the idea that disability is a natural
part of the human experience

and I found that statement
to be very powerful

as I was trying to deal with a
new diagnosis of bipolar disorder

I think the message I was getting
from the mental health world

was that my diagnosis was not natural
and it was kind of a long term problem

that I was going to have to address and

I didn't get any sense that the experience
of living with bipolar disorder

could actually benefit me and
could actually help me in my career

and what I got from being around
disability rights advocates people

with lived experience with lots of
different kinds of disabilities

I was living in Boston at the time

was the idea that my lived
experience was a actually

a strength and a source of credibility
for the work I was doing

and if I wanted to be effective as a
disability advocate I needed to learn

to see my disability as an
asset and a strength.

So I kinda feel like the
American's with Disabilities Act

is reflecting the values of the
disabilities right movement

and one of those most important values
is that disability is natural

your life with a disability is a natural
part of the human experience

and that it should not prevent you from
doing anything that you want to do

and when you are prevented from
doing those things

it's discrimination it's not natural

the idea that discrimination is
unnatural and disabilities are natural

that was a powerful thing for me and
helped frame my experience

as a person with a long term disability
that I acquired as an adult

the most important thing that disability
movement got from the

Americans with Disability Act was the fra ming
of disability issues as civil rights issues

if you look at kinda the history of
disability policy in the United States

and in other countries, people often saw
disability through a social welfare frame,

through a poverty frame,
through kinda the "worthy" poor frame

and the idea was if you want to address
problem people with disabilities have

you just need to provide the right services

but there wasn't a concept of discrimination,
there wasn't a concept of human and civil rights around that

we have earlier laws, the "Rehabilitation
Act" that had a piece of the law that

tried to deal with disability discrimination

but the ADA was the first law, where the
whole law was about addressing discrimination

and I think for a lot of us who live with disabilities

the civil rights frame is a very empowering
frame because it stops if something bad happens

to you as a person with a disability it stops
being about what did you do wrong

or what services do you need to avoid doing
that again and it starts being around well maybe

the system was designed to exclude you
and that's discrimination.

So don't just look at the person as the source
of the problem but look at the environment

and that concept I think has been a
really important concept to help us reframe

why bad things happen to people with disabilities,
why exclusion happens,

why segregation happens,
why poverty happens

and it helps us have higher expectations for ourselves,
and higher expectations for the environment around us.

So there are a lot of vary concrete things the ADA has done

like make the buses dramatically more accessible
for people with a wide range of disabilities

make, the built environment dramatically more accessible

but I think almost spiritually framing our issues
as civil rights issues, as justice issues

as human rights issues, I think that was as
important as any specific requirements in the law

so it's hard to pick one issue that would be
the big thing that I would like to see changed moving forward

as we think about the next 30 years of
the American's with Disabilities Act.

But I will say the one thing I think is critical

for us to change is what we require people
to prove in order to get support from the government

through our largest programs.

So if you look at our four biggest programs
that serve people with disabilities:

Social Security disability insurance,
supplemental security income, Medicaid, and medicare

those programs require you to prove you have a disability

and the way you prove that is with medical evidence

that shows, that you,
because of your physical or mental disability

you're unable to engage in substantial gainful activity

most people understand that to mean that
because of their disability they can't work

and that frame for trying to decide who
deserves to have support from the government

that frame dates back to 1956

that's when that definition was written
in the Federal statute originally

and our thinking about what's possible for
people with disabilities to achieve

in the labor market has
evolved hugely since 1956

we know people with very significant disabilities
can achieve success in a competitive labor market

if they have the right supports.

And...but yet we still require people to produce
medical evidence that their disability prevents

them from working in order to get supports
to live independently and to work

and it's just a backwards system

We've tried over the years to build work
incentives into the Social Securities disability programs

we've got a medicaid buy-in program

we've done a lot of things on the margins
to try and make it easier for people with

disabilities to work and get benefits but
we haven't dealt with that fundamental

definition of who is eligible for benefits.

So one of the things I'm hoping to see as
we move forward is to align the definition

of disability in the Social Security and in
the Disability Benefits laws with the vision

of disability in the American with Disabilities Act.

Instead of asking people to prove that
their disability prevents them from engaging

in substantial gainful activity, we should
be asking them what supports do they need

to be able to participate fully in the community

and we can decide if you need a certain level
of support, then you are eligible for income supports

it could be a whole other thing for health
care or other long term services and supports

but under no circumstance should we require
an 18 year old who is just starting out as an adult

to provide medical evidence that their disability
prevents them from working, and that is our policy

and has been our policy since 1956
and we spend hundreds of billions of Federal dollars

through programs that require people to make initial showing.

So I feel like that is a very important thing
for us to change if we really want to realize

the vision of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

We've been thinking a lot at Disabilities
Rights California about how can we respond

to the three crisis that are playing out
in our state and around the country.

One is the pandemic, another is the economic downturn
that is connected to the pandemic

with lots of people losing their jobs,

and the third is this national conversation
we are having around racial justice.

The pandemic disproportionally affects
communities of color in California,

the economic downturn disproportionally
affects communities of color,

and police violence and all of these
structural barriers which exist in every program

that serves children and adults with disabilities
again disproportionally affect in a negative way,

black children and adults, LatinX children
and adults, and others from diverse communities in California.

So when we think about a call to action,
I feel like one of the most important things

we can do as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the ADA

is really shine a spotlight on which populations
in California and around the country have had the

least positive benefit from the
Americans with Disabilities Act

and what can we do to extend the
vision and impact of that law to communities

that have not felt the impact to the same degree

as middle class families who have been
the primary beneficiaries of the law.

So what does that mean?

It means in the school system doing more
to not have disproportionate discipline

fall on children of color with disabilities
trying to get police out of the schools

to me is part of that conversation.

In our regional center system across California,
addressing the disparity

so that families from low income backgrounds
diverse families have the same access to

services and supports as wealthier familes.

In the context of vocational rehability system,
again applying equity analysis

and making sure that the population served
by that system looks like the population of California.

And I feel like this is a national conversation,
but California can be a leader in the country

Because we are leader in so many other ways.

We are one of the most diverse states
in the country.

We have a progressive state government
that cares about diversity, that cares about inclusion,

that cares about equity.

We have a Governor who created
a task force to rebuild the economy

and included my predecessor Catherine Blakemore
the former Executive Director of Disabilities Rights California

on that task force along with CEO of Apple.

We have the Tech Industry which has
kinda changing the world, literally

in terms of how people interact with the world.

And there is a huge opportunity for us to
make sure that people with disabilities

from diverse backgrounds have
opportunities to work in the technology industry

and to shape the technology that we all are
going to be using day-to-day in the future

So I feel like one of the most important messages
for this anniversary is

Let's make sure the vision of the ADA reaches
ALL of the populations who could benefit from it

Let's address structural racism,
let's address disparity

let's address inequities,
that exist in every system that serves people with disabilities.

So that the vision,
the inclusive, the radical inclusive vision

of the American's with Disabilities act is one that

can be experienced and that our
whole community can benefit from.

That was awesome. That was...
[speechless]

Thank you so much!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!