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!