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Hi, my name is Andy Imparato and I am the
Executive Director of Disability Rights California
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I can think back to a lot of different
interactions I had with people with
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disabilities growing up,
But I would say, that the most,
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that the thing that had the biggest impact
on me is when I was starting my career
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as a lawyer I ended up being diagnosed
with bi-polar disorder.
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I was working in an organization that was
advocating for the rights of people with disabilities
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and I learned the idea that shows up
in a lot of federal disability laws
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the idea that disability is a natural
part of the human experience
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and I found that statement
to be very powerful
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as I was trying to deal with a
new diagnosis of bipolar disorder
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I think the message I was getting
from the mental health world
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was that my diagnosis was not natural
and it was kind of a long term problem
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that I was going to have to address and
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I didn't get any sense that the experience
of living with bipolar disorder
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could actually benefit me and
could actually help me in my career
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and what I got from being around
disability rights advocates people
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with lived experience with lots of
different kinds of disabilities
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I was living in Boston at the time
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was the idea that my lived
experience was a actually
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a strength and a source of credibility
for the work I was doing
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and if I wanted to be effective as a
disability advocate I needed to learn
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to see my disability as an
asset and a strength.
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So I kinda feel like the
American's with Disabilities Act
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is reflecting the values of the
disabilities right movement
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and one of those most important values
is that disability is natural
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your life with a disability is a natural
part of the human experience
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and that it should not prevent you from
doing anything that you want to do
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and when you are prevented from
doing those things
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it's discrimination it's not natural
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the idea that discrimination is
unnatural and disabilities are natural
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that was a powerful thing for me and
helped frame my experience
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as a person with a long term disability
that I acquired as an adult
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the most important thing that disability
movement got from the
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Americans with Disability Act was the fra ming
of disability issues as civil rights issues
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if you look at kinda the history of
disability policy in the United States
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and in other countries, people often saw
disability through a social welfare frame,
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through a poverty frame,
through kinda the "worthy" poor frame
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and the idea was if you want to address
problem people with disabilities have
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you just need to provide the right services
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but there wasn't a concept of discrimination,
there wasn't a concept of human and civil rights around that
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we have earlier laws, the "Rehabilitation
Act" that had a piece of the law that
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tried to deal with disability discrimination
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but the ADA was the first law, where the
whole law was about addressing discrimination
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and I think for a lot of us who live with disabilities
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the civil rights frame is a very empowering
frame because it stops if something bad happens
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to you as a person with a disability it stops
being about what did you do wrong
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or what services do you need to avoid doing
that again and it starts being around well maybe
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the system was designed to exclude you
and that's discrimination.
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So don't just look at the person as the source
of the problem but look at the environment
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and that concept I think has been a
really important concept to help us reframe
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why bad things happen to people with disabilities,
why exclusion happens,
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why segregation happens,
why poverty happens
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and it helps us have higher expectations for ourselves,
and higher expectations for the environment around us.
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So there are a lot of vary concrete things the ADA has done
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like make the buses dramatically more accessible
for people with a wide range of disabilities
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make, the built environment dramatically more accessible
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but I think almost spiritually framing our issues
as civil rights issues, as justice issues
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as human rights issues, I think that was as
important as any specific requirements in the law
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so it's hard to pick one issue that would be
the big thing that I would like to see changed moving forward
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as we think about the next 30 years of
the American's with Disabilities Act.
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But I will say the one thing I think is critical
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for us to change is what we require people
to prove in order to get support from the government
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through our largest programs.
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So if you look at our four biggest programs
that serve people with disabilities:
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Social Security disability insurance,
supplemental security income, Medicaid, and medicare
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those programs require you to prove you have a disability
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and the way you prove that is with medical evidence
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that shows, that you,
because of your physical or mental disability
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you're unable to engage in substantial gainful activity
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most people understand that to mean that
because of their disability they can't work
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and that frame for trying to decide who
deserves to have support from the government
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that frame dates back to 1956
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that's when that definition was written
in the Federal statute originally
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and our thinking about what's possible for
people with disabilities to achieve
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in the labor market has
evolved hugely since 1956
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we know people with very significant disabilities
can achieve success in a competitive labor market
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if they have the right supports.
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And...but yet we still require people to produce
medical evidence that their disability prevents
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them from working in order to get supports
to live independently and to work
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and it's just a backwards system
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We've tried over the years to build work
incentives into the Social Securities disability programs
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we've got a medicaid buy-in program
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we've done a lot of things on the margins
to try and make it easier for people with
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disabilities to work and get benefits but
we haven't dealt with that fundamental
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definition of who is eligible for benefits.
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So one of the things I'm hoping to see as
we move forward is to align the definition
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of disability in the Social Security and in
the Disability Benefits laws with the vision
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of disability in the American with Disabilities Act.
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Instead of asking people to prove that
their disability prevents them from engaging
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in substantial gainful activity, we should
be asking them what supports do they need
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to be able to participate fully in the community
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and we can decide if you need a certain level
of support, then you are eligible for income supports
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it could be a whole other thing for health
care or other long term services and supports
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but under no circumstance should we require
an 18 year old who is just starting out as an adult
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to provide medical evidence that their disability
prevents them from working, and that is our policy
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and has been our policy since 1956
and we spend hundreds of billions of Federal dollars
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through programs that require people to make initial showing.
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So I feel like that is a very important thing
for us to change if we really want to realize
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the vision of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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We've been thinking a lot at Disabilities
Rights California about how can we respond
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to the three crisis that are playing out
in our state and around the country.
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One is the pandemic, another is the economic downturn
that is connected to the pandemic
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with lots of people losing their jobs,
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and the third is this national conversation
we are having around racial justice.
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The pandemic disproportionally affects
communities of color in California,
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the economic downturn disproportionally
affects communities of color,
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and police violence and all of these
structural barriers which exist in every program
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that serves children and adults with disabilities
again disproportionally affect in a negative way,
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black children and adults, LatinX children
and adults, and others from diverse communities in California.
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So when we think about a call to action,
I feel like one of the most important things
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we can do as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the ADA
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is really shine a spotlight on which populations
in California and around the country have had the
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least positive benefit from the
Americans with Disabilities Act
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and what can we do to extend the
vision and impact of that law to communities
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that have not felt the impact to the same degree
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as middle class families who have been
the primary beneficiaries of the law.
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So what does that mean?
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It means in the school system doing more
to not have disproportionate discipline
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fall on children of color with disabilities
trying to get police out of the schools
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to me is part of that conversation.
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In our regional center system across California,
addressing the disparity
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so that families from low income backgrounds
diverse families have the same access to
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services and supports as wealthier familes.
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In the context of vocational rehability system,
again applying equity analysis
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and making sure that the population served
by that system looks like the population of California.
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And I feel like this is a national conversation,
but California can be a leader in the country
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Because we are leader in so many other ways.
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We are one of the most diverse states
in the country.
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We have a progressive state government
that cares about diversity, that cares about inclusion,
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that cares about equity.
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We have a Governor who created
a task force to rebuild the economy
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and included my predecessor Catherine Blakemore
the former Executive Director of Disabilities Rights California
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on that task force along with CEO of Apple.
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We have the Tech Industry which has
kinda changing the world, literally
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in terms of how people interact with the world.
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And there is a huge opportunity for us to
make sure that people with disabilities
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from diverse backgrounds have
opportunities to work in the technology industry
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and to shape the technology that we all are
going to be using day-to-day in the future
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So I feel like one of the most important messages
for this anniversary is
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Let's make sure the vision of the ADA reaches
ALL of the populations who could benefit from it
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Let's address structural racism,
let's address disparity
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let's address inequities,
that exist in every system that serves people with disabilities.
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So that the vision,
the inclusive, the radical inclusive vision
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of the American's with Disabilities act is one that
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can be experienced and that our
whole community can benefit from.
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That was awesome. That was...
[speechless]
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Thank you so much!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!