- (electronic voice) Hi, My name is Tim and I am from Orange County,
and have cerebral palsy.
I was born with cerebral palsy
and not too sure how I should answer this question.
Because unlike an accident or being
born abled and then becoming disabled,
my cerebral palsy is just normal to me.
Outside of my family,
while I was growing up I knew that I was different from the rest.
But even now, my family does not point out
that they have a disabled son, brother, cousin, uncle, or friend.
My CP is invisible to them.
I first noticed that I was disabled
when I went outside and played with my brothers and their friends.
For example, I always played with my brothers,
but when we played outside with the neighborhood kids,
I started noticing most of the adults
started looking at me moreso than their children.
There is when I knew that something was wrong with me
and it wasn't because I couldn't use my hands
or run with my friends.
Getting teased and being bullied by other kids
was easy for me to deal
because I quickly learned how to fight back.
But, being not invited to a classmates birthday party
and being told that I should go home by an adult
while my brothers are playing with their kids
has always impacted my life.
In some ways, I've learned that discrimination
comes in all shapes and sizes
and/or by the color of your skin.
I was in high school when the ADA was signed.
I really didn't see that much of a difference.
I was being a teenager, going through crazy adolescence stuff.
ADA started affecting me when I started college
and traveling a lot more.
For example, when the ADA got signed
and when I started my first semester in college,
I saw a rapid progression with inclusion.
More and more of my professors
were willing to work with me and Disabled Student Services
on how to adapt to my disability
by giving me more time for term papers,
making sure that I have good notetakers and etcetera.
My first semester in college was very hard.
I think that I had to retake all of my classes again
because I got no help.
After that, I went to DSS
and they worked with me at taking the right classes
and the right professors that would make select accommodations for me.
By the time I needed to take my core classes for my major,
the department head knew me
and worked with me with my final thesis.
By then, I needed a lot less services from DSS
because my professors kept track of how I was doing.
I was one of the first nonverbal student at the university
to graduated with a speech communication degree.
At a very young age, I traveled a lot with my family.
My parents always had a running checklist going
before we'd travel.
For example, making sure there was an accessible bathroom and so on.
Even now when I travel with my friends,
we always check the restroom situation.
(subtle laughter)
When people think about ADA,
the very first thing that they think are curb-cuts and sidewalks,
but there are more to it.
Just because someone is not diagnosed with a disability
doesn't mean that they don't use the services either.
For example, I know regular people
that turn on subtitles when they are watching TV.
They don't have hard of hearing,
but they agree that they get more content
when they are reading and listening at the same time.
This will not happen if there was no ADA.
Without the American Disabilities Act,
I strongly believe that we would have gone backwards
with education, employment, healthcare, and so on.
Communication is very important to me.
Since I have to use an Augmentative and Alternative Communication Device,
I've always prioritized technology and communication
together in my daily routine.
I've seen access to be much better as I've gotten older.
Such as when I'm at an airport
and need to use a TTY machine to make a phone call
I can always find one that is easily accessible.
There is more awareness for being nonverbal now.
As the population gets more used to the disabled community,
people are more aware that there are other forms
of communication such as ASL, AEC and so on.
One of the main barriers that I always see
is economic inequality
between people with disability and able-bodied.
Our society tends to assume that if you are disabled,
you are invalid in the workforce.
This is not true.
There are many people with disabilities that are highly educated
and more than willing to earn a fair wage of living.
Also, our government dings people
who are getting SSI or other types of services.
For example, I've worked for an educational publisher
for 16 years and due to the pandemic,
I needed to take a leave of absence for however long.
Because of my disability, I can only work part-time.
I also get SSDI based off my work credits
that I accumulated over the years.
When I was working,
I needed to make sure not to exceed too much
or else I would lose my benefits.
How is this fair?
There should be a baseline living wage
from the government under the ADA act
so that people with disabilities are encouraged to work
and more importantly,
employers are willing to hire more from our community.
Right now because of COVID-19,
more and more people with disabilities
are getting sick because of large institutions.
The White House Coronavirus task force hasn't really mentioned anything
on how to be safe within our community.
Seems like that our community is being left behind.
There is no awareness at all,
or any outreach from the White House.
It feels like that no one from the top
has any understanding of our community.
In California, we are required to wear some kind of facial covering
when we are in public.
Many people in our community are not able to wear any kind of mask.
One idea would be to form a committee with all the national organizations
such as United Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy Association,
Autism Society, and many others
to form one unit on the main purpose
of protecting the most vulnerable from the virus.
More importantly, we can come up with some kind of procedures,
guidelines, and distributing of information nationally and locally.
Since these organizations have local offices throughout the country,
it wouldn't be too difficult to outreach
and create a database on how we are doing,
and for those areas who are seeing a spike of infections
in group homes and such,
we can do more outreach and offer more support.