When the American Law with Disabilities was signed on this day in July 1990, my parents still did not know how much the Historical Civil Rights Law would soon shape my life, already yours.
I was born deeply deaf, but my parents didn't even know this part yet. He was 6 months that summer, and the audition of newborn exams was not universal medical practice in those days. My parents had brought me home from the hospital thinking it was like them, that is, hearing, someone who also lived in the midst of sound and speech. But that August, only a few weeks after President George HW Bush signed the ADA on the grass of the southern White House, they learned otherwise. My sensory and linguistic world was fundamentally different from yours. And so my life would also be.
My diagnosis was a surprise for my parents. At first, they felt that they did not have a road map to follow. They still didn't know American sign language. They knew almost nothing about deafness, and lived in a culture where disability was still classified too frequently as a tragedy. But they jumped to their steep learning curve, and found the adapt.
Now, 35 years later, I am a member of the “ada generation”, which means that I know what accessibility can be: an invitation to a larger human community, as well as a beautiful right that we must preserve for future generations.
This truth is hitting me strongly this summer. The Ada and I have reached the age of majority, but modern life, and the future, now we see you different from what I once thought would.
First, the good part: thanks to the ADA, many more doors have opened to me than my parents could have imagined in 1990. From my younger years, I had access to early intervention services. I had an individualized education program at school, where I was the only deaf student, and enjoyed learning from my teachers and classmates through the observation of my ASL interpreters. I went to the pijamadas after school with my friends, where we all saw television with the subtitles. My closest friends learned ASL, and as an adult I have felt astonished from how much they still remember. Now they also know broader ways to communicate.
The ADA has helped me discover how to belong. Since he was a child books, he knew that he wanted to travel, write, remain in school everything I could, have significant conversations with new friends and strangers. I simply did not know how some of these things would do, unless I also listened to me when I grew up.
Flash news: I'm not listening yet, but due to the power of accessibility, I have continued to find my path. I have lived abroad, I have completed my doctorate, I wrote a book. I live a delighted life, and belong to ada generation is an important reason.
Now the not so good part: the ADA is still the law of the earth, but these are terrifying moments for deaf and disabled people in the United States. Our lives are threatened in a way I never imagined when it was growing. Our current openly scapego president disabled people, as we have seen on numerous occasions, make fun of a disabled journalist In 2015 to the base without foundation Blame people with disabilities for the tragic plane crash In the Potomac River in January. This spring, its administration withdrew 11 pieces of federal accessibility guidelines aimed at helping companies comply with the ADA. The Budget Law signed on July 4 made Medicaid cuts, in which many disabled people trust to access essential medical care and support services. Ongoing federal cuts, Including the Department of EducationThreaten everything, from special education to anti -discrimination policies for students with disabilities.
The examples fall. It is time for the ada generation to try as never before. This means pressing legal and legislative fights ahead, calling representatives and participating in protests. But it also means bringing our native knowledge to all our interactions, while attracting others we know, people like my childhood classmates, who have witnessed the power of inclusion. We can support the access needs of others, even in the most daily way. We can talk about what access has done for us.
When he was growing, he always took the ada. I thought about my birth right, when I thought about it at all. Only 10 years ago I began to see the opposite: during the 25th anniversary of the ADA in 2015, I saw the celebrations of the White House online and VI members of my generation, surrounded by disability activists who had been present for the approval of the law. I saw how everyone in that room had their own distinctive ways of being and communicating, from wheelchairs to crutches, Braille and ASL. And I also saw how they had gathered so vitality and joy.
At 25, I had just begun to identify with the broader disability community, beyond the deaf culture that was much more familiar to me, but I recognized the deep ingenuity of people in that room, the community spirit that is needed to build more inclusive worlds. And I wanted everyone else to see it too.
As the ADA and I now have 35 years, I see that we must not only celebrate those past disability activists, but also to embrace their approaches and bring the same obstinacy and ingenuity to a new generation of challenges. We must continue to provide mutually attention, something that is always a political act in itself.
I no longer assume the ada. On the other hand, living in the world that has made possible, this is what I know: the deaf and disabled Americans already belong. And accessibility already belongs to us all, especially once we recognize how transformer it can really be.
Rachel Kolb He is the author of the next memories “Articulated: a deaf memory of the voice. “
