Coming Face to Face with my Ethnic Identity at the Beijing+5 Seminar

By Michelle Favis (Favis+marilou@allergan.com, ellewheels@aol.com)

Introduction

When someone identifies me as just a person with a disability, I am compelled to question that description because I don't think that it adequately captures who I am.  My identity as a person with a disability is more complex, meaningful, and rich than others acknowledge.  I am not only a person with a physical impairment; I am someone who is impacted by society's reaction to my disability and by being a woman.  In other words, my life experiences, way of thinking and personality are predominantly shaped by being a woman with a disability in American society.  In addition to worrying about accessibility wherever I go, I am concerned about having my own children, body image, and sexual abuse.  Although these issues are similar to those of many women, disabled women are not recognized as having these needs and concerns.  As a consequence of being overshadowed by our disability due to society's ignorance, disabled women are often excluded from the discourse, the policies, and the research that address women's issues.  This tendency to neglect my needs as a woman has often caused me to feel misunderstood and quite isolated.  Therefore, the opportunity to attend the Beijing+5 International Seminar and Advocacy Training for Young Women with Disabilities was one that I had to seek.  The title alone signified the opportunity to be with others who understand what it means to be a woman with a disability.

The International Seminar in New York, sponsored by the World Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation International, brought together 60 women with disabilities from 30 different countries who were determined to learn, to discuss, and to work on issues that affect disabled women.  The topics addressed throughout the conference ranged from the problem of providing adequate health care to disabled women to the need for including women with disabilities in the Beijing+5 Final Document.  Every presentation and every discussion entailed a vast amount of information that was sometimes too much for my mind to absorb, yet was interesting and valuable.  More specifically, the lectures on the issues that I was passionate about were rewarding because it expanded my knowledge concerning the global status of women and girls with disabilities.

UNICEF

One memorable educational experience occurred when a few UNICEF representatives gave a presentation on some of the projects that UNICEF had been developing and implementing to improve the situation of children with disabilities around the world.  The representatives presented information on the Child-Friendly Schools Initiative, a project aimed to provide a safe and adequate education to all children, regardless of race, gender, and disability.  What began as an informational lecture shifted to an intense discussion as many of the participants questioned UNICEF's intention to include disabled children in their projects.  Debates about whether UNICEF is actually making effective progress in the lives of disabled children in developing countries and what future actions is necessary dominated the presentation.  In my own personal experience, these discussions were ones that I previously had with a few people, but they were never explored and debated in such depth and passion.  I was so thankful to find women who were concerned and frustrated by the problems disabled people÷particularly women and children÷were encountering in every community.

Diverse participants

Although we shared some concerns, the 60 other participants and I were quite different from each other.  The group that came together in New York consisted of women from distinct backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives.  Being in a setting with such diversity was a defining characteristic of the conference, which created an environment that was both educational and exhilarating.  The diversity created an opportunity for detailed questions and explorations questions regarding the conditions in a particular country impacting people with disabilities.  In addition to learning about the status of disabled people in other countries, I also gained an understanding of the diverse lives that disabled women live.  For instance, as a woman from Brazil discussed some of the employment issues for people with disabilities in her country, she also addressed her own personal concerns of recently becoming disabled.  Another participant I encountered was a Swedish woman with a visual impairment who described the major accessibility problems in Sweden, while also sharing her previous challenges of being a journalist.  The exchange of international information intermixed with personal stories was the foundation for establishing meaningful and lasting bonds among the participants.

The Philippine Connection

One person with whom I built a strong friendship with is Carmen Reyes-Zubiaga, a disability rights leader and Community Based Rehabilitation specialist  from the Philippines.  Carmen and I had an instant connection because we are both Filipino.  The significant difference between us is the environment in which we each live. In the Philippines, improvements are being made, which is evident in the fact that several schools are becoming more welcoming to disabled children, anti-discrimination laws have been passed, and housing projects are being developed.  As Carmen mentioned, substantially more work needs to be done in order to match the status of people with disabilities in the U.S.  Because of this, I felt uncomfortable discussing the problems in the U.S. Despite the persistent accessibility problems in certain places, people with disabilities are becoming increasingly integrated in their communities due to the Americans with Disabilities Act and other mandates that protect our human rights, which many countries still have yet to establish and implement into their legal system.  I'm not inferring that the disabled population does not encounter challenges in U.S. society, but I do believe that the problems here in the U.S. may be of a different magnitude.  I suppose I still need to discover the problems faced by disabled women in the U.S.  Compared to Carmen and the majority of the participants, I am relatively inexperienced because I just graduated college a week before the International Seminar.  I am still young and I have so much more to learn.  More specifically, I have yet to encounter how it is to be a disabled woman in the workplace environment and how responsive my doctors will be if and when I am pregnant.  I may have studied these issues, but I have not directly encountered them.

Ethnic identity in the U.S.

What I have experienced in the U.S. is a void with respect to my ethnic identity.  Meeting Carmen, a woman with a disability from the Philippines, made me examine more deeply my own identity as a disabled Filipino-American woman in American society.  Throughout the years of living in the U.S., I have shunned my parents' culture and lifestyle in order to integrate myself into American society.  I suppose I did this because I did not want my ethnicity to be another factor along with my disability that made me different from others.  Unfortunately, this tendency to deny my parents' culture has not made me feel American; it has made me feel like some sort of displaced individual÷someone who does not really belong to one particular culture or ethnic group.  Attempting to assimilate into American society has meant not learning Tagalog, not liking the taste of certain Filipino dishes, and feeling a tinge of embarrassment each time my dad's Filipino accent is heard in public.  In other words, it has meant sacrificing an essential component of myself.  As I've matured, I've changed my attitude and behavior towards the Filipino culture by accepting my parents more and by seeking out anything Filipino that is around me.  However, the emptiness I feel when it comes to my ethnic identity has remained.

The future

Fortunately, Carmen has opened the opportunity for me to explore my Filipino side.  In the near future, I hope to join Carmen in the fight to improve the situation of disabled women and children in the Philippines.  This alliance will enable me to share my knowledge concerning how people with disabilities in the U.S. attained their human rights with people of another country who need help.  More importantly, visiting the Philippines will allow me to connect with my family at large and to obtain a part of my Filipino identity that has been difficult to develop in American society.  If it was not for being a participant at the International Seminar, I do not know what I would be planning after graduating college.  The conference has had a profound impact on my life as it has allowed me to build alliances with other women with disabilities and to discover more about myself.  As a future advocate of disability rights, I hope to maintain the connections established at the conference.  I especially look forward to collaborating with women with disabilities from around the world.