July 26 is National Disability Independence Day, which marks the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. While the ADA was a civil rights landmark, the legislation has been notoriously poorly enforced, leaving the full potential of the ADA to improve the lives and protect the rights of disabled folks unfulfilled.
Despite barriers and discouragements, disability justice activists continue to fight for a society that is truly inclusive and accessible. Among them are numerous Asian American disabled advocates, such as Lydia X. Z. Brown, Sneha Dave, Mia Ives-Rublee, Chella Man, Joy Messinger, Mia Mingus, Esmé Weijun Wang, Alice Wong, and so many more.
To discuss the intersecting marginalizations of being Asian and disabled (particularly highlighted by how the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted Asian and disabled communities), as well as the potential and need for solidarity between the Asian American organizing and disability justice moments, we recently spoke with local historian Selena Moon. Selena is pioneering an overdue focus on the historical stories of disabled Asian Americans in her research, and shared with us her hopes and concerns for the future of intersectional disability justice.
Content warning: The following interview contains discussion of suicide and violence against disabled and Asian communities and individuals
My name is Selena Moon, and my pronouns are she/her. I’m primarily an independent historian, with a couple of odd jobs here and there too. And I’m also an aspiring writer who is struggling through the query process!
This day is important as a reminder that we’re not there yet. The infrastructure isn’t there to support us financially, transportation still isn’t very accessible, and with the COVID-19 pandemic and many people no longer wearing masks, disabled people are still being left behind in so many ways. I fear that we may never get to real equality at this point, unless there are some real drastic changes, and those would probably take the rest of my life to achieve.
We need to include more BIPOC voices in everything. And there are people working on that. Kim Nielsen’s book A Disability History of the United States, (which looks at American history through a disability justice lens), unfortunately there are basically no Asian Americans included in it, but it is still a stepping stone. And then you have Alice Wong’s upcoming memoir Year of the Tiger, and that’s exciting. But even with these books, it gets mainstream coverage for a while and then it just kind of disappears, which is frustrating.
There’s also the historical side to it. My speciality is Japanese American disability history, and that likely goes back to the 1860’s when the first Japanese migrants came to Hawai’i. The first concrete example I found is from the 1890s, a Spanish-American war veteran who was potentially the first Japanese American born on the East Coast, and probably the first second-generation Japanese American veteran. He was injured during the Spanish American War in 1898 and then moved to California…where he was incarcerated during WWII. And his story isn’t told the way it should be. There’s the first Deaf Japanese American student at the California School for the Deaf, sometime in the 1890’s as well. And then, speaking of the ADA, you have activists like Yoshiko Dart and Atsuko Kuwana whose contributions to the passage of the ADA go completely unsung. And there’s many, many more stories out there that need to be told.
Well, there’s a lack of rights for both groups: there’s so much that disabled folks are excluded from legally and otherwise, and there’s so much we haven’t achieved as an Asian American community. And unfortunately, this can lead to situations where the sentiment is “well, able-bodied Asian Americans haven’t even achieved representation yet, so of course disabled Asian Americans haven’t also” and vice versa. It’s a scarcity mindset, where we can only gain rights one population at a time, rather than doing the thing that would actually make sense: working together so that we are all progressing forward.
Everyone is a lot more isolated because of the pandemic. With lots of people no longer wearing masks, immuno-compromised people can’t go anywhere. I hate to say it, but I would also imagine there has been an increase in suicide because of the isolation and the ways the pandemic has made it even harder for disabled people to access transportation, work, etc. There’s also probably more cases of family members murdering disabled people because they don’t want to deal with having to take care of them all the time, while everyone is cooped up inside. And these kinds of issues go completely unnoticed because the mainstream media simply isn’t interested.
Long before the pandemic, disabled people were getting harassed, injured, and even killed, but if you are Asian and disabled, your risk is doubled. And especially now, with the rise in anti-Asian hate. That’s a very scary reality for disabled Asian folks.
In terms of long COVID-19, I think the number of people who’ve been disabled by COVID-19, even though it’s a lot, hasn’t been high enough to make a huge impact on public perception of disability. I mean, kids being murdered by AR-15s isn’t enough to get serious gun control passed, so long COVID-19 isn’t going to necessarily get us to a place where disability justice is taken seriously in the mainstream. I really wish things would change, but right now that’s not happening.
I hope we can stop with the platitudes and start getting some concrete stuff done, both in terms of laws and everyday attitudes and behavior. Regarding the latter, many people still really don’t understand what disability is, and how to interact like a decent human being with a disabled person. For example, I’ve visited Congress before and gone on a tour, and I asked for Large Print materials…and they brought me something in Braille. And I will try to explain to them that I’m visually impaired, not blind, and I can’t read Braille, and they just are so flummoxed! So just microaggressions and ignorance like that; understanding that you can’t touch other people’s wheelchairs [as wheelchairs and other mobile aids function as an extension of a person’s physical form, this is an invasion of privacy and autonomy comparable to grabbing a person’s physical body without permission], that if a disabled person says they don’t want help you should leave them alone, and if a disabled person asks for help you should help them.
I truly believe that if disabled people ran the world, we would make this world a better place for everybody. We’d create accessible public transit, we’d create neighborhoods where there are groceries nearby everyone so you don’t have to go 45 minutes to get food, and we’d make sure that captions were actually helpful! But a lot of able-bodied people don’t see it that way: they just see disabled folks as an inconvenience. I think we have to change that perception, and then maybe we can all work together to fix the stuff that really matters and make things better for everyone.
Hear more from Selena!: Join Selena July 26, 7pm CT, for an online panel hosted by the Twin Cities Japanese Citizen League, Tsuru for Solidarity MN, and the Eastside Freedom Library spotlighting the history of Japanese American disability activism. Register at bit.ly/NikkeiwDisabilities
The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative is a youth-founded, youth-run nonprofit dedicated to uplifting disabled Asian youth voices. Learn more: www.aadinitiative.org/