Ep 82: Americans with Disabilities Act

  Today is July 26, 2020 and in the United States it is the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, also known as the ADA. I’m much more comfortable asking questions, but I’m gonna share my personal story with you all on this occasion in this interview by my friend Rochelle Kwan. The tables are turned! Rochelle is the Community Producer for the podcast Self Evident and the storytelling team lead at Think!Chinatown, a community organization based in New York City Chinatown. I first met Rochelle when she worked at StoryCorps and we immediately bonded about Lunar New Year festivities and dumplings. You’ll hear about my early years, the influence of the ADA on my life, my thoughts about the future of accessibility, and more. Three Asian Americans taking a selfie at an outdoor sidewalk. In the back is Luigi Villanueva, on the left is Alice Wong, a wheelchair user with a mask over her nose attached to a ventilator, on the right is Rochelle Kwan. Everyone is smiling. Transcript [Google doc]     [PDF] Related Links #ADA30InColor: 13 essays by disabled people of color on disability rights and justice Chang, Momo. (February 18, 2015). Lunar New Year Memories with StoryCorps. Center for Asian American Media. Kwan, Rochelle. (February 19, 2019). Stories From The Lunar New Year With A National Facilitator. StoryCorps.     About Rochelle Kwan, a Chinese-American woman with short black hair, stands in the middle of a San Francisco Chinatown street looking down at the camera with a soft smile. She wears a long, red cheongsam dress, black boots, gold hoop earrings, and a jade ring. In the background are rows of hanging red lanterns, neon signs with Chinese characters, and parked cars. This photo was taken by her sister, Elodie Kwan. Rochelle Hoi-Yiu Kwan is a writer, audio producer, and cultural organizer who brings together her backgrounds in social work and media to engage with communities to celebrate the power of everyday voices. Her work includes developing a community engagement program with AAPI communities at StoryCorps, training students to lay the foundation for the Hunter College Asian American Studies Oral History Archive, producing Chinatown community storytelling projects with Think!Chinatown, and cultivating meaningful relationships with AAPI communities around the country with Self Evident. When she’s not thinking about storytelling, you can typically find her dancing all night long, cooking family recipes, or eating mangoes. Photo of an Asian American woman in a power chair. She is wearing an orange-red jacket and black pants. She is wearing a mask over her nose attached to a gray tube and bright red lip color. Her hands are resting over her joystick. Photo credit: Eddie Hernandez Photography Alice Wong is a disabled activist, media maker, and consultant. She is the Founder and Director of the Disability Visibility Project® (DVP), an online community dedicated to creating, sharing and amplifying disability media and culture created in 2014. Currently, Alice is the Editor of Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century, an anthology of essays by disabled people, available now (June 30, 2020) by Vintage Books. Twitter: @SFdirewolf @DisVisibility   Support Disability Media and Culture DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®   Credits Geraldine Ah-Sue, Audio Producer Alice Wong, Writer, Audio Producer, Host Cheryl Green, Text Transcript Lateef McLeod, Introduction Mike Mort, Artwork Theme Music (used with permission of artist) Song: “Dance Off” Artist: Wheelchair Sports Camp Music “Gentle Marimbas” by Podington Bear (Gentle Marimbas by Podington Bear is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.) Sounds “VOCODER countdown” by Jack_Master. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License. “8 Bit Beeping Computer Sounds” by sheepfilms. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.