When Disabilities Meet Codfish

by Javier Robles

Columbus and his mangy crew may have brought bacalao (salted codfish) to the New World but Carmen Robles perfected it in her bacalao y berenjena (codfish & eggplant) dish. This dish does not take long to prepare and is delicious. Give it a try!

Berenjena y Bacalao

Ingredients

2 pounds dried salted codfish (bacalao)
2 medium berenjena (eggplants)
3 large cloves of garlic or one tablespoon pure garlic powder
Manteca de achiote or 1½ packs of Sazon con achiote
Half can tomato sauce
One medium onion
Dash of pepper

One baking dish
One heavy duty large pan

Cut eggplant lengthwise and bake face down with a small bit of water at 350 degrees for about half hour or until tender. Peel eggplant and remove as many seeds as possible then cut into bite size pieces. Place to side.

Boil codfish 2 times to get rid of most of the salt. The first time, drop in codfish after water boils for 10 minutes. Then boil it again with fresh water for 20-25 minutes. This should remove most of the salt.

Break up codfish into small bite-size pieces and place in bowl with eggplant.

In hot pan place 2 tablespoons of manteca de achiote or, if this is not available, coat bottom of pan with olive oil and add a pack and a half Sazon Goya with achiote. Then add crushed garlic and chopped onion; cook until onion is translucent. Stir in eggplant and codfish and tomato sauce; mix well. Cook for about 10-15 minutes and serve with white rice.

In Latino cultures especially Puerto Rican we sometimes talk about being enbacalao. We are having a bad day or bad luck. Things just aren’t smelling right. That’s what I am blogging about this time; a bad mojo between people with disabilities and those who temporarily don’t have a disability. Let’s break down another barrier in hopes of creating a better world to live in.

You ever get the feeling that people are uncomfortable around you? That what you do and say makes them feel uneasy and sometimes embarrassed? We have all been there at one time or another — whether crossing that racial divide or meeting someone new. So how do you feel if you think you’re making people uncomfortable a great deal of the time?

I know I make my mother Carmen uncomfortable when I drive and she is my passenger. Here is a little glimpse into my drive with Carmen.

I wheel into my lift and push the buttons on it “up and in.” Once in the van I roll my wheelchair right in front of the steering wheel. My chair auto locks to the floor and I work the digital control pad to start and shift.

No sooner do I start my car than I hear Carmen, “Padre nuestro que estas en los cielos …” This praying goes on for a good 10 minutes at which point I begin to think: She does not seem too comfortable. She never gets very comfortable.

During Turnpike drives she likes to gently tap me. Why? “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t sleeping.” Holy crap! Why the heck would I be sleeping and driving?

If I listen to NPR she says, “Que es esa porqueria? Don’t you have Spanish stations?”

Honestly, no matter what you hear my driving is not that bad.

I know I make some people uncomfortable. More importantly I have come to believe that a little discomfort by someone else does not bother me a bit. In fact, it can be used as a “learning tool” for the “socially challenged.”

Why do I think I make people uncomfortable? you ask.

For readers of this blog who don’t know me, my presence can be a bit daunting at first. I am a hefty Puerto Rican in a motorized wheelchair and most of the time I travel with my service dog, Janus (to learn more about service dogs go to www.cci.org).

Needless to say many people who see me for the first time think one of a few things such as:

God this guy is so courageous.
Mira Juan, this guy in a wheelchair has a full-time job and you can’t even get a bagging job at Twin City.
Believe and you will walk again!
Holy crap shouldn’t this guy be home in a hospital bed?

People with disabilities are either heroes, non-believers, or sickly. It is our job to make categories and neat boxes we can fit groups of people into. In some cases these categories are developed by long-standing cultural beliefs and traditions, many which are alive and well in many of our countries.

I am here to crush your neat boxes and to kick your misconceptions right were it hurts. I want to rip traditions which claim that it is better to pity the cripple than empower the citizen with a disability. Traditions which thrive on a caste system of social inequality so damaging to the psyche, that many cannot bear the burden they have become. I am not only talking of Latinos but also of the “mainstream,” which profess ideological superiority on issues of equality, but fall short in practice.

Are you thinking Javier is being a little harsh? What’s he complaining about? He has handicapped parking.

I supposed it is a frustration that develops from the day one acquires a disability. It slowly builds and builds and builds then one day you either scream out the window or write this blog. There is a serious need to reevaluate the significance and value of people with disabilities. Not how they make us feel when they miraculously walk out of their wheelchair but how they make us feel when we know they will always be in a wheelchair. I am not discouraging hope, prayer or a belief in a higher power. What I am saying is that the first steps to improving our relationship with people with disabilities are acceptance and power sharing.

Acceptance of the person’s disability seems simple but it carries implications that challenge our traditional misconceptions. The ones no one knows about. The fear to approach someone with a disability, to talk with them and to offer friendship. Worse still, the fact that I am one car accident away from having a disability. Acceptance comes only when one forgets everything you never knew you learned.

So what about power-sharing? My hermanos y hermanas, we in the Latino/a community are only beginning to understand the importance of having a stake in this country’s future. Across the board it is our responsibility to offer every member of the community a portion of our progress. In reality, for people with disabilities it starts with access and ends with jobs. There is too little of either to go around. Moreover, when people such as myself do have access and jobs, we must contend with discrimination from all sectors top to bottom. Do not be fooled — success still has a price. While women have managed to some extent to break through the “glass ceiling,” people with disabilities who are working are buried under a “concrete ramp” pointed straight down. Insuring that Latinos with disabilities are part of our economic and political fabric strengthens us. It allows for growth and power-sharing.

Many of us understand what it’s like to feel like outsiders right within our own communities. That’s what it’s like every day for people with disabilities in this country. To be overlooked and undervalued causes a strong feeling of worthlessness. I — like many other people with disabilities — refuse to be put in a box and labeled for the convenience of others. Family members and friends of people with disabilities are the first line of education about the abilities and contributions that people with disabilities have and will continue to make.

In order to be inclusive we must re-examine ourselves and organizations as they relate to disability inclusion. Many of our leaders feel that it’s okay not to have a ramp, accessible bathrooms, or an inclusive attitude. However, empowerment and power-sharing begin at the basest level and sometimes that means getting people with disabilities into your front door. People with disabilities should not just be viewed as consumers or clients; they should be on their boards and making decisions.

No one wants to be enbacalao. Therefore, treat everyone as you would want to be treated

How to Make an Easy Outdoor Ramp in No Time

By Javier Robles

Having been inspired by Rich Fabend a friend and Blogger on ThisAbled, I will be sharing a “down and dirty” trick to a quick outdoor ramp.

There are many things I love to do when the weather breaks, however, my favorites are landscaping and gardening.  Although, I physically cannot do everything involved in these two loves, I can usually get a volunteer or pay someone a few bucks to get the job done.  It is with this method that between my family and I we have managed to basically redo our whole yard and house front.  This week I undertook a project I have been thinking about doing in the backyard, for a few years now.  It was really easier to do than I anticipated, but it took some time, patience and ingenuity.

The project was to make seating area under an Oak tree we have in the back yard corner of the house.  During the hot summer it is a great place to relax and keep cool.  We did have some chairs under the tree but the problem was that the ground had become uneven, mainly due to tree roots. The furniture never sat right on the ground and it really needed to be a more defined area.

What I decided to do was build a retaining wall around the front of the tree (a half circle), then fill it with topsoil, to even it out.  I went Loews, picked out some red interlocking bricks.  I brought 46 of the least expensive, at 98 cents a brick. Each brick was about a foot long and I needed 24 feet of wall.  After making a 2 to 3 inch ditch to bury the bottom bricks, using a level to make sure they were even, we put them in.  The bottom set of bricks must be level and you can basically make the wall as round or square as you wish.  Then the top set was put on, no concrete needed, these bricks interlock with each other and are held on by the pressure created from the dirt fill.  The retaining wall raised the seating area about 7 inches.

The new height of the seating area presented a problem for me.  I would not be able to access the cool area under the Oak in my power chair.  I was tired of building at this point and wanted a quick but sturdy solution.  It also had to be inexpensive. I went on a search in a builders warehouse outlet open to the public.  Clayton, is located in Edison, NJ but search your local directory or Home store, for this item.   I looked around for a while, then when I was about to give-up, there was my answer.  Pre-Fabricated concrete  splash guards, about 36 inches long and 9 inches wide.  You flipped them and it is the perfect texture for a ramp.  I brought 2 of them at $16 each, a bag of paving gravel and sand $6, for a total of $38 dollars.

I found the shortest area between the top of the new brick wall and the soil.  We edged out a shape, cleaned it up, and then filled with gravel, sand, in an upward slope.  Tamp down dirt with tamper and insure it is sturdy.  It took a number of tries but we eventually placed both splashguards so they became a ramp.  You want to separate them according to your wheelchair width, fill middle space with gravel and dirt.  For longer ramps add more splashguards, they also sell an 18-inch long splashguard, which you could use. You will want to make sure the sides are filled with dirt or edged out with bricks, to give an even and safe ramp area.

This project took three days and ramp took 4 hours to complete, mainly due to cutting some tree roots.

National Ad Campaign Promotes Common Sense by Using Humor: My Take

Ever since I became an individual with a disability one thing is sure, I am being labeled daily.  By people I know and those that I don’t.  I am stared at by strangers and can hear their wheels turning.  Their brain is going at hyper-speed to put me in a box and slap a “Label” on it.  They see a man in a power wheelchair with a service dog.  Sometimes, they see me driving my specially equipped van from my wheelchair.  Then other times they spy me at work or going to a meeting, the truth is I am hard to miss.  More importantly, I do not want to be missed!  I go through life (hopefully) dispelling one myth or another about people with disabilities.  That is why am so excited by a national ad campaign called “Think Beyond the Label,” launched this month, by the Chicago-based organization Health & Disability Advocates with 30 state vocational agencies and State Medicaid Infrastructure Grantees.  The funny, edgy $4 million campaign designed is designed to challenge attitudes about people with disabilities in the workplace.  This campaign is exactly what we need to educate employers and others about the destructiveness of “Labels”.  Because, it not only points out “shortcomings” which everyone has, but exploits the ridiculousness of pointing each one out.  The campaign basically says, “if you are labeling me-then I will label you”.

I am of the mind that people cannot help labeling others; because it helps them to place who they are in a given situation.  We are thought to label people and things since the day of our birth.  We have it ingrained in our brains that we “must” put people into a context.  We are hardwired as human beings to judge others, on appearance, verbal skills, dress, and conduct just to name a few.  You might say it is in our DNA to label everyone and everything in our purview.

Here are some examples of “Labels” I have had slapped on my back (Box)

The “Hero”, this is not necessarily a bad label (if you saved kids from burning building) unless one takes into account the context.  If you think I am a hero because as a person with a disability, I wake-up, go to work, and live my life, then you are wrong.  Wrong label, Wrong box! Labels like “Hero” can be destructive, when they purport to treat me different, while I am trying to be like everybody else.  In the workplace, this label is “killer” and not in a good way.  If an employer hires someone on account of them being perceived as a “Hero”, things not go so well.  This new employee is going to eventually have to do the job, if they cannot it may close a door for someone else.   The perception by the employer in this instance can have a rippling effect.

The “non-believer” a person in need of heavenly salvation.  Why else would I be in a wheelchair?  If I believed more, prayed more, and asked to be saved I would “get-up and walk”.  Yes, I have had someone say that to me.  The religious label is hard on those who take it to heart; it could be devastating on those who believe it.

The “pitiful person”, someone that everyone should feel sorry for. This is especially true in instances where other cultures are involved.  Also, when I travel.

The “beggar”, someone in need of money just waiting for a dime to drop on his lap.  First time it happened in Times Square, NY, I was sitting outside, Duane Read pharmacy in my penny loafers, dress pants and tie.  Then, a middle age woman walks by a puts a dollar on my lap.  I was dumbfounded!  Five seconds later, a “well dressed” man drop three dimes on my lap.  Holy crap! I have been turned into my “Label”.  This happens almost every time I am in the city.  The first time I had enough for a cup of coffee-really.

The “unable” , a person who does not by their mere appearance look like they can contribute anything to anyone.

These are just a few examples of labels people like myself muddle through on a daily basis.  There are probably hundreds or thousands which are thrust upon us as we navigate the waters of employment, health care, relationships, and just plain living.   People with disabilities boil in a cauldron of myth, lies, and innuendo as society continues “the labeling game”.  In reality, everyone does it to one extent or another.  However, when those being labeled are affected economically and socially there is a problem.  Not at all dissimilar to the way racial, ethnic, or religious groups were labeled; in some cases literally.  The bottom line is that the lost of participation by people with disabilities in the workplace and other areas is detrimental to the Nation.  The increase in employment and decrease of State and Federal benefits by individuals with disabilities can only improve our economic standing.

The campaign to educate employers through the use of humor is ingenious in the age of political correctness. Because, “Think Beyond the Label”, is about more than realizing how silly our views about certain people can be.  It is about the limitless boundary to which anyone (disabled or not) could be labeled.  In the end it does not matter if you are “footwear fumbled”, “keister deficient” or “vocally enthusiastic”.  What matters is the ability of each and every one of us to see the potential in others, and recognize our own internal biases.

For more information on this campaign visit: thinkbeyondthelabel.com

Javier Robles

Do Politicians Take the Disabled Vote Seriously?

Part I
By Javier Robles

Am I invisible?  Is the group of people that I belong too a mere mirage?  Are we as people with disabilities only good for photo ops and feel-good stories?  How can it be that we do not seem to count when counting votes.  We as a group become non-existent.  So much so that when Barack Obama won the Presidency and mentioned people with disabilities in his speech; it caused a stir with people with disabilities. Amazing! Yet, not surprising.  Why?

Here is what I think.  There are two simultaneous issues going on between politicians and people with disabilities.  The first issue, concerns a historical struggle for survival by individuals who to this day are second class citizens.  The second issue,  surrounds political strategist and their clients (politicians) who are unable or unwilling to realize the potential of this group.  Let me explain.

Historically, the “struggle” has been about housing, institutionalization, discrimination, access and more recently jobs.  While this list is not exhaustive it offers a glimpse of some major struggles. The point is that we as a group are in a constant battle with society to maintain our independence. We push for laws to de-institutionalize (Olmstead) and laws for greater Access (Americans with Disabilities Act) and we fight for every dollar.  We are in an eternal state of chaos.  Fighting so hard to be free that we forgot all about the politicians we put in office.  Not that politicians have done nothing.  There has been progress in the last 100 years for people with disabilities.  However, as a group we progressed with  small victories, and many times specific to our particular disability. Like the Randolph-Sheppard Act of 1936 which was passed to allow blind vendors access to Federal buildings.  There have been numerous registry laws state to state on Autism, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, etc.  But at the end of the day we continue to be ignored on a global scale.  Our power is reduced to statistics which point to one thing; people with disabilities do not vote.  Therefore, their overall needs are unimportant during election time.  Or are they?

Part II Next Week