Disability Rhetoric

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From The Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong, Vintage, June30th, 2020.

Summary:

The author Sandy Ho starts her essay with the birth of her nephew. She describes an instance where she is reminded of her family’s outlook on disability, in particular the cultural origin of it. She explains that she had been told often as a child, she was lucky and should be grateful to have been born in the US. Her parents immigrated from Vietnam and Hong Kong before she was born, carrying the general sentiment towards disability that was common in East Asia at the time. For context Ho explains that, in 1968 Deng Pufang, a disabled man, founded the China Welfare Fund for the Handicapped and led the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. However, there would be no change in the openly hostile environment of East Asia until the 1980s. This is around the time Ho’s parents emigrated to the US. It was practically impossible for a disabled person to make a living and live a comfortable life before, but in the 1980s that was only gradually changing. People with disabilities were popularly considered useless. It was not until 1990s that a noticeable shift in attitudes occurred, with the introduction of the colloquial term “canji”, a word meaning sickness to replace the word “canfei”, meaning useless, when describing a person with Disability. Most of Ho’s relatives hold similar attitudes, some even encouraging her mother to abandon her at the hospital after her birth. Sandy ho starts to close her essay by discussing the tragedy of Sagamihara in 2016, an incident where nineteen disabled people where massacred, while twenty-six were left injured in a violent demonstration of the belief that disabled people should be euthanized. She makes a point; the saddest part of the whole crime is the fact that the Japanese government refuses to release the victims’ names to help the victims’ families from avoiding public shame for their relative’s disability. Sandy ends the essay by expressing how important she has found the struggle to express herself and exist in both her cultural world as an Asian American with a disability.

Quotes:

“Now I understand the exchange of silence for the comfort of other as oppression; in this case because I still fearing knowing how little value my life might hold for others.” (113)

“As a marginalized disabled person I want it all: for all of us to remain as fixtures in our shared world views, for the space to do more than survive, and for our voices and presence to experience the indelible freedom that comes with being louder. ”(116)

“Some relatives told [Sandy Ho’s] mother she should abandon [Sandy] at the hospital because [her] disability diagnosis meant [Sandy] was canfei, a “useless burden”.” (114)

Reflection:

This was one of the three sections of Disability Visibility that I found the most disturbing so far. Sandy discusses her experience in a less positive way than others have in this book. Not that any of them have been sunshine and rainbows. But Sandy is making a point to mention gruesome and ugly aspects of her knowledge of ableism. I appreciate this a considerable amount. While discussing positive aspects of being disabled is great, I think it is hard to fully grasp any situation without discussing the negative aspects of it. By no means is it a person with disability’s responsibility to convey these negatives, if they do not want to, they do not need to. But, It helps others gain insight when they do. Most of the events Sandy referenced, I did not know about prior. They are not really discussed, kept off the mainstream radar. Her sharing this has inspired me to do some more digging for issues surrounding disability and keep my eyes peeled for news relating to these discussions.