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CULTURAL DIVERSITY OUTREACH Statement by Marca Bristo Good afternoon. Thank you Dr. Chrisann Schiro-Geist for that wonderful introduction. I congratulate you and the Symposium coordinators on the bold and inclusive vision that you show by including this topic for discussion. I am also pleased to have this opportunity to participate on behalf of the National Council on Disability. As Chairperson for the National Council on Disability for nearly eight years, it has been my privilege to be a part of an evolution that has led to a number of positive changes in national public policy impacting people with disabilities. While we can point to some measure of gain for the general population of people with disabilities, we also recognize that for a large segment of the population, particularly those from diverse racial, cultural, and ethnic communities, a shameful wall of exclusion continued to hinder their ability to participate fully in all aspects of American society. In the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson nearly ten years ago: "People with disabilities have always been excluded from the bounty of our national resources. Minorities with disabilities, in particular, have been the most disenfranchised of the disenfranchised. It is time that we bring them into the fold as full, first-class participants of our society." Whether the exclusion stems from one's disability, one's race, one's language, one's culture, one's ethnicity, or a combination of these, the sting of rejection is just as painful. . Their struggle continued against the persistent barriers of poverty, inequality, and dual discrimination. To counter these realities and to lend additional support for positive change, the National Council on Disability decided to proactively address some of the unique demographic issues that impact people with disabilities who are also from diverse cultures. What evolved was a philosophical shift that placed deliberate focuses on the problems, honoring cultural differences, and working collaboratively with grassroots people to bring about a number of overarching policy changes. Today I would like to briefly summarize three overarching changes that were translated into strategies for successfully addressing cultural diversity within the disability community. They are:
The National Council on Disability recognized that there are unmet needs for people with disabilities who are African American, Native American, Hispanic/Latino American, Asian American, Pacific Islanders or who identify with other racial and ethnic groups. We learned a good deal from research and public forums held across the country beginning in the early 1990s. For example, we gleaned some alarming information from the sparse research data on people with disabilities from diverse cultures. Did you know that:
We also gained information and shared data that show interaction among one's cultural group, disability and factors such as poverty, opportunities for appropriate education or training, receiving information about services, including health care, transportation, housing and many of the other essentials for full participation in all aspects of society. In combination, information that I have shared is closely connected and serves as the foundation for the other two strategies. Raising the bar for empowerment through information dissemination and leadership opportunities evolved from our increased outreach to underserved and unserved people with disabilities across the country. Our groundbreaking 1993 report Meeting the Unique Needs of Minorities with Disabilities included a number of the barriers to full inclusion in society. We also conducted a series of public hearings and roundtable forums in 1998 that were held in San Francisco, New Orleans, and Atlanta on "Meeting the Unique Needs of People with Disabilities from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds." These public input sessions resulted in our follow-up report, Lift Every Voice: Modernizing Disability Policies and Programs to Serve a Diverse Nation, that was released in 1999 and found that many barriers remained true six years later. Notwithstanding federal efforts to improve service delivery to people from diverse cultures and other underserved groups, grassroots consumers told us that little had changed that resulted in tangible improvements in their day-to-day lives. The Council assumed a leadership role in broadening the scope of the policy agenda contained in these and other reports that NCD has released in recent years. In May 2000, the National Council on Disability hosted a think tank to further refine a public policy agenda and concrete actions that could be taken in response to the unmet needs of people with disabilities from diverse cultures, their families, and their communities. To carry out the notion of empowerment, the think tank planning committee included people with disabilities and from diverse cultures outside of the National Council on Disability. They used information from the National Council on Disability's previous reports as a foundation and they were further empowered to create the agenda, goals and desired outcomes, the participant invitation list, and the scope of work for the group. As a result, under the leadership of our Vice-Chair, Judge Hughey Walker, approximately 70 representatives from the national civil rights areas and the disability community came together. Here, we see the overlap and importance of the outreach to a broader community. The challenges included obtaining commitment to participate, to begin meaningful dialogue about a broader advocacy coalition, and to identify some specific actions. There was agreement on the need for strategies that could be taken to close gaps in some of the laws and elevate the message and needs of people with disabilities from diverse cultures. Some of the specific and admittedly ambitious strategies that came out of these spring meetings were decisions by the participants to:
A next step for NCD was incorporating the messages and concerns articulated at the think tank into our overall civil and human rights agenda. This was accomplished a June 2000 Civil Rights Retreat where participants from around the country, including people with disabilities from diverse cultures, developed the framework for a 10-point Strategic Action Plan. This past summer, the National Council on Disability made this plan available for public input on our website and through 14 regional briefings that included outreach to people from diverse cultures. A final draft is being prepared to incorporate input. In addition to the projects, reports, and strategies just described, the National Council on Disability has made and will continue to make ongoing and emerging issues that impact people with disabilities from diverse cultures an integral part of all of our public policy work, as we seek to carry out our mandate to make recommendations for improvements to the new Administration and to Congress. My closing remarks are two-fold. First, as my fellow panelists continue, my hope is that each one of you will not only listen, but will become inspired to take back to your communities at least one strategy for success. Together, we can bring about social justice and equality for people with disabilities from diverse cultures. Second and finally, my closing remarks give tribute to the civil rights movement of the late 1950's and 60s, after which much of the disability rights movement was modeled. On April 16, 1963, in a place of isolation and questionable incarceration, a young Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his now famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." An excerpt from Dr. King's letter seems appropriate today because more than 37 years later we are involved in a similar struggle to gain true social justice and equality of civil and human rights for all people. And I quote: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Thank you. HOME | FAQs | NEWSROOM | SITE MAP | FEDERAL AGENCIES | RESOURCES |
