"I am not just Latina. I am a disabled Latina."
By Julia Betancourt
“Oh, then you’re not a real ‘Rican!”
I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I do remember the look on my classmates’ faces when one of the girls in our third-grade class announced this, loudly, for the entire cafeteria table to hear. I remember the way that my cheeks grew incredibly hot, hotter than the steam from the school lunch next to mine, and how I rushed to cover them, in hopes that the others at my lunch table would stop staring at them. Even now, twelve years later, I’m still embarrassed to think of this moment.
You’d never guess it from my dirty blonde hair or my pale skin, but if you look more closely at the bridge of my nose and the shape of my cheeks, you might be able to guess that I am of Hispanic decent, you might even guess that I’m a Cuban and Puerto Rican.
I can’t speak Spanish as fluently as my relatives, I’ve never lived in Puerto Rico, and I listen to a variety of music, not just merengue and salsa. So, when other Latinas in elementary school said I’m “not really ‘Rican”, I wondered if being of my background meant that you had to walk, speak, and breathe Puerto Rican-ness. I tried to “fit in” with the others in my third-grade class, but when they broke out into rapid-fire Spanish, I struggled to keep up as I stumbled along in a language that didn’t roll off my tongue the way it should.
On my way out the door after my high school’s open house, I found myself chatting to this family, a mother and two daughters. One of the daughters, Thea, was in a wheelchair. We were talking about the snacks, of which I was struggling to hold because I hadn’t thought to tuck my cookies into my pocket. It also may have been easier to carry them if I had been blessed with two hands, rather than one, but that didn’t cross my mind right away—having been amputated in infancy, having one hand seemed so normal to me. When we reached the front door, I saw that there was no wheelchair ramp. Though the school did have a movable wheelchair ramp, it wasn’t put out for open house. I watched as Thea’s mother cautiously rolled the wheelchair down the stairs, with Thea still inside. I asked Thea’s mom if she needed help.
“It’s okay,” she replied, “I’m used to it.”
I’m used to it.
Isn’t that what I always said when I could have used help, but was too embarrassed to admit it because, truth be told, but it was just too hard to admit? “I’m used to it.” Those four words haunted me for the days after open house. “I’m used to it.” I might be used to dealing with disability un-friendly circumstances, because I had grown up with one hand, but I couldn’t bear to watch someone else endure it. It was one thing for me to struggle with tying a shoelace or cutting a pancake. It was another to watch Thea be bounced down a set of stairs when the resources to help her were available, yet not in use. I came home in tears, just because someone else had to struggle with a disability. I resolved to speak to my principal, Ms. Brilliant, about the ramp. I immediately started rehearsing what I wanted to say to her, because I knew I would cry if I didn’t plan it out in advance, and not crying would make my life easier when I did finally talk to her about it.
Make my life easier.
It’s a phrase that I’ve heard many times growing up, in all its variations “this is to make your life easier,” “we wanted you to have an easier life,” and “life is easier here.” I’ve heard it so much that I almost believe it: everything my grandparents did to escape the Caribbean and to make it here, and everything my parents did to make sure my brother and I grew up in a neighborhood with better schools than the ones they attended, was to make my life easier. But my life doesn’t feel easier, not when my body is so physically different from those of my peers.
I know that I’m different, and that I don’t look the way that most humans do. I don’t look like most Latinas, either. When I do reveal my ancestry, the first response I get is always “Oh, I thought you were Italian” or “But aren’t you Irish?” or “You look French.” Harmless as those comments may sound, they remind me of those comments from long ago, those third graders who would say “You’re not really ‘Rican” almost as if these new comments are confirming what I was told so many years ago, that I’ll never be who I know myself to be.
When school re-opened after the long weekend, it took every ounce of courage in me to walk down the stairs to my principal’s office. My knees shook so much, I had to use the railing to support myself. My head spun and I considered retreating back upstairs, and pretending I never saw Thea. Yet, I knew that if I didn’t go in there and say something about the wheelchair ramp, nobody else would. I’m used to noticing these things, these instances of disabilities being ignored because of my amputation, but I didn’t think anybody else would notice. Nobody else would think to ask for the wheelchair ramp to be put out in the future, because nobody else had seen it. I had to speak up, or else nothing would change.
From looking in the mirror, my body looks both female and obviously disabled. I identify as both, and nobody ever denies those identities. But, when I say I’m Latina, there remains a lingering sense that I have to prove that I am, in fact, “really ‘Rican” based only on what I can see in my reflection. So, I take note of my birthmarks. There’s more than I’ve ever cared to count, but on this day, I take notice of the two little brown dots, evenly spaced on my left shoulder. The bottom dot is lighter than the top dot. My mother has the same birthmark, as does my grandmother, as did those who came before her.
Growing up, I was surrounded by stories of those who came before, of people who decided to pack up and leave their homes. My father told me of his parents, who left Cuba and never saw their parents again, and of how they built a life for themselves in the States after the revolution. My earliest memories include him showing me the yellowed menu from when his father worked in the old Yankee Stadium and of him proudly displaying his mother’s hammer from when she worked in a factory making either dolls or handbags—the exact details escape me, but the look of pride on his face never will. Before them, there was my great grandfather, who fought as an officer in the War of 1898, leading his people to victory and independence from Spain. My family history is filled with stories of those who gave up everything, in some cases, risking life and limb to come here to make a better life for themselves and their children. If they thought that limb loss was a risk worth taking if it meant their children to have a better life, then surely, I can’t afford to let my amputation stop me.
Why should my amputation stop me? Here, in my home, everything is designed so that I can get to it easily. The bathtub handles are the least of it—my bed has no frame, so that I can make it without having to reach in awkward positions to straighten the sheet around it. My drawers all have handles in the middle, rather than knobs, so that it doesn’t take as much effort to open and close them when picking out leggings for the day. My kitchen, even, has a special knife that’s shaped in a circle, so that I can theoretically cut my pancakes and other food with one hand. (In reality, I haven’t seen this knife in a few months; I usually microwave silver-dollar pancakes that I can shove in my mouth whole, but it’s there for when I need it and find it). I’ve created a place that fits me. But the second I step out the front door, I won’t fit in anymore. I’ll have to drag my rolling bag of schoolbooks over the uneven floor to get it in the elevator, take the back exit so that I can use the ramp, all the while hoping that I won’t have to explain, yet again, that I use a rolling bag because carrying my textbooks for four years of high school was too much strain on my back.
I know that the world will never be made for people like me, the way that my apartment is. The uneven concrete in the sidewalks means that my bag shakes around until it comes loose from the strap I use to pull it with my amputated limb. The bow that I tie on my skirt for dance class is always lopsided, because I only just learned to tie a bow in my senior year of high school. The gym showers are terrifying after dance class, especially without the bars that provide me with an extra sense of security. And that’s only for the difference that people can see.
Even though it was hard then, I’ve grown past that girl who was scared to talk to her principal about a wheelchair ramp. I can easily tell complete strangers that I feel disadvantaged because of all the steps leading up to buildings that makes it harder for me to drag my schoolbag with me, and I can fill pages with my struggles as an amputee. But, this hidden difference, this feeling that I have to “prove” my Latina-ness by finding some distinctive feature on my body that I can point to as proof that I am who I say I am, lingers.
I try to think of a specific instance where I can prove my Latina heritage, where I can say that this is what being Latina is. I skim through my memory, I find myself conjuring images of New Year’s Eve, with my great-uncle blasting Cantares de Navidad by Trio Vegabaño at full volume and my cousin teaching us all about the Taino, the Caribbean Indians from whom we are in part descended, and reminding us how important it was, not only to learn about our past, but to teach others about it through community engagement and activism.
I know I had to have knocked on the door and closed it behind me when I entered the principal’s office. I know I had to have spoken to her about the wheelchair ramp. I know I had to have made some sort of logical argument. But I don’t remember any of that. I only remember anxiously picking at the dead skin on my fingers and my knees shaking the whole time. I had barely had the courage to ask for the 504 testing accommodations I needed two years ago, and yet, there I was, trying to make things more accessible for others. The whole experience was terrifying, right up until my principal looked me in the eye.
“I agree. This isn’t right,” she said. “I’ll make sure we put out the ramp for the next event.”
I let out a breath I didn’t even know I had, putting my hand on my knee to stop the shaking. In that moment, it didn’t matter what happened next. It was a small victory, one that might never have happened had I not forced myself to go see her. And then I promptly fell apart from the nerves, letting out all the tears I had translated into anger over the weekend. It’s a good thing Ms. Brilliant had plenty of tissues, because it took the whole box to bring me to a point where I could return to class for fourth period. When I did return, I straightened my back just a little, proud that I had made the world a better fit for another disabled person.
Despite my imperfect fit into the world, despite not looking like a “real ‘Rican” or being able to put into words how I engage with my Latino background, I know that I belong, that I am a “real ‘Rican” and a real Cuban, too. Even when the world seems against me, I remind myself that despite what others might say, I am Latina. It doesn't matter if I'm not a “real ‘Rican” in someone else’s eyes. I know who I am.
What connects me most to my identity, however, isn’t my sense of family or the Taino artwork that sits on my vanity or even my slowly-improving Spanish. Those stories of men who fought to free their land, of women who worked every day to bring home just a little more money to feed their children, or people who dreamed of a better world for those who came after them…those are the people who I come from. Those are my fellow Latinos.
I am not just Latina. I am a disabled Latina, and that addition of disabled complicates things. I live in a world that isn’t made for people like me, that puts stairs in to make it harder to get through the front door until someone puts in a ramp. And yet, despite being in a world that actively tries to exclude people like me, I still try to make it a better place and try to make it more inclusive.
I know how important it was for those who came before me to fight to make the world better for me, despite the odds. They worked in factories, they held multiple jobs, they moved far from their families, and even fought wars to make the world a better place, so that someday, their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren might live in a better world than they did. Now, I show them that I can do the same. It’s my turn to make a difference for those who will come after me.
Julia Betancourt is a senior English major at Barnard College, Columbia University with a focus in theatre and creative writing. Her work has been published in The Manifest-Station, The Mighty, and The Columbia Spectator, among other publications.