Alicia Alonso is a Cuban prima ballerina and choreographer, best known for her portrayals of Gisele and Carmen. She was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1921 and began dancing at an early age, first in Havana at the Ballet School of the Pro-Art Musical Society in 1931. After marrying Fernando Alonso, they moved to New York City where Alicia studied with Anatole Vilzak and Ludmilla Shollar at the School of American Ballet. During this time, she also studied with Vera Volkova in London.
In 1938, Alonso made her Broadway debut in the musicals Great Lady in 1938 and Stars in Your Eyes in 1939. Early in her career, probably about the time, Alonso began experiencing problems with her vision and became partially blind. She continued to dance, by adapting to her impairment:
Her partners always had to be in the exact place she expected them to be, and she used lights in different parts of the stage to guide her. Her handicap was totally unnoticed by the audiences.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Alonso danced in New York, London, Paris, Havana, Russia and Monte Carlo. She is most famous for her iconic portrayal of Giselle in 1943.
Alonso founded the Alicia Alonso Ballet in 1948 in Havana which later became the Cuban National Ballet. After Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Alonso returned to Cuba permanently and became director of the Cuban National Ballet, a position she holds to this day.
Watch Alicia Alonso performing Giselle with Vladimir Vasiliev and Ballet Nacional de Cuba (1981?)
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in 1819 in Dorchester County, Maryland. When she was six years old, she was sent to work; first as a weaver, then as a house slave. Seven years later, Tubman was sent to work in the fields.
Tubman had always subjected to whippings and beatings, but at age 12, she suffered an injury that would affect her for the rest of her life. Tubman was defending another slave who was attempting to escape when a white overseer struck her in the head with a 2 pound weight. Most biographical accounts mention the attack, saying something similar to this:
She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep
In other words, Tubman had epilepsy, an extremely stigmatizing and potentially disabling condition.
Harriet Tubman grew up to be one of famous “conductors” of the Underground Railroad. She escaped from slavery in 1849 and made her way to Philadelphia. From 1850 to 1860, she made 19 trips into the South and helped over 300 slaves reach freedom in the North.
Learn more about Harriet Tubman:
Harriet Tubman: African American History of Western New York
Since today, March 3, is “Spread the Word to End the ‘r’ Word Day”, it is appropriate to honor Rosemary Kennedy, the third child and eldest daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, who lived with intellectual disabilities (mental retardation). Most people credit Rosemary with having inspired her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver to start the Special Olympics, which has impacted the lives of millions of people with disabilities.
Rather than attempt to write my own mini-biography of Rosemary Kennedy, I’ll use the words the Kennedy family has chosen to remember her by:
Rosemary Kennedy, born Rose Marie Kennedy on September 13, 1918, was the third child and eldest daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. She was slower to crawl, slower to walk and to speak than her brothers, and she experienced learning difficulties when she reached school age. Despite her apparent intellectual disabilities, Rosemary participated in most family activities. In the diary she kept as a teenager she described people she met, dances and concerts she attended, and a visit to the Roosevelt White House. When her father was appointed US Ambassador to Britain in 1938, Rosemary went to live in London and was presented at court along with her mother and sister Kathleen.
But when the family returned to the United States in 1940, “Rosemary was not making progress but seemed instead to be going backward,” as her sister Eunice later wrote. “At 22, she was becoming increasingly irritable and difficult.” The following year, after being persuaded that a lobotomy would help to calm his daughter and prevent her sometimes violent mood swings, Joseph Kennedy authorized the operation. The relatively new procedure, which at the time seemed to hold great promise, left Rosemary permanently incapacitated and unable to care for herself. On the recommendation of Archbishop Cushing, Rosemary was sent to St. Coletta’s School for Exceptional Children in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she would live for the rest of her life.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver had a particularly close relationship with her older sister, and great empathy for Rosemary and others who faced similar challenges. In 1962 Mrs. Shriver started a summer day camp in her own back yard for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, a camp which evolved into Special Olympics, now a global competition that involves 1.4 million athletes from 150 countries.
Rosemary Kennedy died on January 7, 2005 at age 86. Eunice Shriver said in her eulogy that Rosemary had left a legacy that was long and deep. Along with inspiring Mrs. Shriver’s own work with Special Olympics, Rosemary had inspired her brother, President John F. Kennedy, to initiate sweeping legislation designed to improve the quality of life for Americans with disabilities. She had inspired her sister Jean Kennedy Smith to start Very Special Arts and her nephew, Anthony Shriver, to start Best Buddies. Hospitals, schools and other such facilities around the world have been named in honor of Rosemary Kennedy.
Rosemary Kennedy may have spent the majority of her life tucked away in a small town in rural Wisconsin and hard to imagine a world without her having been in it. Would the Kennedy family have had the same sense of social justice? Would Ted Kennedy have dedicated his career to health care, children, women, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups? Would we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988?
Would we fighting for health care reform right now?
Dorothea Lange was a photographer and photojournalist best known for her portraits of migrant workers during the Great Depression, such as her legendary Migrant Mother series.
While Lange’s work is famous, not much is known about her personal life. She had a difficult childhood. She contracted polio when she was seven, leaving her with an obvious limp. The neighborhood children shunned her and even her mother acted embarrassed by her “crippled” child. Lange’s father left the family when she was 12 years old.
As a teenager, Lange discovered photography and later made it her career:
The pain of her childhood, however, gave her a fuller sense of what suffering meant, and later on, when the government hired her to document the effects of the depression, it deepened her compassion for the destitution and despair that she saw all around her.
It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, humiliated me, all those things at once. I’ve never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it.
Lange spent her career photographing others who had been marginalized by society: migrant workers in the Great Depression, sharecroppers in the deep South, and Japanese-Americans being evacuated to internment camps in World War II.
As women, we rarely hear about the integral role women have played in history. We know even less about the lives of women with disabilities in history. Throughout the month of March, which is Women’s History Month, I plan to feature women in history, both recent and not-so-recent, who have lived with disability. Some of these women might be famous while others you might never have heard of. First up, Juliette Gordon Low.
Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts
Juliette Gordon Low was born on October 31, 1860, in Savannah, Georgia. As a child, Juliette, known as “Daisy” to her friends and family, developed a lifelong love of the arts. She wrote poetry, sketched, painted, acted in plays and later became an accomplished sculptor.
After attending boarding school in Virginia and New Jersey, Daisy traveled extensively in the United States and Europe. Daisy suffered from chronic ear infections as a young adult. By the time she married William Mackay Low on December 21, 1886, she had lost most of her hearing in one ear due to improper treatment. Unfortunately, Daisy’s wedding day brought an unwelcome gift:
At her wedding, when she was 26, she lost hearing in her other ear after a grain of good-luck rice thrown at the event lodged in her ear. When trying to remove the rice, the doctor punctured the eardrum and damaged the nerve-endings resulting in a total loss of hearing in that ear.
Daisy and William moved to England after the wedding. Daisy temporarily returned to the United States during the Spanish-American war to help her mother organize a convalescent hospital. William Low died in 1905 and in 1911, Daisy met Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, who inspired her to found the Girl Scouts in the United States the following year.
As Daisy encouraged girls to learn about homemaking, arts, science and the outdoors, she also included girls with disabilities, at a time when many organizations excluded them:
“Juliette Low was very open-minded,” says Jami Brantley, historian at Girl Scout First Headquarters, which today showcases vintage uniforms, badges and handbooks, and chronicles the history of the group. “She wanted the organization to not just be for the more elite girls.”
Juliette Gordon Low died of breast cancer on January 17, 1927, in Savannah, Georgia. From the original troop of 18 girls, there are now more than 3.7 million Girl Scouts.
Learn more about the life and work of Juliette Gordon Low:
I am sorry that I haven’t blogged lately but I’ve been having a lot of health problems and barely used a computer the last several weeks. Hopefully, things will get back to normal now. March is National Women’s History Month and I plan to feature prominent women in history with disabilities on the blog throughout the month. This new series start tomorrow so be sure to check it out!
In the meantime, here are a few of the disability-feminist reads I wanted to share from the past couple weeks:
Eva from The Deal with Disability had a guest post at Lesbilicious on being queer and disabled:
Queer people have to come out all the time to family, friends, co-workers, and confused strangers, and it’s really tiring. I have to come out four-fold. I have to come out as a female, as an intelligent adult, as a queer person, and as a butch dyke.
Jennifer Bartlett has an interview with artist Sunuara Taylor up at Feministing entitled Feminism, Disability, and John Currin in which Taylor talks about the social model of disability:
Under this model, the word disabled is used to describe the disabling environment and culture that different bodies live in (for example stairs and negative stereotypes disable me). Impairment is used to describe one’s body, one’s diagnosis (which is in itself arguably a cultural creation). When I hear or say ‘disabled people’ I think of people who are oppressed not by their bodies (or not only by their bodies), but by a discriminating and inaccessible world.
A white woman is marginalized in a different way than a Latina woman is. And a Latina woman is marginalized in a different way than an indigenous woman! A nondisabled woman is marginalized in a different way than a paraplegic woman is… and a paraplegic woman is marginalized in a different way than a bipolar woman is. An upper-middle-class woman in urban New York is marginalized in a different way than a poor woman in urban New York — and a poor woman in New York is marginalized in a different way than a poor woman in Indiana.
There are different mechanisms of marginalization for different types of people — and the greater your difference from the presumed default person, the more different your type of marginalization looks than the privileged-other-than-gender woman.
1. What is your disability or chronic medical condition? How does it affect you both generally and on a daily basis?
I have spina bifida from birth and am a recent left above knee amputee due to a life-threatening infection in my left leg that began as a non-healing pressure sore in my left foot. I am a full-time wheelchair user, but I am full steam ahead independent. I drive both an adapted car with wheelchair topper and full-size adapted van.
2. Do you consider yourself “disabled”? Do other people see you as “disabled”?
I’m a vibrant, independent woman on wheels. My husband and those who know and love me see me as a whole person. What others think doesn’t matter all that much, but I thrive on widening open minds and cracking open closed ones in terms of how they view disability
3. Do people treat you differently or unfairly because of your disability/condition? How so? Can you give an example(s)?
I have been talked down to like I’m a child. I’ve been spoken to loudly as if I had a hearing impairment. My legs don’t work. My ears are just fine. I have been told I was just too darn pretty to be in a wheelchair as if the wheelchair marred my appearance. I don’t think the wheels detract from my appearance at all. My disability is just another part of me like my hair color, eye color, height and other natural attributes. My husband and I are sometimes looked at as if we both have a disability because the obvious misconception is that only people with disabilities want to be with others with disabilities. He’s also been complimented for “taking care of me” when we have a 50-50 marriage. I take care of him in my own way, as he does me. I’ve been complimented that it’s so wonderful that I found a man as if my wheelchair were a deterent to finding a life mate.
4. If you could tell the world one thing about what it’s like to live with your disability/condition, what would it be?
I would have to say that living with a disability is like any other life situation we adapt ourselves to. We adapt to job changes, life changes and relationship changes. That’s what humans were made to do, to adapt. I’m not saying having a disability is the easiest thing in the world to adapt to if it’s a new experience for you, but if you turn off the negative self-talk and the negative misperceptions of society and just take it moment by moment, you’ll be surprised just how well you can live and how much of the world you are able to experience. Do we still have a ways to go in terms of civil rights and accessibility, as well as people’s misperceptions about what we can or cannot achieve? Of course we do! But we also have a ways to go in learning to accept ourselves as whole people in our own right. It starts inside ourselves before we can teach others around us that we are worthy and able.
5. What do you like about living with your disability/condition?
I love that my disability affords people the opportunity to start a conversation about how I get around in the world, about civil rights and accessibility issues. I enjoy the opportunity to turn well-meaning, but wrong comments into a way to teach people the right way to perceive people with disabilities…as people just like them, who happen to maybe go about things in life a little bit differently than they do. We want the same things in all facets of life, but it may take a little creativity and a different method to achieve our goals.
Yesterday Jezebel posted a link to this photo from Los Angeles Times magazine interview with actress Emily Blunt. In the photograph, Blunt is dressed in a beige minidress and tights, covered in beige makeup and poses against a beige, nondescript background. Her hair is pulled back and covered, as it she’s had a head injury. Her dress almost looks like a very glamorous ace bandage. Still, the most controversial thing about this photograph is, as Jezebel puts it, that the “crutches are accessories”.
I read the article from the LA Times and it appears the photograph was used as a metaphor for the vulnerability and brokenness of the characters Blunt has chosen to portray.
I have conflicting feelings about this. On the one hand, crutches are not only used by people with broken legs but also permanent disabilities. I don’t really have a problem with using disability as a metaphor. Our bodies break down and many people can relate to that. If it is done with sensitivity, I think disability as a metaphor has a potential to be very powerful.
However, notice I used the word “sensitivity”. The problem with this photo shoot is that Emily Blunt can take her makeup and costume off. She can toss the crutches and walk away. The photograph conveys vulnerability very well. As a piece of art, it succeeds. People who don’t live in photographs can’t throw their crutches away. They still have to live with limited mobility, pain, medical problems, etc.
Jezebel used the term “disability chic”, linking to other instances with Helmut Newton and Lady Gaga. I appreciate the right of artists to use disability in their work. Disability is a part of life. Still, sometimes it is not done right, disability as metaphor can come off as mocking people with disabilities. Emily’s photograph in the LA Times feels like this to me.
I wouldn’t use the word “chic” to describe disability. People with disabilities can be chic, of course but disability itself? I don’t think so. Disability can be beautiful, triumphant, brutal, scary, boring, lonely, horrific, peaceful and much, much more. Commercializing disability, as Lady Gaga did in her video by blinging-out her wheelchair, further minimizes the experience of people with disabilities.
Disability isn’t an accessory you can buy at the store. It isn’t disposable, like Gaga’s latest Gucci handbag. When you live with disability, you are usually stuck with it. You can’t take it off end of the day or throw it away when you get sick of it.
At the end of the day, that’s what irritates the most about Emily Blunt’s photograph. I know that when she was done with the photo shoot, she took off her costume, put down the crutches and walked away without any difficulty.
Bio: A displaced Brit, WCD lives part time in New York City and San Francisco Bay Area; she dances for a physically integrated dance company. Her blog can be found at http://cripwheels.blogspot.com and you can follow her on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/wheelchairdancr
1. What is your disability or chronic medical condition? How does it affect you both generally and on a daily basis?
It interests me that we continue to ask this question of each other. Even as we blog, write, talk about how annoyed we are when we meet people on the street whose first question this is, we continue to measure, approve, classify, recognize each other by the medical classifications of our bodies. Why? I wonder whether there’s a better way to identify ourselves to each other, to signal that, yes, we belong to each other. I wonder if there’s an inherent feeling of privilege here — that somehow disabled people get to ask these questions of each other, because, well, we’re disabled. Is the information learned so necessary that without it we cannot build relationships? Does knowing that you are an acquired C-6 versus a “from birth” or even an acquired T-1 matter? Can we only “identify” and “relate” if we know the medical details of our histories? Yes, there’s a difference between being a high-quad and a low-para, but is that difference material if you believe people are available and accessible in more ways than, “I know what you’re going through only because I went through exactly the same experience myself.” I believe it is important to share experiences and that can sometimes include sharing medical histories, but I also believe that using a medical history as a kind of shortcut to identifying with and understanding our lived experiences abrogates our ability to understand and relate to each other.
I also think that within the disability community there are “prestige” diagnoses — I think, for example, of the way wheelchair users are prioritized both in terms of discussions of access and in terms of symbolizing the community. I also think that wheelchair users all too frequently tend to operate around a separate but different hierarchy that seeks to delegitimate the rights non-SCI users of wheelchairs. The negative sides of the conversation that I have heard contain things like “if you can walk, you don’t need a wheelchair,” “people who use scooters aren’t real wheelchair users and shouldn’t have access to funding for them under Medicare or any other kind of public funding,” and “aging-related mobility impairments aren’t real disabilities.”
Gosh. I seem to have backed myself into a corner. I can hardly start to answer the question now, can I? I rather like the second part. How it affects me on a daily basis. I use a wheelchair for most of my mobility; I have involuntary movement, hypermobilility and joint instability, some pretty nasty spasms, and a fair amount of pain. And yet, I am not sure what the question asks — it certainly leaves room for freedom of response. Am I affected? Usually, we use “affected” in some kind of negative way. I wouldn’t use it to describe myself outside the disability community for fear of conveying a sense of suffering and blight. But, in a more neutral sense, yes, there have been some significant changes in my life.
2. Do you consider yourself “disabled”? Do other people see you as “disabled”?
That all depends on who you are and what you mean by disabled. I consider myself disabled; I use the term to indicate a mobility impairment and, through that impairment, my affinity and affiliation with the culture, history, and traditions associated with (but not necessarily begun by) the disability rights movement. It’s also an identity term. I am not sure how I would be read by, say, various legal and governmental entities for which the definition of disability is not being able to work. Disability outside the movement is so contextually defined. Does my doctor see me as disabled or does he just write prescriptions? How would I know? The army of people I work with on physical therapy, dance, training, etc? I don’t know — and I really mean that because so many of them subscribe to variations of the “we are all challenged” “you aren’t paralyzed and wheelchair-bound” takes on impairment. They all recognize that I am a dancer and that that means that I am an athlete. Does their notion of athlete also include disabled athlete? Does being seen as disabled depend on my wheelchair use? I kinda think so, at least for me. When I was using crutches more regularly, no one saw me as disabled. I was just someone who used crutches — knee surgery, dear? On the other hand, when I spazz out, passing is less of an option.
3. Do people treat you differently or unfairly because of your disability/condition? How so? Can you give an example(s)?
There’s a blog’s worth of writing on that topic. Most of the unfair stuff is pretty easy; it’s the same old disability prejudice, and my stories aren’t all that different from those of many other bloggers. More interesting (to me, at least) are the disability and race interactions. Yes, there is still racism out and about. We aren’t post-racial yet — the ways race and disability prejudice interact are endlessly fascinating. As a walking black woman, I’m a threat: I might steal something; I might be on welfare; I am most definitely staff (not a guest or client). As a wheelie, I am no threat. I am to be assisted, pitied, and helped through a difficult world. Or (and I love this one), I am doubly blighted. At any rate, no one is going to suspect me of stealing. The value and meaning of disability changes when I am in my community of folks because the disability identity that is most widely known is a white disability history and culture.
People certainly treat my differently. I am special (said bitterly but with a certain smugness as well). I don’t have to wait in line; people talk to me, make random conversation with me; flight attendants and other similar personnel chat to me more. People smile at my bravery when they pass me in the street… Urgk. Don’t get me started. I have to interact with more people in a wider variety of ways — I have neither the luxuries of passing or anonymity. I am always visible, always on, always performing some other person’s fantasy (in a prosaic psych sense, rather than sexual sense) of disability and race.
It’s complicated, and I am certainly not the most skilled at navigating all of the questions that come up because of disability. How do you handle it when a child stares at you? What are they looking at? If I am unfairly treated, is that a matter of race, disability, or both? How can I distinguish between these things? Is it worthwhile distinguishing? And if not, how can we work for justice and equality such that these questions are less and less meaningful to more and more people?
4. If you could tell the world one thing about what it’s like to live with your disability/condition, what would it be?
It’s work. It’s hard work. It can be very scary. It’s sometimes painful, often incomprehensible. You will try, fail, and try again. It can seem like a full time job that you have to do in addition to anything else you might want to do. You can do it; you will find your way.
5. What do you like about living with your disability/condition?
I’m not sure how to answer that. I like the life I have built; I am really happy with my career and beyond that dancing fills my soul. I appreciate the irony that I never would have had the chance to be a dancer if I hadn’t entered the world of disability. But I am not sure how to answer the question. I like the way I live, the people I have met, the grounding I have, the self-knowledge. I even like my wheelchair; that said, however, I don’t think I can say that I like what I live with.
6. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Come and see me dance. Go and support disabled dancers in your area. Understand the freedom we dancers achieve by living maximally in our bodies. Go thou and do likewise — not the dance bit — just the living maximally bit. Oh yeah. And do your bit to make accessibility possible; when the world is open to more people in more ways, we are all able to be better humans.
Well, I am back. In case you missed me, I have been gone. Two weeks ago today, I fell down the basement stairs holding an open container of yogurt, a can of Diet Coke and a glass with ice in it. By unbelievable miracle, I managed not to break anything or hit my head. However, I did end up with 17 stitches in my left hand and I sprained my left wrist, plus I had bumps and bruises all over my body. Thank heavens for Vicodin.
I haven’t been on my computer much these last two weeks. Instead, I’ve been using my iPod touch or pretty much everything: e-mail, browsing the Internet, etc. I even wrote two blog entries by typing them out with one finger on the iPod touch screen.
I’m back now and I’ve got a new toy. Since my injury almost 5 years ago(!), I’ve had pain and weakness in of my upper extremities and this latest fall has only exacerbated these problems. I decided it was finally time to break down and buy the Dragon NaturallySpeaking dictation software so that I do not have to use my hands so much on the computer. In fact, I am writing this blog post using the Dragon software.
When I fell down the basement stairs and landed at the bottom, I truly hit bottom. I feel like I’m starting over now. Not only do I have to heal my hands, I also have to build up my strength and endurance throughout my whole body. I fell because I wasn’t feeling well and I was tired. I have often felt in the past when I am tired including a very memorable incident in front of the White House in January 2008. (Those Secret Service guys are really nice!)
I think this will also be a new period of growth for this blog. I am not exactly sure what form my writing and activism is going to take. I am not sure how to continue the fight for health care reform but I know it needs to happen. People I know spent thousands of dollars on prescription drugs in 2009. I know of a man died because he did not have health insurance. This happened just within the last month. Here in Wisconsin, there are 20,000 childless adults on a waiting list for a low income state health insurance plan. Something needs to happen. Congress needs to get it together and pass health care reform. I put so much of myself into this fight last year that I don’t know what else to do but it has to happen.
In addition, I have been trying to educate myself on and read about disability rights. As the days, weeks, and months go forward, I think this is where my energies will be spent. There will still be a heavy dose of politics, feminism and health care in the mix, but I think and hope to write more about disability on this blog in the future.
So… that’s what I’ve been up to. What’s going on in your lives?
I'm Danine Spencer, a freelance writer based in northern Wisconsin. Please click on the links above to learn more about me and my work. Email me at danine@danine.net Thanks!
Alicia Alonso is a Cuban prima ballerina and choreographer, best known for her portrayals of Gisele and Carmen. She was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1921 and began dancing at an early age, first in Havana at the Ballet School of the Pro-Art Musical Society in 1931. After marrying Fernando Alonso, they moved to New York City where Alicia studied with Anatole Vilzak and Ludmilla Shollar at the School of American Ballet. During this time, she also studied with Vera Volkova in London.
While Lange’s work is famous, not much is known about her personal life. She had a difficult childhood. She contracted polio when she was seven, leaving her with an obvious limp. The neighborhood children shunned her and even her mother acted embarrassed by her “crippled” child. Lange’s father left the family when she was 12 years old.
Juliette Gordon Low was born on October 31, 1860, in Savannah, Georgia. As a child, Juliette, known as “Daisy” to her friends and family, developed a lifelong love of the arts. She wrote poetry, sketched, painted, acted in plays and later became an accomplished sculptor.
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