Disability Visibility: Part 2

by Alice Wong
Published ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, this collection of 17 essays presents the complex array of struggles that individuals face when navigating the world in a marginalized body.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. advocate
    speak, plead, or argue in favor of
    I promised to advocate on her behalf and on behalf of others who cannot speak for themselves.
  2. incompetent
    showing lack of skill or aptitude
    We were thought to be incompetent, so no one took the time to teach us things.
  3. hone
    refine or make more perfect or effective
    So instead of training alongside a service animal at guide dog school, I spent my precollege summer honing my blindness skills at the Louisiana Center for the Blind.
  4. orientation
    the act of determining one's position
    My self-assurance didn’t come from the cane but from my hard-earned orientation and mobility skills.
  5. curtail
    place restrictions on
    Having a German shepherd at my side even curtailed the sexual harassment I faced.
  6. lurch
    move haltingly and unsteadily
    We lurched over curbs and crashed into chairs, but in each new experience, through gentle corrections and an abundance of praise, our teamwork improved.
  7. ward
    block forming a division of a hospital shared by patients
    He’d arrived a little earlier than expected, but once he rejoined his parents on the maternity ward after a few hours in the NICU, we couldn’t wait to hold him.
  8. oblivious
    lacking conscious awareness of
    The rest of my family, in wide-eyed adoration of the swaddled bundle, remained oblivious.
  9. stigma
    a symbol of disgrace or infamy
    Instead, I have realized that wherever or however I’m confronted by stigmas of disability—and, being disabled since birth, I’ve experienced them often—the expectation is that my reaction should be muffled and then tucked away.
  10. oppression
    a feeling of being burdened or distressed
    Now I understand the exchange of silence for the comfort of others as oppression; in this case because I still fear knowing how little value my life might hold for others.
  11. benevolent
    intending or showing kindness
    In the end, my parents named me after my great-aunt Sandra, a benevolent woman who housed and supported relatives as they worked toward U.S. citizenship.
  12. culmination
    a concluding action
    I am a culmination of old East Asian attitudes and new immigrant possibilities.
  13. ideology
    an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group
    My identity began with an American ideology of belonging and an existence that ties me to some divine test for my parents.
  14. fare
    proceed, get along, or succeed
    I’ve answered my nagging childhood question: it’s doubtful that my quality of life would have fared much better whether I was born in one East Asian country or another.
  15. marginalize
    relegate to a lower or outer edge, as of groups of people
    But the entire discussion needs to be rewritten as marginalized creators and activists repeatedly point out that there are no unworthy bodies.
  16. innate
    not established by conditioning or learning
    This lodges an innate discomfort into the very core of cultural norms that are shared by both continents: I mentally steel myself for disagreements from relatives whenever I bring up headlines of violence or oppression involving victims and/or abusers who share our ethnicity.
  17. encompass
    include in scope
    I come to this realization anew every time I do the work to anchor Sandy Ho and Hoa Tien Yun to the world, and it is exhausting to still need permission to encompass all of myself.
  18. presume
    take to be the case or to be true
    But in the spaces formed by marginalized disabled people, my existence is allowed on our shared world map in a way that is liberating simply because here I am presumed whole.
  19. traverse
    journey across or pass over
    Whether I am in Asian spaces or American spaces, I traverse through life as a disabled Asian American woman.
  20. reconcile
    bring into consonance or accord
    Reconciling these worlds in my mind and in my heart is my ongoing struggle to reach a place of self-love.
  21. indelible
    not able to be forgotten, removed, or erased
    As a marginalized disabled person I want it all: for all of us to remain as fixtures in our shared world views, for the spaces to do more than survive, and for our voices and presence to experience the indelible freedom that comes with being louder.
  22. platonic
    free from physical desire
    Unfortunately, we live in a society that assumes joy is impossible for disabled people, associating disability with only sadness and shame. So my joy—the joy of professional and personal wins, of pop culture and books, of expressing platonic love out loud—is revolutionary in a body like mine.
  23. elude
    escape, either physically or mentally
    For most of my life, hope, like joy, seemed to elude me—it felt impossible in a body like mine.
  24. deprecate
    express strong disapproval of; deplore
    I was once a very self- deprecating and angry person who scoffed at the idea of happiness and believed that I would die before I ever saw a day where I felt excited at the prospect of being alive.
  25. disclose
    make known to the public information previously kept secret
    In her first public appearance since publicly disclosing her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, Blair instantly became a disabled icon.
  26. sclerosis
    any pathological hardening or thickening of tissue
    In her first public appearance since publicly disclosing her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, Blair instantly became a disabled icon.
  27. eminent
    standing above others in quality or position
    To see her—a recognizable celebrity who I’ve known and thought of as eminently cool since girlhood—embrace her disability so wholly was incredibly meaningful for me.
  28. clamor
    make loud demands
    I watched someone with so much visibility lean on a cane proudly while displaying grace and beauty, while the photographers clamored for her attention.
  29. adept
    having or showing knowledge and skill and aptitude
    When energy becomes a limited resource, one must become adept at budgeting it wisely—using “spoons,” a metaphor writer Christine Miserandino came up with to explain living with lupus, to use energy when you have chronic illness.
  30. exacerbate
    make worse
    Blair decided to use her spoons to go out, to try and do what her body would let her do, while photographers took a few hundred photos of her—all while she was in the midst of a flare (or an exacerbation of a chronic illness).
  31. facetious
    cleverly amusing in tone
    She puts on a facetiously dramatic tone of voice and facial expression, and playfully shimmies her shoulders for emphasis.
  32. spasmodic
    affected by involuntary jerky muscular contractions
    Not only has she spoken about her specific symptoms like severe fatigue, spasmodic dysphonia, and balance issues—issues many other disabled people (including myself) have dealt with—but she also spoke out about the difficulty of getting a diagnosis.
  33. clinical
    relating to or based on direct observation of patients
    My first cane looked equally medical, impersonal, and clinical.
  34. revile
    spread negative information about
    The word inspired is reviled by many in the disability community, who often are the subject of pity or undue praise merely for existing.
  35. undue
    beyond normal limits
    The word inspired is reviled by many in the disability community, who often are the subject of pity or undue praise merely for existing.
Created on Tue May 10 10:03:15 EDT 2022 (updated Tue May 17 15:22:56 EDT 2022)

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