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It's ADA Week, and the Elevators are Out

In case you didn't know, ADA week is officially here and in full swing! This is my first ADA week that has involved any kind of commemoration or celebration, and I love it! I love getting to meet the people who made the ADA happen, both on a grassroots level and in the political sphere. I love getting to be a part of it, and getting to commemorate the past while looking forward to the future.

This week is ADA week, so that means disability life is in overdrive. ADA week means there's always something going on. ADA week means that even more than usual, there's always something to do, or see here as a disabled young adult living in DC. I'm so excited, and I can't wait for everything coming in the days ahead. Tonight was the Justice For All Awards and AAPD's ADA celebration. Today was also the beginning of the NCIL conference. There was so much awesomeness packed into one day. I got to meet so many awesome people. I got to be recognized as an AAPD intern. I got to hang out on a roof and look out at the Capitol building. I got to do so many cool things, and I almost wasn't part of it.

I almost wasn't part of it because of transportation issues. What else would it be? I almost wasn't a part of it because getting around the city today as a chair user was super difficult since so many of the Metro elevators were out. Of course my friends and I made it work. Of course we weren't going to let Metro stop us. But if I'm being honest, it was really hard. It was hard, and it was stressful. It was hard figuring out which stop to get off at and how far we had to wheel and walk out of our way. It was hard, and for some of us it brought up real accessibility issues, that go beyond the simple lack of an elevator. My roommate, who has Dysautonomia, a chronic illness that increases her fatigue, hopped on the back of another friends power chair to get a ride to the Metro station because we had to go out of our way. As always, we relied on interdependence and made it work.

I think that the dichotomy of my experiences today is so emblematic of how far we've come, and how far we still have to go. A lot has changed for the disability community over the past 23 years, and we certainly have huge things to celebrate, but in our celebrations, we can't forget the struggles that members of our community face every day. The lack of availability of necessary services, unreliable transportation, and so much more. More than any of that though, we can never forget how important it is to make people take notice of us. The elevators were out, and nobody seemed to care. The elevators were out, and I couldn't get where I need to go using any reasonable way, and nobody seemed to understand why it was a big deal. The elevators were out, and in the immortal words of Metro, "it is what it is."

During ADA week, we have so many things to celebrate. I feel so grateful that I have grown up in a world that is required to take notice of me. I feel so grateful that I have grown up in a country where at least on paper, I have the same rights as my brother and sister. I feel so grateful to have grown up being taught to expect more than second-class citizenship. I feel so grateful that I can earn a college degree. I feel so grateful that I can take to the streets of my city, go to concerts, and check out cool restaurants with my friends. I feel so grateful that I can do all these things without a second thought, and I know that wouldn't be true without the ADA.

 We have so many things to celebrate, and so many things to be grateful for, but even in the best moments we can never forget how far we still have to go. There are still nowhere near enough accessible taxis in the city. Inaccessibility still is not taken seriously. Access is still an everyday challenge. I think that there is no more fitting representation of this than the elevators being out during ADA week. The ADA made sure that there were accessible trains and elevators I could use. The ADA tackled physical access barriers and allowed me to be present in so many places, where I never before would have been able to go. The ADA changed things, it really did, but our work is not done. Physical access is not enough.

It is up to my generation to fight for social change. It is up to my generation to fight for social justice. It is up to my generation to make people understand what accessibility really means and why it matters. It is up to my generation to fight for a world where people will realize that five accessible taxis is not enough. It is up to my generation to fight for a world where people will truly see accommodations as a civil rights issue. It is up to my generation to fight for a world where month-long elevator outages will not be seen as acceptable because people understand that the lack of an elevator represents total lack of access.

It is up to my generation to fight to make sure that the United States of America fulfils the promises of equality that have been made since its inception, and fully extends those promises to all Americans, regardless of whether they are disabled or not.