A Blind Teenager’s advocacy Soap Box
By: Sarai Hernandez

(Blind Insight February 2012 Issue)

Editor’s note: Sarai is a senior in High School, and has had the chance to intern with the NFB of Texas office. She was the recipient of the third annual NFB Austin Glen and Norma Crosby Washington DC Student scholarship. This scholarship assisted Sarai in joining 500 other Federationist on Capitol Hill to legislate for the rights of blind Americans. Here is the essay that secured the award:

Blind people have the ability to accomplish anything by using skills gained through either training or experience. However, three issues affect their independence: the use of quiet cars on streets, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and voting technology.

Automobile companies have developed cars that are environmentally friendly, but they are very quiet. This presents a problem for blind and sighted pedestrians. Blind people use the sound of traffic to orient themselves when crossing streets. Quiet cars present a danger because blind people don’t know when they’re present. While most people can see them, blind people need to be able to hear them. People should not be afraid to cross a street simply because a quiet car may be around.

Another challenge to the independence of blind people is Section 14C of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which declares that people with disabilities can be paid below minimum wage. People can’t control that they have a disability, yet this law seems to punish them for it. If a person with a disability works as hard as others, then he or she should be paid equally. The law is unfair and should be amended — equal pay for equal work. .

A third issue that affects blind people is voting technology. Some blind people cannot vote on their own and need assistance with the machines. Blind people have the right to vote anonymously and can’t do that if they have to tell someone to enter their choice. There is a risk of that person purposely or accidentally selecting the wrong candidate, so all voting machines should be accessible to the blind.

Congress plays an important role in passing laws that benefit all Americans, including the blind. Legislation that ensures safe streets, fair wages, and secure voting would increase the independence of blind people to fully participate in society.

Editor’s Note: Richie is completing his second year as NFB Austin President. Here is what he has to say about the 2011 Austin Federation work:

With the blessing of our chapter members I was honored to be re-elected to serve as your Chapter President in January 2011. I will tell you from the bottom of my heart that it has been quite the experience. I have learned, listened, and grown to love the beautiful thing that we become when we gather each month. We should be proud of our accomplishments, acknowledge our needs for improvement, and keep marching together toward future successes.

In 2011, this chapter participated in a number of good deeds promoting the good news of blindness to the Austin area. We began by electing a diverse, intelligent, capable, respectable, and hard working board of directors. I thank my colleagues on the board for their help this year. These leaders in the Austin blind movement have represented us as professionals and experts in blindness. I thank Pamela, Janine, Heather, Thomas, Mike, and Angela. Because of you, this chapter continues to succeed. Because of you, I will continue to succeed as a leader in this movement.

We held true to our focus on Youth Initiatives by supporting a High School senior; Krista Akridge of the Texas School for the Blind, to experience the Blind Driver Challenge and the National Association of Blind Student Washington Seminar. With the NFB of Austin financial assistance and mentorship, Krista experienced first-hand the empowering drive, innovation, and voice of the Federation. The investment the NFB of Austin made on Ms. Akridge proved to be worth the expense. This young woman then attended her first National convention in Orlando, and is considering an NFB training center for her rehabilitation. Continuing the spirit of Youth Programming the NFB of Austin hosted its first ever BELL Camp for Blind Children. Together we celebrated the independence of blind people through fun activities in Braille, blindness lessons, and adjustment. Eight students had fun with the NFB of Austin mentors at BELL 2011. We continued to give back to the blind community by sponsoring a Diabetic Awareness March, wrapping gifts for Barns and Noble patrons each holiday season-showing the world what blind people can do, reading Braille to sighted students at the Campfire After School Program, sponsoring and participating in Austin’s White Cane Day celebration, enlightening the Daily Local Newspaper and interested community of the independence and legislative initiatives of the blind, and hosting social gatherings outside our business meetings at local restaurants and member’s homes.

We have expanded our presence on the web thanks to our members and our awesome web master. Thomas Stivers a long time friend of mine has found his nitch in our band. Please join us to celebrate our accomplishments, plans, and federationism at: www.nfbaustin.org. This site makes the Austin blind movement accessible and informative to all. Because of our presence on the web I have received many calls, we gained new members, and our current membership is enjoying this new innovative outlet in furthering our communication with each other and the World Wide Web. Our web page includes: information about blindness relative to Austinites and across the country. The web site continues to promote the calendar of events, meeting podcast, and a message board blogging feature for members. This year we added Blind Insight: our monthly publication written by our members that emphasize the good news of the blind. In addition, we now have philosophy, announcements, Braille awareness, cool pictures, video footage, and much more on our awesome web site. Thomas continues to help us with the call out service that takes a 30-second message, and will call out to all the members on our list.

The Chapter benefited from over 3000 dollars of fund raising efforts. These were represented by a few dances with Dinner’s in the Dark Blind Café events, Holiday Auction, Bake Sales, convention hospitality massages, convention King Size Candy Sale, BELL Camp Registration Fees, and donations. Jane Lansaw and Heather Stivers and their tireless effort organizing the Barns and Noble gift wrapping opportunity also should be recognized for contributing to our finances.

The NFB of Austin has accomplished the networking aspect to our community involvement. We have invited the community to meet the blind on many occasions this year. Our chapter has reached out to community partners such as: The Camp Fire Project-after school program for elementary children, Austin Statesmen-the local newspaper, a summer music camp for elementary aged children, AISD and UT Music Graduate Student Teachers for our BELL Program PE, music, and Art classes, and a private inventor interested in developing blind technology. NFB Austin will continue to broaden our horizons by networking, learning, and shaking hands with community partners.

Finally, we have grown in leadership and membership. The members list of the NFB of Austin has surpassed 100 contacts. We welcome Marcy Gonzalez who has helped our Board of Directors in local projects like: state convention logistics, establishing a presence for a Diabetic Action Network for NFB of Texas, assisting in BELL Camp 2011, and the Dinner in the Dark. We are blessed to have found hard workers such as John Franks, Travis Weed, Taryn Schriewer, Max Nguyen, and Oumar Diallo who have all stepped up this year to help with our chapter projects, events, and fundraisers.

There are a number of areas of improvement in which I hope we work on. First, our voice for the Austin blind needs to raise in volume. As President I have come in contact with agencies of the blind, blind persons themselves, and sighted people that have miss-information about what the NFB really is about. This only means that we aren’t educating the public enough about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. This begins and ends with a sound philosophy, that in my opinion this chapter can work on establishing. Let’s find our voice, tune it up, and scream the good words, works, and wisdom regarding blindness.

Secondly, because our membership has grown, the chapter needs to find places for everyone. The Austin Chapter membership participation outside of showing up to a meeting has progressed some, but still can use some tuning up. Perhaps this is the fault of your board of directors, it could also be that our membership is unaware of the work that is needed, in fact, I believe it’s a little of both. This needs to change. This is a member’s movement, and we cannot promote our cause without the contributions, voices, strengths, and talents of everyone. Let’s all find a job in this chapter and fit in to this affiliate. Find a job that you enjoy, and take satisfaction from. If you don’t know what to do, ask someone who might have an idea, be open to that idea and give it your best shot.

Lastly, this chapter can work on follow through with the responsibilities it has committed too. The Board of Directors had many dreams our first meeting back in February. I know that we tried many new things, and we learned from each project. I feel with a re-evaluation of our unified philosophy, group participation, and individual commitments we can change what it means to be blind in Austin. I thank you for the opportunity to lead this chapter, and I hope I have represented you well. To next year federationists.

Editor’s Note: Richie travels to Baltimore a few times a year with up to ten Blind Youth from Texas, to attend the Youth Leadership Academy at the Jernigan Institute.  The following is a speech he delivered at the December 2011 Academy to 10 teachers of the Teacher’s of Tomorrow Program, and twenty-five students from across this country.: 

The popular holiday story of the Christmas Carol depicts a man named Scrooge, who despises the holiday season, cheer, giving nature, being Mary and such. Scrooge receives some late night ghostly visitors who show him how his past, present, and future can be heavily affected if one doesn’t take part in happiness, meaningful relationships, and community involvement.  In comparison to my own 30-years of personal experience with blindness this concept rings true as well.  Take note on the following examples of how my Blindness past, Present, and Future have played a significant role in where I am today.

My Blindness past consisted of: cancer in the retinas at 2, loss of total vision at 3, and hurray Braille and canes at 4! In elementary school I learned abacus in the 80’s, Braille N Speaks, Lite’s, Key-Note Goals, Perkins Braille and Print gadgets, and my favorite the clunky Apple2 E, that even had some blind kid video games on it.  This game called Space Invaders was quite annoying for an adult, but I was the kid at the time, so I’m sure I began at a young age providing headaches for my Teacher of the Visually Handicapped as it was referred to then.  I had it pretty good in Elementary school; I was literate, social, the only blind kid in a small town, so a bit of a celebrity, and pretty full of myself.  Blessed with a supportive family, good teachers, and a network of school friends, I at times would pretty much forget that I was blind. Images of my blindness past are: rollerblading with friends, playing football in the back yard with the neighborhood boys, hunting with my dad, first kiss at 12, and doing well in all my classes through the sixth grade.  Middle school brought a new direction in my blindness path.

I was 13, first week at Kenith White Junior High, when my blindness was first ever presented to me which caused me to be embarrassed.  I learned from a friend of mine, that on my street, there were two signs that read: “caution blind child area.”  A young guy interested in remaining cool, and not being singled out as the blind person, I had my friend show me these signs, and without his help took them down, and put them in the family garage.  I found out later that the signs were some local politician’s idea that had approached my loving parents who were just “caring about their energetic and daring blind son’s safety.”  This was an argument that my parents decided to agree to disagree with me, all though the signs stayed down.  “Caution blind child area,” meant people needed to act differently because of me, and I was embarrassed about that.  The dramatic social change in adolescence was in full gear.  I no longer could realistically compete in tackle football. In fact I played the last 3 games when the whole B team failed and the Kenith White Junior High Hawks didn’t even have enough kids to field a team.  Math and Science were no longer solvable with an abacus, I lost my Teacher of the Blind to retirement, and I was struggling with a Teacher’s Aid who was hired to learn Braille who originally wanted to work with the deaf.  Fortunately, I still had some friends, although, my friends began heading down the wrong paths also.

I recall talking one of my classmates who graded my Math homework, in to giving me consistent 85s, whether I deserved them or not.  We got caught, and spent a few days in the in school suspension room together, and that was the last time I ever talked with Rigo.  Who wants to be friends with the blind cheater?  I also had this neat idea that walking without a cane hid my blindness, and therefore people wouldn’t realize I was the only blind person in the room.  That worked up to the point, when at a choir concert I walked off the back risers, twisted an ankle, had some snickers from my peers, and played sick for the next few days.  I would try everything and anything to be cool: which got me in to trouble with my mobility as a blind person, education, and parents.  Walking with the wrong crowd, without a cane, neglecting my studies and holding low expectations for myself and meeting others low expectations of me.  As President of the 8^th grade class, we were responsible for decorating the cafeteria for the Valentine’s dance, and I recall being told by the Student council Sponsor that I was the supervisor, and that I didn’t have to help.  Popular enough to be president, but blind enough to do nothing.  Surely I could have hung balloons, streamers, colored in or cut out hearts.  No one had ever seen a blind person do those types of things, and so the expectations were that I couldn’t.  I accepted this trend of doing nothing, not advocating for myself, getting passed over in education, and equal participation in activities with my peers.  I began to feel sorry for myself. 

I owe all of my success to my blindness present situation.  An awesome mom, who is a teacher herself, who cared, supported, and invested in my education with her heart and love.  She wanted me to be a participant and so talked me in to joining the Future Farmers of America, where I learned to care for a 200 pound lamb, to bulk up for harvesting.  I learned a lot from this experience: responsibility feeding and exercising an animal twice a day, I was able to work with my hands, be outside, and make a new network of friends.  My family also supported my education as a blind teenager, by against my will, recommending that I take Algebra and Geometry over again at the School for the Blind.  Being uprooted and transplanted in to a world of blindness was quite overwhelming at first.  Going from being the only blind person to now having to make friends with blind class and even roommates was quite the experience.  The school for the blind proved to be the answer to many of my educational concerns.  Mainly, because I was able to be guided by a counselor toward applying for scholarships for college, in which I was fortunate to be granted by the NFB of Texas.

If one wins a scholarship from the NFB, it is required that you attend their convention to accept it.  I remember having to miss my School for the Blind prom, to attend a convention in Temple Texas.  Little did I know that I would find the best dance partner of all time at this event?  I got to meet so many successful blind people.  Blind people with real jobs, blind parents, businessmen, pretty girls who danced circles around me with their canes, and and over all presence of confidence, independence, and a positive blind culture.  I found out that many of the cool people I had the pleasure of meeting that weekend all had this boot camp blindness training in nearby Louisiana under this Drill Sergeant named Joanne Wilson.    The very first adult meaningful decision I ever made upon completing High School, was to challenge myself in blindness at this center.  For the first time I had to: cross the interstate, walk from one town to the next, get $100 of groceries home without any car transportation, take a college class, read amd write faster Braille, make a meal for 40 people, build a checker board with my two hands, do something productive with a computer, and have weekly conversations about my opinions, frustrations, and beliefs about blindness with the Sergeant.  You see I may have missed the prom, but I gained a life dance partner with the NFB.  My heavenly ghosts of Blindness Present, or blind guardian angels; Joanne Wilson and her Queen’s Guard.  I recall while in training having to make a pizza for a small group who I wasn’t particularly fond of, and having to clean up someone else’s mess because center instructor rosy Caranza thought it would be a good training opportunity for me.  I promise you Rosy, I now can make a mean pizza from scratch, entertain the four walls around me, and own a pair of these cool shoe looking things that are actual mops to clean and cook at the same time.  Rosy networked me with Jason Ewell who a few years after our training, we traveled the country together building chapters of the NFb, uniting our talents to share the awesome opportunities of the federation.  Because of the NFB, I now had positive blind role models, colleagues, and friends. 

Its meaningful relationships such as the ones I have with the people I just mentioned that assisted me through undergrad and graduate college, and now as a young professional.  Jason use to walk me through college math problems over the phone, rosy always had a listening ear to my daily issues, and Joanne always kept the high expectation that she demands that we succeed.  We cannot buy faith and hope such as that, and for that I am thankful.  For that, I look forward to my Blindness future.  I look forward to continuing to be a loving husband to my lovely wife.  I look forward to advancing my career utilizing my degrees and relative experiences.  I look forward to working with Blind Youth in Texas and across the country with the NFb.  I look forward to being the best friend I can be to others.  I look forward to spending more time with all of you, and getting to know your accomplishments.