Body in front of buses and countless demonstrations, chained herself to the fence of the white house, and she has also a great, warm and tender heart which makes her a Natural Community builder. So its a beautiful combination. You will find her in the streets with disabled in action, adapt, the disability caucus, when in black and other grimes. Ma nadina has a find and tireless mind. Youll read about it in her memoir but she became an educator and talk italian for many years, she also created and taught the first disability studies course at the new school. This is nadinas first book and its an amazing story, a book sold through its entire first printing in the first week. We are already reprinting your book. A nadina doesnt even know this. [applause] nadina is not a beginning writer, though. She has multiple articles published in able news, represented here tonight. Disabled in action and ragged edge as well as her personal blog, disability culture. Its more than a blog. I recommend checking at out. And also has author web site, new village excuse me nadina la subpoena. Com and her disability culture. Com. Is it dotcom or dotord. Shes been the recipient of awards for her writing as well as her activism and she is also known for her firey speeches in 2008 to the womens march in new york city and just this month, for the 2019 disability pride parade in new york city where she was the grand marshal. [applause] although nadina nadinas lifedoy us unique but its one many disabled people can identify, its in a world where disability is seen in negative terms. Nadinas power is in refuting up a stereotypical anywheretodisable. This beautiful memoir, she shows the harm that the overwhelming focus on pity and on cures has done to disabled people. Her story exposes the disability prejudice engrained in our social and political systems, and she denounces the oppressive standards of normalcy. Give you nadina laspina. [applause] wow. Thank you, lyne, for the introduction. And thank you all for coming in spite of the weather. I was in a panic earlier thinking that nobody would show up because it was raining, and i know specially those who use power wheelchairs, we have to worry about our wheelchairs. So, im glad to see quite few here that came, braving the weather and came to hear me read. So this is the book, such a pretty fuller. A story of struggle, empowerment and disability pride the very first chapter is call reposto can you all hear me . Am i speaking into the mic . Is the little town, a little fishing town in sicily, on the east coast of sicily for those who know sicily. Its south of messina, in the province of cat tanya, and thats where i was born, my home town, and where i grew up really. I left reposto when he was 13. The first chapter opens the book opens in roposto and im going read at bit from the very beginning. I have my glasses around my neck but it looks like i dont need them. If i do ill put them on. When i was four, or five, i wanted to be ugly. And get very angry when people said i was pretty. Im ugly. Bruta. Say im ugly. But no one listened to me. Cabellasome bambina. A pretty little girl, they saul said, and inevitably they added, what a shame. There was such sorrow in their voices, such an anguished look on their faces. I didnt want my beg pretty to make people sad, butter to be ugly, i thought. I especially didnt want my being pretty to make my mother sad. As soon as he heard this word, even if she had been laughing a minute before, my mothers eyes filled with tears and her face turned into a mask of agony. At those times my mother look just leak the adorata the sourful woman was the name of a statue in the church across the street from where we lived. In the little town of reposto in sicily. It was a statue of mary holding the dead christ, a sicilian version of, the woman grief carved into their painted face, on her lap, he dead son, red stained, slender limbs, draped in lifeless abandon, people seen as mournful when they look at my Mother Holding me as they were when looking at the adolarata holding her dead son. Time is thought my mother and the adolarata were one in the same, even had the same name, maria. Ill just read ale built more from here. I have early memories of being on my mothers lap as she sat outside with the town women while my father was at work. We sat in the afternoon sun, in the winter months, and in the summer we sat in the shade. My mother told the women the story of when i was born, the midwife, was impressed that such a slight woman as my mother could give birth to such a big baby as me. She left my mother bleeding on the bed with my grandmother tending to her, for a few minutes and rushed me with me in her arms to the bakery around the corner to weigh me on the bread scale. Not even washed yet, crying loudly because my lungs were so vigorous, wrapped only in a sheet, for it was warm in the afternoon of may 16, 1948. I weighed almost nine pounds. And i was growing so healthy and strong. My mother told the women, already talking at 16 months and walking on my own, and i was never sick and never a fever until, until that fateful night when polio, cruel, polio my lite milite tis invade our happy foam and stole me from my family. Whenever my mother told the town women the story of my getting polio, they looked up from their knitting and sewing and murmured, i leaned against my mothers chest, holing my face on the folds holding my face on the folds, hiding my face in the folds of her lace trimmed blouse and smelled the lavender she rubbed on herself when she washed. Wasnt her story proof that my mother as blameless . She had made me big and healthy and strong. What happened to me was not her fault. But those words were not an expression of regret and sympathy. They carried the connotation of guilt. Means sin in italian, what sin could my mother have committed to deserve such punishmenten and if not my mothers, whose sin was it that caused me to be the way i was, crippled. In this first chapter, i tried to show the very oppressive, very oppressive religious atmosphere where i was i felt suffocated and i didnt understand little kids do not understand, and i want people to see the harm that what they may think is kindness can cause. My father on the other hand had other ideas for me. He always dreamed of america. He thought that the answer to everything would be to bring me to america. And i all my childhood, throughout my childhood is kept hearing that, im going to take you to america and there youll be curedment my father worked hard and saved money so he could take me to the best hospitals and the best doctors, so i skipped a little too long, too much, wait, wait. I made a mistake here. Let me go back. Where is it . Here it is. My father, my father, where is my father. Maybe i should put my glasses on. That might help. [laughter] i put so many little tags here all over the book, and it gets a little confusing. Anyway, my fathers wish was to take me to america. So i had it right. My father worked hard and saved the money so he could take me to the best hospitals and the best doctors. Every time we went to a new doctor, his hope was renewed only to turn into disappointment afterwards. Italian doctors are too ignorant he told me when we came home from yet another trip to rome. They dont do research. Theyll never find the cure. Then my father smiled as big bright smile to show me he was not defeated. A new plan had been germinating in his mind. We would leave this backward town and this country where injustice and ignorance ruled. We would good to america, in america doctors were different. They were brilliant and they were always doing research with money that was collected on television. In america youll be cured mitchell father promised in america. In america. Make sure i pronounce it the italian way, in america. Youll walk. I always believed everything my father said. I wasnt sure how far america was or how wed get there, but if that is what my father where my father wanted to take me, thats where i would good. And we do make it to america, and within a month i was admitted into the hospital for special surgery. My father actually came before us so he could get everything arranged, and i he had this were waiting still to in the admission area, and finally a nurse appears and she was pushing a wheelchair. My father stood and stared, speaking in tentative english. I i was sure he was telling her we didnt need the wheelchair because he could carry me. The nurse didnt understand or agree with me and push the wheelchair up to me and smiled. Smiled back. Lifting myself with my arms, i with the swinging motion, managed to sit in it. Id never used a wheelchair before, never even seen one, but the feeling of moving on wheels was a familiar one, my mother had pushed me in my baby carriage, and when i started middle school, my father had bought me a bicycle with training wheels. He a added a back to the seat with a handle so i could be pushed. Skipping ahead a little bit. My father comps up to me and says, didnt be afraid of the chair. I its only until the curious. I wasnt afraid. As the under push me i savored every second of the smooth ride. My parents had to walk fast to keep up with us. I couldnt keep hi manneds from moving down toward the push rims, knowing what they were for. The nurse must have guessed i was. Iing to push itching to pushes myself because she let into of the push handles and pointed straight ahead go, she said. I knew exactly what she meant and i knew exactly what to do. Without lets addition i took off, arms pumping, wheels turning. Forks for the first time in my life i was moving on my own, no one carrying me, no one pushing me, i could good straight ahead or curve at to the right or lef, go full speed or slow down to let my parents catch up. Stop and then turn around to see how far i got. Then go again. That day in that long corridor, in that american hospital, i felt in love with the wheelchair. It was a heavy, ugly, hospital wheelchair, shiny chrome and green vinyl but i loved it. Arms pumping, wheels turning. Go on my way. Go on my way to my to start my new life in america. I must say that until now i still love the wheelchair and theres never a day that goes by when someone doesnt say to me, when are you going to get out of that chair . And i say, i want to stay in this chair. Why should i get out of it . How long would you need to be, how long will you have to be in that and they chair . And i say i hope a long time. Im not planning to die anytime soon. Ill be in it for the rest of my life but the wheelchair was just most people in society seen as a something not anything that anyone would want they dont even want to mention it sometimes. Its certainly a tool of great liberation for so many of us. It was in the hospital that for the first time i met other disabled kids because in the town in sicily, i was totally isolated. It was such a small town. There were no other disabled people around, and i was just carried places, so i couldnt really wasnt carried that far. I thought i was the only one, really. And lets see i made friends right away when i was in the hospital. They put me on this floor at the hospital for surgery, and theres someone here who remembers those days. Susan ryan, yes. I still call you susan ryan. Susan gordon. So i made friends right away. I was ecstatic. In sicily i thought i was the only crippled girl in the world and here i found myself surrounded by so many disabled girls and boys them first english learn is learn was the name of the different disabilities, some of the names were difficult to pronounce, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular at trophy, i was great when i found out i could use acronyms. Cp, md, sma, the names of other disables sounded italian, and were easier to pronounce and to remember. Dystonia, osteogenesis imperfecta. I dont understand how you can say osteogenesis imperfecta and not cerebral palsy, complained one of my few friend, jane. Personally, offended because her disable was cerebral palsy. To make up for the offense i told her how easy it was for me to understand her because of her cp. Her speech was wonderfully slurred. So i grasped a another of what she said while i couldnt understand the other kids who spoke too fast. I was glad that in english my disability was called the same as it was in italian. Polio. And i didnt know what i would have done if it had one of those hard to pronounce names. I figured polio was the best disability for me. I dont want to say too much but im trying already from here to show how natural it is to start seeing disability not in such a negative way. And in the hospital the doctors shy read this . Well, maybe. In the hospital the doctors who had come around and do their rounds and they usually didnt even talk to us. They talked to each other. And youre laughing. Should i read it . Okay, go ahead. And my roommate, they put me in the room with a girl that whose family was from sicily, and she spoke a bit of sicilian so we were able to communicate, because i didnt know a word of english. Thats where i learned english, in the hospital. And so the doctors would come around and i didnt know what they were talking about, and i would say, what are they saying . I would ask. What did they say about me . I dont know what they said about you. Toy nope what they said but me either i. I dont understand them. I was puzzled, but you know english, rosa, he said theyre not speaking english, theyre talking medical mumbo jumbo. And i wanted the american doctors to acknowledge me. To notice how grownup i was. And how quickly i was learning english. I wanted to get their attention by saying something intelligent to them. What can i say to the doctors . I asked rosa. Oh, you can say, fuck you. [laughter] what does that mean . Its like saying, its what italians say when that it middle east each other, meaning, please. It seemed the appropriate thing to say to the american doctors. And the word was easy enough. For me to pronounce. So the next morning when they all stood around my bed, i gave the american doctors my biggest smile and careful to pronounce it correctly, i said, fuck you. [laughter] one of the older, more important looking doctors was talking and he stopped midsentence. The look of shock on his face was not what i had expected. All the doctors seemed shocked. The younger ones also seemed amused, one in particular was trying hard not to laugh. I knew rosa had tricked me. I wondered what i had said. I looked toward her but her head was under the blanket. I wanted to pull the covers over my head, too. But then the important looking doctors started talking again and all the others turned to listen to him. They talked to one another a little longer. As if i wasnt there. Then walked out of the room. I expected everyone to laugh and make fun of me mercylessly. Instead the kids treated me as if i were a hero. You said fuck you to the doctors . Wow. I wish i had the guts to do that. It didnt matter to them that i had not known what i was saying. [laughter] [applause] im going to keep reading a little bit and if lyne tells me i should not read so much, then ill kind of stop or ill skip ahead. Let see. In the hospital i meet this girl that becomes my best friend. She is a very important person in my life, and pivotal character, really, the in the become. I wont say too much, but we would, youll know do what teenaged girls do. We would put on makeup and fix our hair, and all the in the hospital, the special surgery, the kids all how much longer do i have . Another okay. And in the evening, we always had parties, all the kids came to listen to audreys records. We would chip in and order pizza or chinese food. Wed all be clueing, lip syncing and licking sauce out our finger are 0 wiping it on one anothers casts. Wed be laughing and joking and chase chasing one another and doing the twist and the mash potato in our wheelchairs. We may not have looked leak the teenagers on american bandstands, but we sure could dance. Im going to skip and its im going to skip this part but it was its in this place called brooke dale. A few were in blythedale but it was there i started learning about the civil rights movement, from our counselors, and i was really i was mesmerized by the story of rosa parks who refused to sit in the pack of the bus. I wished i could be a freedom rider if pictured myself on a bus heading south, sitting next to marcus, my favorite tutor, very handsome black student from nyu if went be afraid to get arrested, i told myself. I would be proud to go to jail with dr. King, nor would i be afraid of the klu klux klan. I pictured myself holding marcus hand and confronting a man in a white hood. The students of some different colleges would come and mentor the children there, the young the teenagers. In fact i didnt get to go to school until my the very last term of high school. I really i started in blythedale and the hospital, beginning back and forth. Many things that will happen in between here, some very sad, some exciting, and one of the exciting things is that i hooked up with the Disability Rights Movement, which was just starting to bud, really to some of you are nodding, judy newman sued theboard of education when she was denied a license to teach because she was she used a wheelchair. And it was amazing. It was amazing to discover how similar our experiences were once we started comparing notes. Until then we had all considered our disabilities to he be the problem he. We believed we were supposed to cope as best we cooker as we talk, we realized that the disability itself was not that big of a deal for us. We had all learned to accept our physical limitations. What made life difficult was not the disability but the lack of services and supports, the lack of accessibility, the unfair and stereotypical ways in which we were treated, the pity, doled out for us all our lives, often after a meeting wrote my thoughts down in a note bock. Its not my fault that im disabled. Yet ive been made to feel it is, i wrote. My polio never made my unhappy. People made my unhappy. Ever since i was allege girl, people have always made me feel i was no good because i disail elm from the sicilian women me and nuns to the doctors who couldnt fix me to my fellow students and prospective employers, and even my own parents. As i wrote my tears fell and stained the pages, tears of anger, of relief, and of new hope, and i make a sign, i go to my first demonstration which was for parking permits, and my sign, i was very proud of it, the sign was just a black magic marker on white board and it said, if you think were helpless, we got news for you, man. We can fight for our rights, just as well as you can. That was my very first sign. I made lots of [applause] i made lots and lots of signs, i have made in my life, after that, but that was my very first. Should i keep reading a little more, lyne . Or stop . Then i started teaching. Im going to skip all that. I want you to buy the book and read it. It was but it is really discovering the disable rights movement, discovering we didnt even call it the disable rights movement. It had no name. Just bunch of us getting together and talking, and at the time i remember i was shy and i was kind of conflicted so i would good to these meetings but i didnt say a word. Then i would good home and think put it and write it all down for myself. But the idea that, hey, its not because of my disability. Its not bus i can walk that i cant get into this building of its because there is no ramp. If there was a ramp i could get in. That shift in thinking kind of was the what kickstarted the movem