I spent three weeks in Mexico on Mobility International USA’s (MIUSA’s) Mexico Leadership Minority and Disability Rights Exchange. In those three weeks, I did things I had never imagined and learned what it meant to feel empowered.

I heard about this leadership training program through Susan Sygall, executive director of MIUSA, and was encouraged to apply by Aliscia Niles, the Mexico exchange coordinator. At first, I was hesitant. I wanted more than anything to travel, as I have studied various foreign languages and am interested in international affairs. However, the year before I had not been able to participate in a year-long exchange to Germany for which I had won a full scholarship.  Despite many attempts to work out access and personal attendant issues, the Germany program deadlines passed without me going on exchange, and I was left wondering if my goal to go abroad would ever become a reality.

I finally decided to apply for the MIUSA program, though, and was thrilled when I found out I was going to Mexico. The excitement I felt was coupled with nervousness; I asked myself how I would get around in an inaccessible place in a chair I couldn’t even push by myself. However, as the date approached, I became more and more certain that the experience I would have would outweigh any difficulties I would face.

Arriving in Mexico, I was overwhelmed by new sights. I had the opportunity to speak the language I love and to do things I never imagined I would do. In Nayarit, our first destination, I visited the ocean for the first time in years. When my chair started sinking in the sand, I got out of my chair and into the warm water to look for seashells. In Oaxaca, the second place we visited, I walked on the dirt trails that surround the ancient pyramids of Monte Alban.

In both Nayarit and Oaxaca, I had the chance to stay with a local family. Through them, I learned about Mexican customs, food, and the wide variety of family structures, roles and lifestyles. I also saw the traditional dances of Ballet Folklorico, visited an indigenous village in Oaxaca, and danced with Mexican and US people with and without disabilities at a disco.        

Seeing the sights was exciting, but the delegation had more important things to do as well. We encountered only a few, very steep ramps, and not once did I see Braille on signs or sign language interpreters at events. We also discovered that neither Braille nor sign language are regularly taught to the few blind or deaf students who go to school. I met one ten-year-old girl who could not walk and whose family did not have the funds to buy her a wheelchair.

Among all of these not-so-shocking realities, the delegation, along with local people with and without disabilities, had opportunities to try to make some changes. We discussed the importance of access and disability awarenesss with the mayor of Tepic, Nayarit. We also addressed a group of architecture students at a local university on the meaning of access and why buildings should be made accessible when they are constructed.

The cultural sharing between MIUSA’s group and the Mexican disability community was also valuable. I spoke to other people with disabilities about my life in the United States — my job, my power wheelchair, my education in a school where children with and without disabilities learned together, and the accessible streets and public transportation in my home town. I hoped to help them imagine their lives in a world where they had equal opportunities, to help them come to the realization that they have a right to that life. At the same time, I shared with them my difficulties in the United States, such as some inaccessible buildings and transportation, and the still-widespread attitudinal barriers to access.

When I arrived, I hoped to understand more about Mexico. As my awareness of cultural and disability issues in Mexico improved, so did my understanding of myself and of disability rights in the United States. I learned that people with disabilities all over the world share common struggles against oppression, and that only by being united as one international family along with other minority groups will we make widespread, lasting changes.

My trip to Mexico also taught me that I can go anywhere I want to, disabled or not, and that disability is not an excuse for avoiding adventure. I now hope to travel all over the world, from Brazil to Bulgaria.

After the exchange, I started my first year at Stanford University, intending to double major in public policy and Spanish and Portuguese. I also became involved in Disabled Students of Stanford, where I helped organize and participated in a protest advocating wheelchair access to ethnic and cultural community centers on campus.

When I graduate, I hope to attend law school and eventually to work for human rights in an international forum. My trip to Mexico helped me to learn that I have both the right and responsibility to stand up for my rights as a student, woman or human being, and to follow my dreams and join the fight for human rights.