Senator Tom Harkin and Dr. Victor Santiago Pineada Celebrate Disability Pride Month and Discuss Current Advocacy

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Hi everyone, happy Disability Pride Month. This is Joyce Bender on Disability Matters. On Voice America. And here we are once again celebrating the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, July 26th, 1990. And the guest I'm going to be talking to in like 1 minute or less, his name is on that act on the wall right behind me, the Americans Americans with Disabilities Act. So this is truly, it's a great day. We're going to talk to Senator Tom Harkin and then we're going to talk to Dr. Victor Pineda. But first, before we talk to either one of them, special shout out Yoshiko Dart. I just talked to Yoshiko just a few days ago. Yes, and she's doing good and she is listening to the show. So special shout out, Yoshiko. I hope you're doing well. And also to all my listeners around the world in 135 countries, thank you. I hope you enjoy the show today and learn, learn about this wonderful act and about freedom and equality for people living with disabilities. Number 2 country listening, Singapore. Thank you, Singapore. Wow, you're really getting a bigger and bigger audience. You're going to love these two guests. Keep spreading that news. Someday I'll have to come there because you all are so great. So a special thanks to all of you and to all of my listeners in the United States, so awesome they are. And Highmark for being the sponsor of this show, lead sponsor for years. Such a great company. Well, what a great day. I have one of my favorite people on, Senator Tom Arkin. Hello, Senator, how are you?

Hi, Joyce Bender, so good to see you and be with you again. You know, you're always so positive and so upbeat. It's just, it's infectious. It makes me want to do even more.

Well, I don't know how much more you could do. You do so much. And, you know, I want to tell you, I love you, but may I tell you, the disability community, they love you. They do. They love you so much for all you have done for us and never stop. You are a still— you're a senator that never retired. When it comes to disability, you never stop, and I knew you wouldn't. I knew you would not. So, Senator, when we talk about celebrating the Americans with Disabilities Act, how well do you remember that day?

Oh my God. I mean, that day is— Well, I think, you know, there's 3 or 4 things that happen in your life that you never forget. You know, the day I got married, the day my parents, both my parents died, that type of thing. But the day that George Herbert Walker Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on the lawn of the White House, beautiful sunshine day. Huge crowd, the biggest crowd of people ever at a bill signing. It was just wonderful. It's like a photograph imprinted on my mind.

Where were you? Were you up front? Where were you at?

I was up sort of on the line up front, of course, with all my friends and people that were there, of course. Bob Dole and John McCain, Ted Kennedy, and then people from all from the disability community were all there. You know, you mentioned Yoshiko and Justin, and my goodness, of course, Justin was up on the podium with the President, of course. But all the people I'd worked with in the disability community— for so many years to get this bill through. We were all there, and it was just, it was just wonderful.

You know what? I cannot imagine the way all of you, all people with disabilities felt the moment that bill was signed into law. What a feeling of freedom.

Yes. Well, you know, I'm not a person with a disability, but I know how my brother felt. And he felt that— and he wasn't there. He was in Iowa, so he wasn't at the signing. But he told me that— because he watched it on TV, of course. And he just said it just— he felt like the chains were— had come off. Of people with disabilities, that the chains had come off. And it was just— so I can imagine how people really felt that now, now people with disabilities could take their rightful place in American society and full participation, equal opportunity, independent living. Economic self-sufficiency. Those are the 4 goals of the ADA. And you know, one thing, Joyce Bender, I have to say, I've been blessed to live this long, for 36 years now, to see what's happened in America and actually, to a certain extent, globally because of what we all did, what the disability community did in America what both Republicans and Democrats working together, what President Bush did in supporting it. It was just an amazing achievement by the U.S. Congress and the president.

Yes. Yes. How long did that take? How many years did that take working to get that passed?

Well, the actual bill itself, and you know, I have to, I always like to add this, you know, I was not the first person to introduce the Americans with Disabilities Act. The first person to do that was Senator Roel Wyker, a Republican of Connecticut. I was his chief co-sponsor, and then we'd worked together with Tony Coelho House. And so we introduced it in the Senate. Now, if I'm not mistaken, the next day, Tony and others, Steny Hoyer and others, introduced it in the House. And that would have been in 1987. Let me think about this. Yes, that would have been in 1987. Then '88, Lowell Weicker lost his reelection. Tony had left the House. Then after the election in '88, then in January of '89, it then fell to me to reintroduce the Americans with Disabilities Act and then to shepherd it through the Congress and to get it signed as you pointed out, July 26th, 1990. So, it may sound like, well, we worked for a year and a half on it, but, you know, the honesty, the disability community had been working on this for many years. I mean, going clear back to shortly after the Education of All Handicapped Children's Act back in 1970. I want to say that was like '76 or '77. Shortly after that, it became clear that we needed an overarching civil rights bill that covered all people with disabilities and didn't single out blind or deaf or people with mobility impairment, but covered everything. And so that whole effort really, I would say, probably encompassed well over 10 years. Well over 10 years. I mean, bit by bit, piece by piece, the demonstrations, the the— what— I'm sorry, I just lost the name— how they had gone to bus depots. We had to get the American people in general to understand what we're talking about. And so disability groups would do nonviolent protests. That we learned a lot from the civil rights movement in the 1960s about nonviolent protest. Well, for African Americans, that was the sit-ins, the sit-ins at the drugstore counters and restaurants and things like that. For the people with a disability community, it was lying underneath the wheels of Greyhound buses at the depot so the buses couldn't move, and they would be arrested. And why were they doing it? Well, because they couldn't ride on the buses. The buses were not accessible. They did this in cities. They did it in all over America. Uh, they would go to places that did not have any— anything other than stairs, and they would like drag their wheelchairs and stuff upstairs to demonstrate to people what it meant to have accessibility. So that went on all through the— from 1980 to 1990.

Yeah, you know, talk about grit. I mean, that took a lot of guts to be out of your wheelchair laying in front of a bus.

Oh, tell me about— oh my goodness. And they would— the buses would pull in and they would park and they would get out of their wheelchair and then they would lie underneath the wheels. Wow. Boy, I got to tell you one funny story though, Joyce Bender. One time there was a demonstration in Washington. It was late in the day. I was in my office and Bobby Silverstein, one of the unsung heroes of this whole movement. He was my staff director, and Bobby had done most of the drafting of the bill itself. Well, he came to get me. He said, "You got to watch this." It was late in the day. It was dark out, so it was a sort of late winter, early spring. It was kind of cold outside. And they had chained their wheelchairs. What's the group I'm thinking of?

ADAPT. Huh? ADAPT.

ADAPT. Yes, thank you. ADAPT had chained their wheelchairs across Constitution Avenue during rush hour.

Wow.

Right there by the Capitol. So I came out to watch this. And so the police came up., and all the traffic was stopped. And here in the background, right there was the U.S. Capitol. And so the police came up and with their big bolt cutters were cutting these chains, and, and, and then they brought the paddy wagons to take and arrest these people, to take them down and book them. Well, the paddy wagons, they weren't accessible. They couldn't They couldn't get the wheelchairs in there. And so people in wheelchairs were laughing at them, said, "See, you can't even arrest us properly." Oh my God.

Oh, I'll never—

Can't even be arrested. Isn't that something?

I'll never forget that. That was amazing.

Wow.

But— Perseverance, and it paid off, and America has been better for it ever since. And not just people with disabilities, Joyce Bender, but a lot of— look, you know, the one thing I loved about Bender Consulting, you get people with disabilities good jobs, jobs that meet their talent. You know, it's not just— we don't say just get a disability job., but get a person with a disability a job for which they're qualified. And so what you've done is not only help people with disabilities, you've helped a lot of businesses, I'm sure, because I know businesses that have hired people with disabilities and they're the best workers they hire. It helps their bottom line. They make more profit. Than they did before. So Joyce Bender, you've not only helped the disability community, you've helped America become more understanding and accepting of people with disabilities having jobs just like anybody else. We call it competitive integrated employment, right, Joyce Bender?

That's right.

Yeah, and so you've done a great job.

Jobs mean freedom. Competitive jobs need freedom.

Yes, and I must say, of the 4 goals of the ADA, that one, economic self-sufficiency, is the one that bothers me the most. We have made the least progress in that. We've made some, but darn it, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities today is just about where it was 36 years ago. And that's just unacceptable. And now, oh, Joyce Bender, and you got Dr. Pinedo on here from the Center for Independent Living. Now we're getting memos and statements, policy statements from the Department of Justice saying that states don't have to provide the least restrictive environment for people with disabilities. Well, that's nuts. I mean, that's exactly what we wanted to do in the ADA, and we had a Supreme Court decision, the Olmstead decision, that backed that up. We're supposed to provide that least restrictive environment, and now we have the Department of Justice saying, no, you don't. And, and that's thrown the whole thing into turmoil. And I know Victor knows this, you do too, Joyce. We know, we have the data over these years that if a state provides for independent living in your own community, in your own home with supportive services, it's cheaper for the taxpayers than it is to put someone in a nursing home. It's cheaper. It's better for the person with a disability, plus the fact that a person with a disability living on his or her own in the community with supportive services is better able to then go out and get employment. If you're living in a nursing home, you can't get employment. You don't have that kind of access. So for two reasons, it's cheaper for the— three reasons, It's cheaper for the taxpayer. Secondly, it's better for the person with a disability to live where they want to live, not where somebody wants to put them in a nursing home. And three, it provides more opportunity for employment. And yet, after all these years, we got the Department of Justice saying, no, we don't have to provide the least restrictive environment. Oh, just, it pains me.

Me too. That's horrifying. And sadly, there will be large corporations that own these skilled nursing facilities that will, you know, be funding and moving all of this as lobbyists. And you know how that's going to do? I'll tell you what, that's, people will die. That's what will happen. People will die. You know, we're going backwards, we're going back.

And, uh, yeah, so that— we gotta, we gotta fight back on this one. This is not, this is not, not right. This is not right. And I think, I think most— I really believe, Joyce, I really do believe that most American people, just when you just sit and think about it, would say yes if it's cheaper for me. And it's better for the person to live in the community with supportive services, that's what we should do. It just makes good common sense.

Yes, it does. It makes good common sense.

Absolutely. Well, we can't give up. We got to keep pushing the agenda forward on this. We still have places of business that are inaccessible, and yet It doesn't require much, you know, to be accessible for people with disabilities. We even put in a provision in the tax code. You can— a small business can get a tax, um, a tax break, a tax credit, not even a tax deduction, but a tax credit for making modifications like putting in a ramp or widening a door putting in an accessible bathroom, things like that. And so there's no excuse really for any business not to be accessible. There's just no excuse for it. I will say one last thing, Joyce Bender. The one thing that we were not able to get in the ADA was housing. Now, the compromise was we got buildings, all buildings more than 2 stories built in America since that time have to be accessible. We know that, and you can see that all over. We never got housing in. So today we're building housing, and you know, there's a housing shortage, and we've got to make affordable housing available. But so much of that housing gets tax benefits. They get tax benefits from the local community, from the state, even some federal tax benefits for building housing, but they don't have to be accessible. And you know, that's just a shame because more and more people, and just people who are getting elderly who were mobile before, but they're getting older, they want to stay in their own home, but they can't because they're not accessible. And so We've got to turn the corner on this. We've got to say that if you're building housing, single-unit housing, multi-family housing, uh, it has to be accessible. It has to have accessibility for entrance and exit. It has to have accessible bathrooms. Uh, if it's more than one story, that second story needs to be accessible. And you know what? These lift devices are really not very expensive anymore. I've seen them, and for very little, you could make 2 stories very accessible to people with disabilities. That's the one thing we've got to get is more housing that's accessible.

I agree 100%. And I will surely look forward to seeing you at the AAPD and the Nipple Walk.

Look forward to seeing you next week, Joyce.

Hey, Dr. Pineda, before the Senator leaves, and I told him how much the disability community loves him, you probably tell him, but do you have anything you wanted to say to the Senator, Dr. Pineda?

Well, yes. I mean, Senator Harkin, I've known you and seen you for over 25 years. I was very lucky to have been mentored by many of your friends, Judy Heumann being one of them. And I can tell you that in that time, Joyce Bender is absolutely right. We look to you as our You know, as one of the biggest champions of American history and justice and values, and to be able to see you continue to be part of this, this fight, the struggle, this solidarity, just really important, especially now when the foundational values of America are being challenged. And so I look forward to marching with you Tuesday at the Nikko March on the Capitol, and seeing you at the AAPD gala next Wednesday, and continue to inspire a new generation because I think what I've heard a lot of is this is an intergenerational struggle. It's an intergenerational movement where we keep passing the baton and keeping a watch on anybody or anything that could threaten our dignity and our well-being and our independence. So we're going to dive into a discussion on the DOJ memo on Olmstead. We're going to dive into what the Center for Independent Living is doing to keep meeting for the next 54 years of our work. So thank you for joining us.

You bet. And Victor, of course, you know, uh, one of my guiding lights at that time was from the CRL at Berkeley, Ed Roberts. And that's now called the Ed Roberts Center, right, out there. And Ed was just a wonderful friend. I I loved seeing Ed every time he came into my office. It was just— he was an amazing force, amazing force to have with us.

Well, I don't know if you know this, but Apple Studios will make a big-budget Hollywood movie that's going to retell the story of the 504 sit-in. The origin story of the CIA is going to be on the big screen this October. So you'll see all your friends on the movie theaters being reenacted, that historic moment of 1877.

What is it? Is it like the, uh, Crip Camp? Do they take stuff from like Crip Camp?

Well, no, these are actors. That are going to play the parts of Judy Hubert and Ed Roberts and tell that story in a feature film.

Wow, I didn't— I have not heard about this. It's the first I've heard of it.

So you'll see it.

Are they calling it 504?

It's gonna be the 504 City, but it's based on Judy's memoirs. They're calling it Being Human, Joyce Bender's title.

Sure, Being Human. Wow.

So it's going to be very exciting to relive that, that moment when the U.S. changed its course with a ragtag group of 150 activists, including the Black Panthers, including That's right. Lots of other allies that we would hold the largest takeover of a federal building in U.S. history to sign the 504 regulations of the Rehab Act. So that's going to be a cultural moment, and I hope it wins an Academy Award. I think it might.

Well, I tell you, it couldn't be more timely than right now.

The director and I had a podcast recording. Her name is Sean Heder. She directed the film CODA and already has won one Academy Award. Can I ask you, what do you want the audience to feel when the movie ends? She says, I want them to be ready to take action. I want them to be ready for another civic action to defend their values. So I think we're going to get a lot of people fired up.

You have to go, Senator.

I do. I hate to cut off. I am late now. Okay, we'll see you both. We'll see you, Victor. We'll see you, Joyce, next week.

Okay, love you, Senator. Bye-bye.

Thank you for being with us.

Thank you. Travel safely. We'll see you next week.

Lead on! Lead on!

Oh yeah, Justin, thank you very much.

That's great. Lead on!

We'll see you.

Bye. Bye. Well, you know Yoshiko's listening, so she's going to really like that you said that, Victor.

Shout out.

Let me just talk for a minute about Dr. Victor Pineda. He is the executive director of the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, and he is known internationally. I've known of him and his name for a long time, but I was just talking to someone today, Chris Griffin, and she spoke very highly of you. And you know, Chris Griffin, being that she was Deputy Director at OPM during the Obama administration, but before that was with EEOC, is a— I love her, but she— and she is just— knows everyone but doesn't pull any punches. So you must be a good person because you got her.

Thank you, Joyce. Well, I've known you and your work for nearly two decades, and I know that You know, our mutual friend Judy is watching that and smiling because she likes it when her friends gather together to chit-chat, share some gossip, try to raise a little revolution on the side. But ultimately, you know, with a lot of love and a fierce spirit, unapologetic. And repentant spirit for justice and equality. So you've done that, and I'm happy to be with you for that.

Well, Dr. Victor Pineda, I'm honored we are to have you, and all of you listeners throughout the world, in case you don't know, I'm going to allow Victor to tell all of you a little bit about himself and how he got into in the disability world and what he's doing now. I'll turn it over to you.

Well, thank you so much. Like, for those of you that are listening, I'd like to give a visual description, which includes that I'm a middle-aged Hispanic man. I am wearing a blue suit. With a mask over my nose that helps me breathe. I'm sitting in a fancy electric wheelchair, and I'm actually here in DC getting ready for Disability Advocacy Week. My story really starts in Venezuela. As many of you know, there's been a terrible earthquake, and my story is that disability was oftentimes seen as something that was out of the ordinary and something that was not really seen as a social issue back in the late '70s. When I was born, it was seen as a medical issue, so I was denied an education, an mainstream education, because I had they want. Over the years, my mother fought for us to move to the U.S., and at the age of 7, you know, I entered this American school system the same year that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was being reauthorized. That was around the time Judy was also working with the federal government to move a lot of these educational policy agendas forward. When I was 13, the ADA was passed, and I was at the theater, movie theater, and I was horsing around with my little brother. He jumped on the back of my wheelchair, and we were just, you know, playing around. And some lady said, "Hey, you know, young man, you can't do that anymore. You can't bully this gentleman in the wheelchair because now there's Now there's such a thing as the ADA. This young man has rights. And I said, oh my God, I even have more power, more power over my little brother than I thought. And so it was very momentous sort of initiation that there were such things as rights. And by the time I graduated high school and came to UC Berkeley, I realized that I was part of a new generation of disability rights champions. I was very involved on campus in starting the Disabled Students Union on campus and then met Judy Heumann, obviously felt a lot of the legacy of Ed Roberts. Ed Roberts had just passed when I got to Berkeley, but I had met Paul Longmore and other leaders along the way. And it was clear that there was a new opportunity, you know, to take up these values. And I realized there was so much great work happening in the U.S. that as I was studying both business administration and political economy, and being somebody that was from a kind of global orientation, global outlook. I said, why don't I just join this effort to help negotiate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? So my sophomore year at the law school, there was a little exploratory meeting with human rights experts on whether the United Nations nations should develop an international treaty to define and protect the rights of persons with disabilities. I was a fly on the wall at that meeting. 4 years later, the UN began formal negotiations around that treaty. And, you know, almost 5 years after that negotiation started, the international community had an enforceable human rights law that really enshrined the dignity and freedoms for people with disabilities that constituted almost 50% of the population, over a billion people around the world at that time. And so by the time the treaty was, was, uh, negotiated. I was 25, and I was one of the youngest members of that team that helped negotiate that treaty. Judy Heumann was very much like my second mother during that process, and a friend and a mentor. And I remember towards the end of that negotiation, she said to me, look, You're not going to be a cute kid in a wheelchair for much longer, so go ahead and get your PhD so that people have, um, people have something to listen to, can really hear you out. And I'm like, what? What? What does that mean? And I realized that, you know, it was really good advice because between 2006 to 2010, I ended up doing around a global research project and a dissertation on how this specific international instrument would actually work all the way through national and local governments to change the face of the world. Very much what Senator Harkin did with the ADA is creating sort of a benchmark of laws, the UN Human Rights Treaty created a framework for dozens and dozens of countries around the world to start making their own ADAs, their own laws, their own protections and programs and budgets and policies and procedures. And so I've been implementing, uh, with partners all over the world This human rights treaty, but about 2 years ago, um, I was asked to lead the historic Center for Independent Living, and I realized that it was my opportunity to really give back to a community and to an organization that really supported me both as a young man arriving with my parents to figure out my own independent living. I'm a quadriplegic, I need 24 hours of attentive care. I need help showering and dressing and eating and using the restroom and everything else. And the Center for Independent Living, almost 28 years ago, was an organization that helped me get my benefits and peer counseling and housing and all of these things, attendant services. And then later, much, much later during the pandemic, one of my students at UC Berkeley where I was teaching was an intern at the Center for Independent Living. And she said, Dr. Pineda, how can you be an international activist for disability rights 'Can have such a crappy ramp into your apartment. You need a better ramp.' And so we got a ramp put in to my home free of charge because the Center for Independent Living provided those home modifications. So when it came time to leave this historic organization, I was very excited by the opportunity to reclaim our radical legacy while also shaping and building the future. And that's what brings me to you today.

Well, that is quite a story. I'm so glad we have you. We need you. I was talking to some leaders in the disability community, and they were saying, sadly, you know, how we've lost so many people, Judy being one of them, and Marga, Bristow, Bob Katz, I went through this big list.

Justin Darts, everybody.

Oh, of course, Justin. And there was a time, well, it's been quite a while actually, where if I would be talking to a younger person that was in the disability world, and I'd say, we, you know, people still got to get out there and fight the fight. And they would say, well, it's not the way it was before. You know, before, like Judy Newman, Ed Roberts, Justin, they were out there fighting the fight, or Bob Kafka had a deaf— they were chaining themselves to doors and the Capitol walk and all of these things. We are past all of that now. And I said to someone the other day, remember when everyone was saying we're past that? We're not past that, we're back. You know, you should feel more than free to go out there right now and protest because it's back and backwards. We need people like you that the community can look up to for advice and for your leadership. And I know you're doing so much. You're the executive director of the Center for Independent Living. So our listeners can hear that before you respond to what I've said, in case they want to make a donation. The nation. Could you tell everyone about the center?

Of course, of course. Look, there are now already two great films about what we've done. We've literally helped change history. We've been at the very forefront of inventing disability rights. We were founded by a group of UC Berkeley students. Refused to be treated as second-class citizens. Ken Roberts, Judy Heumann, Don Calloway, and Brad Lomax, so many folks that were active, Judy Cohen and others that were active in the '70s to create a new path. The Center for Independent Living was founded in 1972, and by 1977 organized the longest takeover of a federal building in history. 150 disabled people marched into the federal building in San Francisco demanding that the federal government pass regulations on a law that really had no spine. You know, the 504 cities was to ensure that there were very clear guidelines complaints that federal funding was not used in schools, hospitals, post offices, and other public places to discriminate against people with disabilities, but to rather include us. And so the Center for Independent Living did a massive public action and basically set the U.S. on a trajectory towards the ADA that the Senator just discussed earlier in this program, but also towards that International Human Rights Treaty that I worked on for many, many, many years, nearly 25 years after that 504 sitting. And now in April of 2027, we'll celebrate the 50th anniversary of that 504 If you want to invest in the future of disability rights, if you want an organization that was there at the very beginning with the credentials and the bravado to continue to reinvent and push this issue forward, please do check out The CIL. That's T-H-E C-I-L. Cil.org, cil.org, and click on the donate button to support our work. You can reach out to me, V-P-I-N-E-D-A, my first initial, last name, Vineda, at thecil.org, and we'd love to get you involved. Especially now, Joyce Bender, with a big-budget Hollywood movie just going to be nationally across all theaters retelling that historic story of how disabled people won their rights and changed the course of American history. So that movie is going to be out in October, and by November will be on all the streaming Oh, this is so great.

I can't wait. This is so exciting. What is the name of this again?

It's called Being Human. It's based on Judy Heumann's memoir. It's being produced by Apple Studios and directed by Sean Heder.

Well, I'm going to tell you. The day that I saw my name in the back of her book, I started to cry. Because, you know, I own a company. Yes, I've been, you know, like the president of AAPD, the president of the board and all of this, but still, you know, I own a for-profit company company trying to get employment from people with disabilities. And there's a reason I don't have big competitors. This is hard because of the stigma. As Senator Harkin said, you know, here we are, we're going backwards, not forward. But when my— I saw my name in there, I called her and I said, She said, Judy, you don't know what this means to me. I'm so honored. And I mean, I was choked up. And she says to me, well, Joyce, why wouldn't your name be there? You're a disability advocate and you get us jobs. So I mean, ah, never forget it. I can't wait to see this movie. I'll be taking everyone I know to see this movie.

Yeah, I think for the international listeners, I think we really want to mobilize viewing parties. We want to engage in discussions around the movie. Yeah, the movie probably will leave a lot of the audience wanting to take action, right? You see what injustice looks like, you see what courage looks like. To see what community looks like when we band together. And you get to know these characters, you know, these folks that, that realize that they did not want to be treated as second-class citizens. And so many of us feel helpless, and I think this film's going to remind us that we have tremendous power, and a disability can be resource of tremendous power and moral authority and innovation and economic power and ingenuity. You know, Joyce Bender did so much work for our community on economic empowerment. And what I had just recently discussed with one of the candidates for governor in the state of California, um, Tom Steyer. I said, you know what's missing in this whole conversation about innovation? It's the fact that the economy of California, the economy of the United States, all this AI work, all had its origins in disability use cases. Text-to-speech, where the text is read out loud for blind people to have access to digital information. Speech-to-text is somebody like I that can't type well. The computer understands my speech and types out text. And the large language models of ChatGPT, their origins are with Stephen Hawking's— that needed word predictions, an algorithm that could predict the next word. To generate phrases and sentences that developed on this generative AI revolution. So, so much of our economy was made possible because of disability use cases. Even when you look at alt text on websites where you have a description of an image, those text descriptions or that captioning on a video fed algorithms that trained a computer to understand what a dog was or what is going on in a scene. And all that trained these AI algorithms through disability use cases. So imagine so much of our economy really being reliant and dependent on— and in some ways is in some ways very much, you know, because of the disability community, because of the ADA requiring equal access, that fed this opportunity to build new systems. So it's called a positive externality. It's like the curb cut effect. When you build a curb, it's not just for people people in wheelchairs, it's for deliveries, it's for parents with baby strollers, and soon delivery robots that are using curbs to automatically deliver groceries to your home. So that's really the innovative spirit that the Center for Independent Living is bringing back while also being deeply rooted in our legacy. And your audience can definitely engage with us through Instagram, the CIL official, through LinkedIn, through Facebook, or to just reach out to me, Dr. Richard Maney.

That's CIL.org, is that right?

The, the, T-H-E, because we were the first. TheCIL.org. There are now 400 independent living centers. Really, there are 400 that emerged from our model in Berkeley.

You were the first.

Yeah, 1972.

You were the first. Us. Judy and Ed Roberts.

Well, this has been a great discussion. Joyce, let me ask you a question. With all your experience, what are you most hopeful about? What gives you hope about the future?

Um, what gives me hope? Is that what you're asking me? Yes. Young people with disabilities. Joyce Bender. Joyce Bender. Now, you know, I have the Bender Leadership Academy, and we're working to build advocates, disability advocates, but I, I'm hopeful that they'll have changed the future, but for right now, I believe that people underestimate all of us. I live with epilepsy, so I always tell people that's why I have all this firepower. I have all those neurons firing off. I've got the power. But I believe people underestimate us. And my hope, my hope is that we will have all silos down and get united, you know, not in this, I don't like your organization, I don't like that. All together because there is power in our community, just as you said with that movie Being Human. There is power, but we, we have to use that power. We have to. My hope is that we will become united again the way it was before the ADA because of If we would all share our passion and our power and our knowledge, we could be the city.

Well, we're very ready to forge new partnerships. We've had great dialogues with a range of different people that can see this moment as a critical moment. You know, the Department of Justice negating the fundamental civil right to live in your community. You're denying the community integration mandate of the ADA. Like, these are existential threats. You know, there will be people dying in nursing homes because states will just choose that it's too complicated or too expensive to afford somebody with their civil rights. And, you know, I think the reality is it costs pennies on the dollar to keep somebody in the community in their home versus in a nursing home, right? You know, when you think about Social Security and other benefits, I mean, attendant services and support services in the community, really reduce emergency medicalization and other much more complex costs. So I just feel like the country is— it needs to have a big wake-up call because the folks like Senator Harkin that were there on the floor negotiating and advocating for the ADA, those Republicans, those Democrats, those folks across the political spectrum are no longer there. They're no longer there, and we need a new generation of public servants and political leaders that don't see this as a partisan issue, see this fundamentally as an American issue around justice, independence, autonomy, and economic prosperity for overall. And I think we can get there, like you said, by, you know, ending the silos and finding, you know, a common agenda for the next chapter of American history.

And we need to do this now. We need to do both things— have the young leaders coming, building up— but we all need listen to me listeners. Listen to me. We've got Dr. Pineda right here. So we've got to support him and his organization. And we have to, you know, make him aware. If we can get him on the news media or whatever, we need to support him. Because as I said at the beginning, when we all get together You know, we may all not be leaders the way he is, but you still can be a leader. You can be a leader just by influencing a young people, person. You know, you can be a leader by helping out, by serving. A great leader serves. But we've got to support Victor. We need any leader we can grab on to. That is bright the way he is and that will get out there and speak for us. Hey, Judy Heumann was his mentor. Just can't get better than that. I mean, you can't get better than that. By the way, thank goodness she told you to get that PhD. That's going to come in handy. That is going to come in handy. Victor, we are behind you. We are all one.

I want us to stand by each other, arm in arm, hand in hand. It's all about we, we the people. It's all about us working together. And I think that's what you're going to see is a major call to action with this film. You know, if you're looking at supporting your organizations that respect your values. If you have, for example, inherited resources or have an opportunity to, you know, mobilize, uh, resources towards things you value, for example, donor-advised funds, for example, community-based supports if you want to advocate and invest in the future. It's not only the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, but in your own communities there are independent living centers that you could support as well, whether you're in Austin or whether you're in Jakarta, Indonesia, or in Singapore, you know, in New York or in Missoula, Montana. I think we, we really need you all to be part of this new chapter because we can't rest on our laurels. We can't look backward and expect that to be the, that to be the, the only place where we look at pride. We have to be proud of where we are headed.

That's right.

And bring people along for that journey.

That's right.

Thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Dr. Victor Pineda, for being with us. And listen, if you're in D.C. and you're at any of the upcoming events, look for Dr. Pineda and, you know, let him know how we're going to stand behind him. And we end every show with a quote, so you know it had to be Judy Judy Heumann today. So the quote is, "The journey may be tough, but our resolve must remain unshakable," said—

Wow.

Yes, said the great Judy Heumann. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. And in the words of Mary Brooker, actually another friend of Judy, in the words of Mary Brooker, when you get up tomorrow morning, remember, choose joy. You won't be disappointed. Talk to everyone next week.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.