Allison Wallis: I Don't Feel Bad About My Disability. You Shouldn't Either - Honolulu Civil Beat


About the Author

Allison Wallis

Allison Wallis is a journalist based on the North Shore of Oahu where she lives with her husband and daughter. She's a graduate student at the Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University. She writes about disability, chronic health conditions, chronic pain, Judaism, and life in Hawaii. The author's opinions are her own and don't necessarily reflect those of Civil Beat. You can reach her at awallis@civilbeat.org.

People with disabilities have developed a different way of looking at their lives.

Editor’s note: We met Allison Wallis during the height of the pandemic when one of our reporters interviewed her for a story about city officials deciding it was OK for disabled people to visit parks and beaches with a caregiver. She has since continued her journalism education, exploring the barriers people with disabilities face on Oahu as well as solutions we should all be thinking about. Her training as a journalist and her passion for helping people understand how the world she lives in may be a bit different than others convinced us to ask her to become one of our regular columnists.

When you think of disability, what images come to your mind?

Most people picture a wheelchair user, generally male, who is usually a paraplegic. It calls to mind words that are thankfully falling out of public usage, like “handicapped” and that word that starts with an r. When I ask about the emotions the word disability brings, they are almost always negative feelings, like sorrow and pity. 

But what if I told you that I’m a proud disabled woman? That I don’t feel self-pity, that I use a wheelchair sometimes or am homebound frequently or that I have to attend graduate school online rather than in person.

I’m not angry that I have progressive genetic conditions that will continue to degrade my body as I enter middle age (though to be honest, the severe chronic pain can wear me down). 

I’m angry that there are no sidewalks or accessible bus stops in my neighborhood and that a Handi-Van trip to a Honolulu doctor from Waialua can take an entire day.

I’m concerned that there is a significant shortage of medical specialists in Hawaii, so I have to regularly spend tens of thousands of dollars traveling to the mainland for care.

I’m sad that I can’t go to Haleiwa Beach Park in my wheelchair with my family because, even though there are wheelchair mats down where the sand starts, the parking lot is rubble, and there are no sidewalks to take me there. 

I am upset about the lack of public access and medical care in Hawaii. I don’t want people to pray for me or hold the store door. I want them to push our lawmakers to build sidewalks, and revamp (and rename) the Handi-Van, and improve public schools so that our disabled keiki can have equal access to everything their abled-bodied peers have. I’d like a service dog and for everyone else in the state on years-long waiting lists to have one, too. 

I want us to build universally designed homes with doorways wide enough that a wheelchair user can comfortably live there and that disabled friends and family can visit. My family has searched for a one-level, accessible home in Waialua or Haleiwa for over two years. I live in a rental that isn’t easy to navigate in my chair, with no relief in sight. 

I want to go to places in Haleiwa besides the Post Office and Longs, and for local businesses to finally put the funds into bringing their locations up to ADA standards. Congress signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law in 1990, 34 long years ago. I still can’t travel in my chair from one end of Haleiwa to the other. 

It’s not my health or disabilities that are keeping me home. It’s the inaccessible world outside my front door.

Hawaii is an incredible place to live and grow old. We pride ourselves on caring for our kupuna and keiki, building extended ohana families, and looking in on our neighbors. If Aunty wants to hitch a ride to the doctor, we make sure it happens. 

But what if Aunty is very independent and wants to go to the doctor by herself? Or to take a solo trip to the beach? What if someone doesn’t have those personal connections? How do we maintain someone’s independence as they age and develop disabilities? How do I hold onto mine? 

The Handi Van physically challenged wheelchair Handivan.
The HandiVan should be revamped and renamed. (Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2019)

Somewhere between 20% and 25% of the population in the U.S. has at least one form of a disability. These can be physical, mental, developmental or emotional. Many people have more than one. It’s rare for anyone to make it to old age without being disabled, even though we don’t tend to acknowledge it as such — we just think of it as “growing old.” 

Back in the 1970s disabled people began to organize forming groups like ADAPT.

These activists and scholars developed a different way of looking at their lives. It’s not their bodies or minds that are the issue, they decided. Going to the doctor might have been helpful, but it wouldn’t help a wheelchair user get on a public bus.

Somewhere between 20% and 25% of the population in the U.S. has at least one form of a disability. These can be physical, mental, developmental or emotional.

Rather than their bodies, it was the world around them that was the problem. It was society that wasn’t building ramps or including children in mainstream classes, or hiring qualified disabled people. They named this concept the Social Model of Disability.

I learned about the history of disability and the Social Model during my time at the University of Hawaii in the online Diversity and Disability Graduate Program. I was bedbound and very ill at the time, and I was slowly starting to realize that my life was going to be different and much harder. My previous career as a classically trained pastry chef was dust. I needed a new way forward. 

The program was a godsend for me. I took classes from bed and learned how to manage my health flares and classwork. My mentor, disabled activist and professor Megan Conway, introduced me to trailblazers in the activism world.

I learned about the laws and regulations designed to protect disabled people in the U.S. and how rarely those laws are enforced. Discrimination, known as ableism, is rampant. (Despite popular opinion, it is nearly impossible to find a local disability attorney who will work on public access issues.) 

I rediscovered a love for research and writing at UH, and I’m now a freelance journalist who specializes in stories about disability. 

In this column, I’ll be taking deep dives into some of the issues and great things about living with a disability here in Hawaii. We’ll learn about the ADA and related laws and how to effectively work for positive change, and explore how to live your best life. 

Hawaii is a wonderful place to live — for many people. Let’s work together to make it a place full of aloha for all. 


Read this next:

Beth Fukumoto: Is It Too Early To Talk About The 2024 Presidential Race? Sadly, No


Not a subscription

Civil Beat is a small nonprofit newsroom, and we’re committed to a paywall-free website and subscription-free content because we believe in journalism as a public service. That’s why donations from readers like you are essential to our continued existence.

Help keep our journalism free for all readers by becoming a monthly member of Civil Beat today.

Contribute

About the Author

Allison Wallis

Allison Wallis is a journalist based on the North Shore of Oahu where she lives with her husband and daughter. She's a graduate student at the Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University. She writes about disability, chronic health conditions, chronic pain, Judaism, and life in Hawaii. The author's opinions are her own and don't necessarily reflect those of Civil Beat. You can reach her at awallis@civilbeat.org.


Latest Comments (0)

This is an important contribution.It wasn’t until a loved one developed a disability that I became so aware of the barriers and challenges they face every day; particularly with mobility issues and sidewalks. I am equally proud and humbled of the resilience and strength that the folks we call disabled possess

Swimmerjean · 3 weeks ago

Sorry if my comments anger people, but it was written in a deep love for our State.

MichaelTada · 3 weeks ago

I echo these samme sentiments. All throughout the Coovid pandemmic,why hasn't there been much freporting of the pandemic in regards to persoons with disabilities? As a man with Cerebral Palsy who was born and raised on Oahu, I have been asking from day one about how our disability cpmmunity is copping/survivinng the pandemic, but it soon became all to painfulllly obbvious that we suddenly became invisible. That thought, weather real, or just mmy imagination has troubled me. Whhen we finally got the Covid vaccines, so many of you talkes againt takingg them. To think that even that time, so many stories starteed to scare us into not getting vaccinated by antivaxxers. It didn't and SHOULDN'T have had to be this way. Not to mention all the anti maskers out there. But hey, things happen, right???

MichaelTada · 3 weeks ago

Join the conversation

About IDEAS

IDEAS is the place you'll find essays, analysis and opinion on every aspect of life and public affairs in Hawaii. We want to showcase smart ideas about the future of Hawaii, from the state's sharpest thinkers, to stretch our collective thinking about a problem or an issue. Email news@civilbeat.org to submit an idea.

Mahalo!

You're officially signed up for our daily newsletter, the Morning Beat. A confirmation email will arrive shortly.

In the meantime, we have other newsletters that you might enjoy. Check the boxes for emails you'd like to receive.

  • What's this? Be the first to hear about important news stories with these occasional emails.
  • What's this? You'll hear from us whenever Civil Beat publishes a major project or investigation.
  • What's this? Get our latest environmental news on a monthly basis, including updates on Nathan Eagle's 'Hawaii 2040' series.
  • What's this? Get occasional emails highlighting essays, analysis and opinion from IDEAS, Civil Beat's commentary section.

Inbox overcrowded? Don't worry, you can unsubscribe
or update your preferences at any time.