BEYOND ACCESSIBILITY: Embracing Disability Normalization in Society’s Everyday Fabric

February 12, 2025

At Capright’s bi-annual get-together in Chicago last June, we were touring The Art Institute of Chicago, when I noticed that one of my colleagues, Research Analyst Jean Marco Castro, was enjoying the walkabout as much as anyone.

Yet Jean Marco is blind.

Without being intrusive, I was curious to know what it was like to stroll through these priceless works of art with only very limited vision. I was hesitant to approach him. Without being able to see my body language, how would he react to my somewhat impertinent question?

I needn’t have worried. His warm handshake quickly put me at ease. Jean Marco was keen to tell me what it was like, as he put it, “to go through life with my eyes closed”.

We went on to talk about soccer and real estate (he knew a lot about both). With his friends now joining in, his disability suddenly seemed irrelevant. Would he be interested in sharing his story more widely, with the aim of broadening people’s understanding of disabilities?

“Count me in!” said Jean Marco enthusiastically. “If my story helps break down needless barriers to normalizing everyday disabled life, I’m more than ready to tell it.”

So here it is. We hope you will find it enjoyable and enlightening.

What on Earth Happened?

I have a lifestyle different from most. However, before describing it (below), I want to clarify that my aim is not to evoke the reader’s sympathy, pity, discomfort, or admiration. My goal is merely to help make people with disabilities more visible and to illustrate that behind every cane, wheelchair, or hearing aid, there is a normal person. Now that I’ve made that clear, let me begin.

On May 4, 2009, at the age of 13, I was hit in the head while playing basketball. This caused a retinal detachment in my left eye. It felt as if a black curtain was slowly closing a little more each day. Exactly one year later, I was punched by the school bully. This time, the retina in my right eye detached.

At first the doctors and I were optimistic that my retinal detachment could be surgically repaired. Typically, within six months, surgery can restore normal vision and allow a return to daily life. However, the odds were against me. My eyes, they said, were young and didn’t know how to heal properly. During the first of nine surgeries, the doctors discovered I was particularly susceptible to retinal detachment, a condition which, to this day, prevents me from recovering my vision.

Those were the moments my ‘acquired disability’, began. (An ’acquired disability’ refers to someone who becomes disabled during their lifetime, rather than someone born disabled).

People ask how I dealt with the acceptance process? Was I angry? Did I grieve for my world which was falling apart? Perhaps anger and grief would have been a healthy catharsis. But that wasn’t what happened. A clear priority for me became reintegrating into society and rebuilding my life in time to make up for the ground I had lost from my formative teenage years.

Just as it was impossible to regain 100% of my vision, losing the remaining portion wasn’t an option for me either. So, for the two years following the onset of my disability, I had strict rehabilitation rules to prevent further retinal detachment. I was prohibited from many of the things we take for granted – taking any kind of hit, experiencing stress, crying, laughing, lifting more than 2 pounds, jumping, bending down, and even sneezing. I also had to sleep face down and walk without raising my head.

Rather than allow all this to get me down, the strict daily regimen helped me develop discipline and determination. Like anyone whose whole future is at stake, I had the constant fear that if I didn’t follow these rules, I could exacerbate the retinal damage and lose even the last glimmer of sight I had retained. Today, I still live with some permanent restrictions, such as avoiding head injuries and high levels of stress.

Luckily I did not lose my vision completely. You may be interested in what I can still see. I see silhouettes, basic shapes, a limited color palette, and, perhaps strangely, the scars from each surgery. I am unable to distinguish faces, gauge distances and at night, everything fades into a deep black. The only guide I have are the small points of light from vehicles and streetlights. I am classed as a ‘low vision’ person, someone who isn’t completely blind but whose sight is severely impaired even with the strongest lenses.

So how difficult was it, I’m asked, to make the transition back to normalcy and reintegration into society? The answer is I had to learn how to use a walking cane, orient myself, and recognize places using sound and touch. Having been born in the computer age, it was important for me to adapt to reliance on a computer with a screen-reader. This gives me an audible description of everything happening on the screen. I can also get some enhanced vision through a magnifying glass, when necessary.

With these tools, and a lot of determination, I restarted my life, completed high school, and entered one of the top universities in Costa Rica. I did not receive (nor did I ask for) any special concessions. I wanted to be competitive with my contemporaries in my economics field of study and later, in my pursuit of a Masters in International Trade. The same applied to my athletics training which led to the opportunity to become a five-time Central American medalist.

As you can tell from my story, I’m absolutely a normal person, with the same flaws and virtues as anyone else. I differ only in my need to constantly confront the challenge of carrying out daily activities a little differently under this lifestyle called disability.

Finding Work

For a disabled person like me, job-seeking after graduating with a good degree from a respected University, was not easy.

In addition to overcoming a prospective employer’s normal response about any young graduate’s lack of workplace experience, disabled people find themselves battling waves of social prejudice. Society holds an unwritten but spontaneous stigma against anyone who appears different and doesn’t fit ‘the norm’. Social barriers reveal themselves through hurtful discriminatory comments. One of the most common misconceptions I still hear more frequently than you might expect is the belief that a person with a disability has to either beg for money or apply for a government hand-out.

Unexpectedly, and shockingly, an example of this prejudice hit me at University. One of my economics professors, when explaining the concept of supply and demand, mentioned several groups that, in his view, could not be considered ‘consumers’. A disabled person was one. “Because a disabled person does not have the capacity to earn a living”, he said, “they cannot be considered a consumer. It is better for them to stay home.”

This attitude carried over into my job-seeking. When a company is interviewing, it’s common for them to quickly explain away a prejudice against a disabled person with the pre-prepared response. “Our equal opportunity policy”, they say “is to offer work to a person with a disability provided they don’t need the workplace to be adapted for their needs.”

This is the same thing as slamming the door on a disabled job applicant.

Others, when addressing a disabled person, use what they think is the motivational phrase: “With a disability, it won’t be enough for you to be good. You must be the very best at what you do. Only then will your disability be overlooked.” Far from motivating, the pressure to reach an almost impossible pinnacle of perfection would be discouraging for any new employee.

In other words, for a disabled person, job-seeking not only requires the typical preparation for interviews and technical tests but confronting the emotional fear about an interviewer’s potential prejudice. Unfortunately, this is a reality for disabled people in what is already a very competitive labor market: Right or wrong, companies still pre-judge applicants on physical appearance and bodily condition, gender and ethnicity.

That’s not to say there are no enlightened interviewers who, in contrast, focus purely on the applicant’s abilities and what they can bring to the table. That’s exactly what enabled me to join Capright in 2022. At Capright, I was evaluated purely on my ability to perform the advertised role. Once that was established, there was a respect for, and understanding of, my disability. Today, because of my abilities, my employer is willing to go the extra mile to accommodate my needs and provide accessibility to tools and processes.

So, you ask, what is it that I do for Capright? In my role as a Research Analyst, I perform the same exact tasks as my colleagues. Thanks to technological advancements, screen accessibility has accelerated to the point where, with a screen reader called NVDA, my computer narrates each element displayed. Additionally, I’ve replaced the mouse with keyboard commands. Thus, tasks like managing data in Excel, researching markets online, or even drafting this paper, can be carried out with efficiency and effectiveness, without relying on sight.

While technology certainly helps facilitate my digital interaction. Human interaction requires something more. I rely on my colleagues for an unspoken awareness and acceptance of my condition. For my part, I had to explain to them how to present information for me to analyze or learn from.

In summary, my lifestyle currently includes working, practicing sports, walking my dog, and like everyone else, completing all the routine daily tasks. While I don’t consider myself a role model, my goal is to live a highly productive life and, in so doing, help to dismantle harmful stereotypes about people with disabilities.

Lessons Learned

I hope you found some takeaways in my story. My message is that disabled people are normal and, for the most part, have a great deal to offer. The skills they develop for coping in a world not built for them, equip them with an extra dose of resilience, creativity, and a determination to adapt and succeed.

You may have realized that the everyday challenges disabled people face are not necessarily what people might assume. Most disabled people have long since overcome their physical difficulties. They simply get on with life asking for whatever minimum level of help and support they need. The main challenge they face is a prejudice that lingers.

Much of it is subconscious. It’s more a problem of a person’s awkwardness around disabled people than any intentional hostility. Very often, the problem I see is what I’ll call ‘standoffish-ness’. While people understandably may not know quite how to respond to a disability, the manifestation of this discomfort as avoidance can still be extremely hurtful.

For example, I see people talking loudly to a blind person or addressing the caregiver instead of the person in the wheelchair. Sometimes it’s merely a case of strange looks and averted eyes. Or, worse, turning aside and walking away to avoid embarrassment.

Much work remains to be done to break down the fear, confusion, and bias that come with disability misconceptions. But I’m optimistic. The more we celebrate the success, accomplishments, and uniqueness of people with disabilities, the more rapidly attitudes will change.

But it’s a constant two-way learning process. Hopefully, stories like mine can accelerate the normalization process.