[Music]
[Logo: Ampers radio station, with tagline that reads, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities.]
[Photo: Mai Thor]
Mai Thor: Any condition that our body can physically experience is a part of the human condition. For many people, that’s just hard to understand.
[Logo: Ampers radio station, with taglines that read, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities, and Keep Moving Forward.]
Host: This is Keep Moving Forward.
[Photo: President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. Photo courtesy of the George Bush Presidential Library.]
George H.W. Bush: Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.
[Logos: Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990-2015, and Disability Rights Are Civil Rights. Logos courtesy of the ADA National Network.]
Host: Exploring the legacy and promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
[Photos: Mai Thor and her family]
Mai Thor: My name is Mai Thor, and I acquired polio when I was five. When I see a person with a disability, I don’t automatically think: oh, I wonder what happened that person? It just doesn’t occur to me to think that way. And I’m not saying that it’s wrong for people to be curious, I’m just saying I don’t equate every person that I meet with their physical-ness.
If you define my value on the way that I look and the way I get around, you’re not seeing anything past your own nose.
And I wish people would recognize that more; that it’s not just about how we look on the outside, it’s really about who we truly are as people. Because once we get beyond that, then everything’s easy.
[Logos: the Minnesota Council on Disability, the Minnesota Humanities Center, the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund, and the Ampers radio station.]
Host: Keep Moving Forward is supported by the Minnesota Council on Disability, the Minnesota Humanities Center, and the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund, online at Ampers.org.