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Karen Casillas

Professor N. Armstrong

Anthropology 371-01

November 16, 2017

Reflection on Disability and Social Justice Library Display

At nearly 4 years of attending Dominguez Hills, before taking this course I was

not aware of Disability and Social Justice week. To be quiet honest, I was not really

aware of the issues that many people with visible and invisible disabilities still face

today. Honestly, I thought that treatment and views of the disabled community have

changed to prior years, but that has not changed. Advocating events to inform the general

audience of Disability and Social Justice is a great way of bringing awareness of real-life

issues that still exist today. That is why when Professor Armstrong asked for volunteers

for the Disability and Social Justice Week Display in library, I thought of this being a

perfect way of being one person bringing awareness of visible and invisible disability.

Issues like immigration and discrimination have been topics that everyone knows

about, so why not make people become aware of issues that the disabled community still

face to this date. When meeting CSUDH librarian Jillian Holt for the first time, I was a

bit scared considering the fact that I have never really used the resources that are offered

in our school. Thankfully, Ms. Holt explained how to research the books and media

through the electronic database of Dominguez Hills. There were many topics that I were

roaming my mind that I wanted to put out there on the display, but I just selected the

topics of accessibility, employment, and women within the disability community. These
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topics caught my attention during class sessions, but also they were topics that made me

think that we don’t really talk about these issues in much depth as a society.

Accessibility continues to be a issue for many who have a physical disability,

although there have been modifications to building structures to make it more accessible

there is still a lot of work to be done. First, I noticed when we did project 1, that our

campus needs improvement such as the elevators of the Social Building of Science (SBS)

among other places, for the physical and non-physical disabled through the lens of the

disabled. Second, employment for the disabled has become a controversy lately there are

employers who have been pointed with the finger of discriminatory not giving

opportunities to people who have a disability. Many of the times, people tend to

automatically judge people who have a disability just when they hear that they have a

disability. Not only are people with disabilities seen differently by society, but also they

are treated and limited. The third topic that I chose was women and disability, simply

because not only are women still oppressed today just for being a women, but women

who have a disability are even more oppressed and treated with more pettiness simply for

being both a woman and for having a disability.

Looking through the electronic database, many books and media caught my eye

and made me wonder if any of the authors or the producers were people with a disability

or not. I was breaking my head, looking for authors and film producers with a disability,

but then I came to a conclusion that although some of the material may or may not have

been created by a person with a disability, the message to inform and bring awareness

was clear through their publications. Considering never really being involved with any

school activity, for this being my first times I was so anxious and excited to get this
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display put up in the library as soon as possible because I want our campus to become

more aware of these issues.

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Making a Life: Opportunity, Not Disability (Film)

Social Justice/ Disability awareness week has made me become more aware of the issues

that still exist within the Disabled community. Before taking interest in this topic, I was

not aware much of issues such as discrimination, ablest, among other issues that we really

do not acknowledge until we take a look at these issues through the lens of disability. The

film Making a Life: Opportunity, Not Disability points out how often times we as a

society underestimate people who have disabilities. Having a disability does not make a

person become less of a human being, nor does it make them less important. Instead,

there should be more advocacies into being aware of Disability and Social Justice upon

society. At the end we are all the same, we are all humans.