My Dirty Little Secret: Being Disabled in the Asian Community

In case you didn't know, May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), a time to celebrate the achievements and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. As a son of Indian immigrants, I’m proud to recognize my parents and others who helped pave the way for me to live my life in North Carolina.  

My father moved to the United States in the late 1960s to attend college at UMass Dartmouth (formerly Southern Massachusetts University).  Like many Indian immigrants at the time, he was limited to being able to come to the country with roughly eight dollars in his pocket. Lucky for him, my grandmother’s brother was a professor at my Dad’s college and he took him in.  

Despite not being the best student nor having a strong grasp of English, my Dad was a hard worker.  During the day, he worked in the library, and for some time in the evenings, he worked in a textile mill. And after four years he graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

After graduation, my father joined a Canadian company called Nortel, and he climbed the corporate ladder. Over his 35-year career with the company, he worked in Canada, US, Japan, and India, and was responsible for billions of dollars in R&D. He was living the American dream!

On the personal side, my sister was a fantastic student, and was even accepted into medical school right out of high school! Although I wasn’t the best student, I did find my way in o engineering school. With children in medicine and engineering, my Dad was living the Indian dream!   

However, when I was told I was going blind and subsequently failing out of college, this was more like a nightmare!

It was easy to grasp that I failed out of college, but it was impossible to comprehend that I was losing my sight.  In my Dad’s career, a strong work ethic was the solution to most problems. So when my Dad retired from his job, he put his focus on trying to find a doctor who could cure me. Despite his hard work, connecting with some of the top retinal doctors in the world, my Dad struggled to disclose the severity of my vision loss with friends and family. 

He wasn’t the only one struggling to disclose this information. I was ashamed and embarrassed and didn’t identify as a person with a disability, until I joined LCI in late 2017, several years after I was deemed legally blind. 

While working at LCI Tech, I came across an article by the Pew Research Center called, “7 Facts about American’s with Disabilities.” One fact, in particular, struck me, which got me thinking about the difficulties my Dad and I had about disclosing my disability:

"There is little difference between men and women in the likelihood of having a disability, there are differences by race and ethnicity. Asians were least likely to say they had a disability (6.9%), followed by Hispanics (8.8%). American Indians or Alaskan Natives, on the other hand, were most likely to report a disability (17.7%)."

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Asians were the least likely to disclose having a disability, but I was in a wide margin compared to other ethnicities. I don’t believe there are fewer people with disabilities who are Asian. But I do believe there are cultural stigmas that hinder people from disclosing. My own personal experience is an example of this.

As I think about my Dad when he immigrated to the US, I focus on the hard work he put in. But the longer he's been in the US, I come to understand the empathy and love he has for me and our family. I know it wasn’t easy to see me start using a white cane, and telling the world that I was blind, but he's now a proud member of the broader disability community and I have no bigger fan than him!  

Do you have a full circle experience like I've had? Let me know if the comments.

John Samuel, Chief Innovation Architect, LCI Tech