INTERVIEW # 11: FEATURING LIZZY RIVERA I don’t like the world of disability. No one asked but still.  I am a person with different abilities and as a child they were undiagnosed. That fact affected my learning journey immensely. Some of my siblings have different abilities (the term I prefer) and face varying health challenges, mine being the absolute least.  My family is a family of overcomers, but my learning journey was not an easy one.  As a child I struggled to learn on paper, I could hear anything you said, but if you gave it to me on paper, you lost me. I remember feeling bright, but not being able to transfer that intelligence to paper. I will never forget what it feels like to sit in a class of your peers and be nervous to be called on. It’s terrifying, and I lived that terror every day in elementary school. It gives you shivers all the way to your boots. And lately being a kid is hard enough.  Some Adults like Lizzy Rivera get it. Lizzy is an advocate for families whose members have different abilities, the human embodiment of compassion. She is existing in a state of empathy and her journey and path reflect an infinite determination to succeed. When I met her, I felt so relieved, so grateful that she had chosen to fight for children in our community. She leads a path she walked, being a mother, whose children were educated in public schools.  Born in Puerto Rico and educated across oceans, her sense of feminism is rooted in her mother’s lessons. She committed to helping improve systems and lifelong learning (always a sign of intelligence in my opinion). She’s currently enrolled in a School Psychology program to obtain initial certification, after graduating Summa Cum Laude from SUNY Empire State College with a B.A. in Psychology – as a full-time mom. As a people, Latinos are resilient and self-reliant.  Sometimes those resiliencies lead us to overlook the times we need help or be hesitant to ask for it. Lizzy’s quote: “A person also needs intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to work towards those goals. This is where the community comes into play to remove systematic barriers of ableism, sexism, colorism, and xenophobia that discourage individuals from creating goals and prevents them from seeing themselves in positions that they can achieve to reach their full potential.” Lizzy Rivera is an advocate fighting ableism and if you read her interview, you will learn how and why. Ableism is defined as discrimination in favor of able-bodied people.  According to the Dept of Education In 2018, 32% of the children diagnosed with a disability in New York State identified as Hispanic and or Latino. THE INTERVIEW: Where were you raised, and what were the values taught in your home? My story started in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, with family roots from Barranquitas, PR.   Where were you raised, and what were the values taught in your home? My story started in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, with family roots from Barranquitas, PR. Since my family was from el campo, we had strong family ties and conservative values. My mother, Neida Fonseca, raised me to be independent, resilient, and accept change as it comes. Education was important, and she had high expectations of my brother and sister to graduate college, something she always dreamed of doing. What was your experience as a student?  The journey from Puerto Rico to Buffalo happened right before my Quinceanera. My brother was sent the previous year to stay with my aunt Gladys Santiago to see if he liked the school system, and since he had a good experience, we came to Buffalo. I was not in full agreement with the move since this was before the time of cell phones. I knew I would lose the connection with friends, novios (lol), and most importantly, my extended family. My family was afraid of “las nuevas juntillas” (negative peer influence) and thought it would be best to advocate for high school placement in a monolingual school with ENL support (Bennett High). It was unheard, to take ENL services outside a Bilingual school. Grover Cleveland High was the only option if you needed support in English for your classes. R&B, Reggae, and HipHop became my teachers of acculturation into the new environment. I also had a best friend named Fatima from Mali that served as a guide. She had gone through the same experience years earlier when she arrived in Buffalo. I had amazing teachers and others like the English teacher that told me, “Don’t take the Regents, you will not pass.” Well, don’t tell a Latina she can’t do something; she may just prove you wrong! I was in the top 20 of my graduating class with a Regents diploma of almost 300 students at the time attending Bennett High. At the time, Bennett High offered an International Program that was progressive, offering multiple languages like Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, and Chinese. The Latinx population was very small, and to make our little Borinquen, we created a Multicultural Club that highlighted the school’s cultural diversity. During one of the multicultural assemblies, our group danced to “el baile de perrito” that none of us ever forgot. Also, I would sneak go after school to Grover to meet my cousin and dance for their salsa band. These experiences served as a basis for my passion for working with people from multicultural and linguistic backgrounds. When did you start working and what was your first or favorite job? I started working in Buffalo as a cashier on the old Tops on Niagara Street. Many around my age group have fond memories of this supermarket as it was the unofficial hangout for many in the Westside of Buffalo. I currently work for the Buffalo Public Schools in the Special Education Department as a Spanish-speaking Community Education Leader and for the Parent Network of WNY as a family support specialist for parents that have