ODDC Banner

American Dreaming: Ruben Garcia

May, 1999

Moving out

Until three years ago, Toledo native Ruben Garcia lived with his parents, seven brothers and three sisters. He believes the love he got from his family as a child helped make him the person he is. Now he lives in a pleasant Toledo neighborhood in a house he shares with two roommates.

"We share rent, bills and groceries. It's like a family. We give each other space. You can get mad at roommates, you can't have perfect days. You learn to accept their moods and you learn to work everything out."

"It was very hard to leave my mother, but I also knew I had to make a life for myself. I didn't want her to leave saying, 'Who's going to take care of my son? Who's going to make sure he's provided? How is he going to make it without me? ' My father was alive two years when I moved out. I'm glad I did what I did, because my father was happy before he left."

"My family already had plans that my brother would take care of me, and I didn't want that. I wanted to be on my own, from seeing my brothers move out, having their own life. I wanted a change in my life, and I could help more people with disabilities if I was on my own."

"Our parents need to learn to let go. Parents need to let us grow up. I have learned a lot in three years. I think parents need to provide for their child, but also think what would be best for their future, because our parents are not going to be around all of our lives."

"I have several friends in a developmental center. I think when the doctors told their parents that they were not going to amount to anything, the parents believed them. Doctors told my mother the same thing about me. They said I wouldn't be living more than four years, and here I am! I think she knew I would make it."

Ruben advises parents to look at what the doctors say, but also to listen to their own heart about what they want for their child.

Advocacy during school

"I started advocating for people with disabilities when I was eleven, when they passed the law to mainstream children with disabilities, because I had the chance to go to regular school. I graduated from regular school. I think it made me grow more, and I think I accept my disability more."

He was president of his elementary and junior high classes and served as vice-president of student council in high school.

Employment

After graduation from high school, Ruben spent a year and a half trying to find a job. Soon after he began working for Lott Industries, a sheltered work program, he got involved in the employee council.

"Our program was having problems. They said we had rights, but they wouldn't follow procedures. I didn't like that, and the advocator who I am, I organized people. I wasn't a popular guy at the time, because people thought I was out to break the union. I told my mother, 'I can't do this anymore. ' She said, 'You're an advocator. Figure something out and do it. ' So I came back to work. I asked a supervisor to help me make the employee council, and she did. I am the president of the council that we started almost twelve years ago."

Changing attitudes

"I have an aunt who has epilepsy. I also have a nephew with spina bifida. I could see the difference between my aunt growing up and me growing up, and now my nephew has it a little easier than I did. I think we need to be making the next generation aware that people with disabilities have the right to live on their own."

"I am trying to teach everybody that they can talk for themselves, if they can. People are afraid to speak up sometimes. That's the main fear of most people is that if they speak out too much they might get backlash, upset their family. Or they are afraid they are going to lose their job, or if they are living on their own, supported living might not like their comments."

Standing up for yourself

"Self-determination is to stand up for yourself and don't let people take away your rights. We need to tell them, "We have the same rights you do. We're disabled, but we have the same feelings, we want the same things you do. We want to get married. We want to have kids. We want to have a house. We want a regular job."

"If you want something, go out and try to get it. Try to get help from people that you trust to get it. Freedom to me is doing what you want to do. 'Normal' people do what they want to do. I think people with disabilities have the same rights they do."

What did doctors or other professionals say about me (or about my son or daughter) early in life?

How well did that advice match what I knew in my own heart?

How did I deal with any differences between what I was told and what I believed?

American Dreaming is published by a Self-Determination Project: Removing the Mask and developed through a Grant from the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council. Contact us at: Removing the Mask, Ohio Association of County Boards of MR/DD, 73 East Wilson Bridge Road #B-1, Worthington, OH 43085. All opinions are those of Removing the Mask and do not necessarily reflect those of the Council.

Return to the top of the page.