Today marks the twenty-ninth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. President George H.W. Bush sealed the deal on July 26, 1990. It’s a cause for celebration.
I feel the impact of the ADA whenever I’m riding on an Interstate and need a bathroom break. Typically, when an exit approaches, there’s a roadside sign emblazoned with the logos of corporate restaurant chains, from Taco Bell to Hooters.
They’re all just around the bend. On which establishment shall I bestow the honor of my pit stop? Thanks to the ADA, I can make my decision based on whose food I like best. (While I am stopping to use the bathroom, these breaks inevitably incorporate a food purchase, either because I’m hungry or I feel guilty using the bathroom and not buying anything.)
The point is, I have the same freedom to choose where to go as everyone else. I don’t have to settle for McDonald’s because they’re the only ones with an accessible bathroom.
Because of the ADA, I lead a life of ever-increasing expectations.
It’s safe to assume that, in terms of wheelchair access, all these places will be basically equal. They were probably all built after the ADA was signed and, because they’re all profitable corporate chains, they have no excuse for not being ADA-compliant. They certainly can’t say doing so will burden them with an undue financial hardship.
Because of the ADA, I lead a life of ever-increasing expectations. I feel more entitled to be included in everything that’s going on. I can automatically assume, for instance, that public transportation buses will be wheelchair accessible.
But I remember when things were quite the opposite, before the ADA.
Back then, it would have been ridiculous for me to consider taking public transit because the automatic assumption was that few if any buses would be accessible. I thought the word public should have been in big sarcastic quotation marks—“public”—since it didn’t include me.
Disabled folks were often referred to in those days as shut-ins. But we really were shut-outs.
When this type of exclusion and disregard was the norm, encountering the access that’s now commonplace felt like a gift. Disabled folks were grateful not to be shut out.
But after twenty-nine years of life under the ADA, disabled folks today are used to living in a culture that naturally includes them more often. So I’m happy when being excluded offends our sense of entitlement and makes us ornery and litigious, ready to use the ADA to push our way in.
Then I know the ADA is working.