Dr. Sandie Yi recalls when she first learned about disability culture. It was 2006, and she was a 24-year-old artist about to attend the Bodies of Work festival, a Chicago-area event for disability arts and culture. At first, she said, she wasn’t sure quite how she fit in as part of the disability community.
“I was born with two fingers, two toes on each limb. It runs in my family, but my family rarely talked about it,” said Yi, an assistant professor in the art therapy and counseling department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Dr. Sandie Yi, assistant professor in the art therapy and counseling department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
“I began meeting a lot of disabled artists, disability scholars and activists, and that really changed my view — not just eyesight — it’s a physical, sensorial, and emotional view of this whole world," she said.
Discovering disability pride helped Yi “find the words” to describe her experience.
Yi shared her story at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) Symposium on Disability Cultural Centers (DCCs) in Higher Education.
The first DCC was developed in 1991 at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. In the last decade, the number of DCCs created or being created has accelerated. DCCs differ from disability accommodation centers, which focus on the individualized needs of a student. Instead, DCCs focus on building community and the intersections of identity. UIC’s Symposium, held during Disability Pride Month, gathered DCC leaders and experts into conversation, reflecting on how they built their DCCs and sharing strategies and best practices to empower attendees.
