-: Nefertiti Matos seated on a stool.
-: Hola, I'm Nefertiti Matos.
I am a first-generation Dominican American.
I am an access technology educator
for the New York Public Library.
I also advocate for teaching people how to read braille.
Literacy is very important.
I identify as blind and I'm also
a kidney transplant recipient.
So I lost my eyesight when I was three and a half years old,
just about four, to an astrocytoma.
That's a fancy word for a benign brain tumor.
Luckily, it was not cancerous.
So a turning point for me in my blindness
though it's all I've ever known was in my twenties
when I realized that all of my depression and anxiety
and anger from a teenager onward was
because I didn't accept myself as a blind person.
There's a lot of prejudice, there's a lot of ignorance.
There's a lot of misconception.
There's a lot of discrimination and it gets really tiring.
And it's really hurtful to know that you are capable
of something, but to have the world basically tell you,
no you're not, you don't fit in here.
You know, you're not worthy of taking up space.
So yeah, the turning point for me was realizing
that I went to college.
I was the first in my generation in this country
to go to college in spite of the disability.
And I'm pretty intelligent and I am employable
and I have friends, I have family, I have had relationships.
I have my own apartment.
So I have the training and the skills
to live on my own, independently and safely.
And like, that's what basically life comes down to, right?
So blind or not, I'm worthy of being here.
And when I finally accepted that,
I became a much happier person, a much more stable person,
more at peace within myself.
For a lot of people, it is very uncomfortable
to see someone like me struggle to, for example,
find the door to a business.
So they want to swoop in, they want to orient me.
They want to hold the door open, they want to sit me down.
They want to basically essentially treat me like an object
rather than a human being who took that car,
took that train, to that location.
If I'm struggling to find a door or to find a seat,
that's your perception of struggle.
I'm just trying to find a seat.
I may not do it the way you do.
I may have to sort of walk around a bit more
and use my hands to feel things and such.
And that's something that is not within your usual,
I guess, realm of understanding.
But that doesn't mean that I'm struggling.
In fact that means that I'm independent enough
to do this on my own.
So that discomfort you feel, that's inside of you.
That's not inside of most of us.
Most of us are just trying to live our lives and get by.
So when you grab us, when you yell at us,
because you think we can't hear you,
it's hard for someone to understand
what they don't live every day.
I just do it differently, but I get it done.
And a lot of the time I get it done better.
I want you to know that just because I may have a disability
or have an accent, or have brown skin, indeed be female,
I want you to know that ultimately I'm a human being
with feelings, with thoughts, with desires, with regrets.
I am not as different or as alien as you might feel
simply because I can't see you.
I want you to understand that difference is
a beautiful thing.
Diversity is the thing that allows us to thrive.
It's the thing that has allowed us to be human for so long
and indeed be as innovative as we've been,
and hopefully will continue to be for a long time to come.