The Personal, Political, Historical and Sacred Drama of Transformation

Abstract

This article focuses on those of us who work with people with disabilities in the Latino community. It is of utmost importance when delivering services to Latino men and Latina women that we understand traditional cultural stories such as uncritical loyalty and patriarchy and the role of religion in their daily lives. It is equally important to understand the stories of US culture especially tribalism/racism allied with capitalism. Both sets of cultural stories have for the most part failed in helping us to respond to the needs of people with disabilities in the Latino community. Many of us get caught between these stories of both cultures and do not know how to deal with the ensuing confusion and conflict. What we can and need to do together is to create stories that become the basis of a new cultural response to people with disabilities in la comunidad Latina. From the perspective of a theory of transformation the article uses the power of story and redefines culture as a network of stories that hang together in order to create for us a world of meaning; it invites us to participate in the most important story of our lives, the journey of transformation through the core drama of life. On our journey each of us both people with disabilities and those of us who work with them have four faces by which to encounter life: a personal, political, historical and sacred face that we practice in the service of four fundamentally different ways of life. These four faces of our being provide for us the concrete evidence as to whether or not we are relating to people with disabilities in a creative or destructive manner. The article demonstrates that only in the service of transformation are the four faces of our being fully present; this experience of wholeness allows us to participate together with people with disabilities in order to create new and more loving alternatives in the delivery of services. The article offers specific themes and strategies that identify how in daily practice we as providers can transform the way we relate to people with disabilities in the Latino community.