Interview with LR, Merging Music Therapy and a Life of Advocacy, History 150 Honors Spring 2021, Conducted by Michael Russo, March 14th, 2021.

Introduction to Interview:

Biography:

LR grew up in Wayne, New Jersey and played music all her life. LR attended the University of Miami for one year before transferring to Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania where she graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree in music therapy. LR was employed as Director of Activities at a nursing home in New Jersey then moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia after marrying her husband JR.

LR had a variety of other work, including job coaching and serving as the Coordinator of Community Education & Advocacy at the Endependence Center in Norfolk, VA. She continued her education at Old Dominion University in Norfolk for music education certification. LR used her music therapy and education skills while teaching preschool and private music lessons. This allowed her to stay home and raise her two children.

LR still teaches private lessons for piano, guitar and ukulele. She also currently works with clients at a local retirement community and assists them with various activities. As evidenced by her career, LR is a hardworking individual who cares for others and continues to stay involved in education and advocacy.

Transcript:

Michael Russo 0:02
Hello, this is Michael Russo. I’m interviewing LR for my oral history interview for History 150H. Thank you for doing this interview with me LR.

[A pause in the recording occurred here].

Okay, could you please talk about music therapy as a field and what interested you about it to make you want to study it in college?

LR 0:31
I started playing instruments at a young age — six years old, actually — and music was a part of my life in every aspect, so I knew I would need to do something with music when I went to college. And at the time, most of the people I knew who were going to college for music education were having difficulty finding jobs. And I also had an interest in art, as well as nursing. And I had heard about music therapy, which actually, historically has been around since the 50s, and so I looked into it a little bit more and thought that using music to change behavior, which is the best definition that I can think of for music therapy, would combine my interest in health care with music and being able to use music to enrich people’s lives in whatever setting you need to use it.

So I went to University of Miami for a year and got to do music therapy in a variety of settings. And then transferred to Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, where I also did many practicums. And following my time at Elizabethtown, I got to do a six month internship, Southbury Training School in Connecticut, with people with severe mental retardation, which would be called a developmental disability now.

And so I just really loved it. I loved being able to play music every day and use it in all different forms of education. And I even had a sign choir and got to do some presentations at Gallaudet University about using sign for communication with people with severe disabilities.

[By “sign choir,” LR is referring to a choir using American Sign Language (ASL). Gallaudet University is a private university in Washington, D.C. for the deaf and hard of hearing].

So I worked at a nursing home in New Jersey as Director of Activities. And I got to use music every day there along with other activities that we had planned.

Michael Russo 3:05
Cool! And so could you talk a bit more about your work in New Jersey at that nursing home?

LR 3:18
Yes, it was called Hilltop Care Center, and when it was originally built, it was a resort. And there was even a saltwater pool in the basement of the building. And it was three floors. And so we had residents on all three floors and there were apartments upstairs for some of the staff, they had apartments there. And I was able to do all different kinds of activities, daily activities, and I was able to combine all the things that I love to do: art, music, even gardening. I used that to get everybody out and get some fresh air and we used music for everything. I always had something playing even if we were doing a different activity. There was a piano in the lounge/lobby area of the nursing home and I would sit and play there every afternoon and everybody would come and sit around and we’d just have a sing along every afternoon before dinner.

Michael Russo 4:32
That sounds nice.

LR 4:33
So, I got to be very close with some of my residents and they even came in a van to our wedding and they made me a quilt. Each person made me one square of a quilt as a going away present before we moved to Virginia.

Michael Russo 4:56
That’s really special. That’s cool to hear.

LR 4:58
It was.

Michael Russo 5:00
So when you moved to Virginia you worked as a job coach. So could you talk about your work there as well?

LR 5:09
Yes, I wasn’t able to find a job in the long term care facilities type of job, so a position was available for a job coach, or supported employment specialist, and I applied for that. And since I had had previous experience with people with disabilities, I was hired for that. And it was a small company, which was covered under a grant from the Department of Rehabilitative Services. And so I was able to develop all of the testing and evaluation for our clients and then we took them on a week long evaluation period and went to a different type of job each day to determine what might be the best type of job for them to have. And then once we did find them a job, I would work right alongside with them. So if they were only able to do half of the job, I would do the other half, and then as they increase their performance, I would not do as much and not help as much until they were able to do the job independently. And then I would just check in periodically to see how they were doing.

And while I was there, I assisted one of our clients in writing…

[Another pause in the recording].

LR 7:09
I assisted one of my clients in writing a Plan to Achieve Self-Support [PASS] through the Social Security Administration. And he was able to set aside some of his income so it wouldn’t count against his social security benefits. He was still able to work and he set aside some of money to be able to purchase a car, which made him even more independent and able to get to work without having to arrange for his transportation with parents or friends or taking a bus. So he could — he learned how to drive and was able to get himself to his job on his own.

Michael Russo 7:51
That’s great.

LR 7:52
And that was a great accomplishment, something I’m proud of.

Michael Russo 7:59
I’m sure. And so after you were a job coach, you began work at the Endependence Center in Norfolk, Virginia. So what was the Endependence Center, and then what was your job and some of your responsibilities there?

[The spelling of Endependence is an intentional play on words, signifying the center’s mission to end dependence and help its clients achieve independence].

LR 8:17
The Endependence Center is still in existence and it’s a Center for Independent Living for people with physical and sensory disabilities. There are a wide variety of staff who worked there; some people have disabilities and some don’t. Those that do have a disability are usually peer counselors and they provide support to the participants of the program. I was working there as the Coordinator of Community Education and Advocacy and I did a lot of training in the community, to different agencies, like Social Services or Social Security. I assisted people in getting their Social Security benefits. I also talked to a lot of different businesses about being more accessible for people with disabilities. And, and at the time that I worked there, we were all getting ready to help Congress pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. So, there was a lot of advocacy going on and trying to get support for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Michael Russo 9:53
Nice. When you were working there, what was the gender dynamic like at the Endependence Center? Like were there more men or women working, for example?

LR 10:09
I would say that it was pretty equal actually. There were men and women in both sides, the Community Services side and the Participant Services side of the agency, and all of the people working on the Participant Services side had a disability, so it was a lot easier for our participants to engage with a peer counselor in, you know, those kinds of settings for independent living kinds of trainings. We also, on the Community Services side of it, we were out and about in the community a lot. And a couple of us had disabilities and some of us didn’t, so that was kind of more of a difference than it was for men and women. And I didn’t really even think about, like, there were more men than women or anything it was, it was just pretty equal and it wasn’t really even an issue of not hiring enough people. And as far as the Participant Services side, there were people who use wheelchairs, had some type of physical disability, some people used a cane, or a walker. Some we had— we had somebody who was blind and somebody, a couple of people who were deaf. We had an interpreter on staff. So, we pretty much had all the bases covered for pretty much any type of disability, or person with a disability, who would come in for services.

Michael Russo 12:16
That’s good that it was all inclusive and encompassing.

LR 12:20
Yes.

Michael Russo 12:21
Okay. Next, what was your experience like being present for such historic moments? Both marching at the Capitol in the late 80s, and then in July?

[I paused the recording to gather my thoughts and rephrase my question].

Okay. What was your experience like being present present for such historic moments, both marching at the Capitol in March of 1990, and then being present in the White House Rose Garden when President George HW Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in July of 1990?

LR 13:02
Well, it was a very busy time for us, leading up to March of 1990 when we marched on the Capitol. All the Centers for Independent Living and many different other agencies working with people with disabilities were preparing to go on this march. And we were trying to make Congress aware of how inaccessible and unequal it was for people with disabilities. So, because I was the Coordinator of Advocacy and Community Education, I also did kind of a lot of public…

Michael Russo 13:51
Public awareness?

LR 13:53
Yeah. Sorry.

[Another pause in the recording].

With my job as coordinator of advocacy and community education, I did a lot of publicity as well, to raise awareness for people with disabilities. So leading up to the march, we had many, many days of making flyers and banners and posters and signs, and so we had those all ready to take with us and we marched on the on the Capitol. And although it is accessible now, it is an accessible building, it wasn’t at that time and there were over 70 steps leading up to the Capitol, which meant that anyone who had a physical disability or used a wheelchair were not able to get into the Capitol Building. So it actually became called, became an event called the Capitol Crawl when tens of people, almost 100 people, got out of their wheelchairs and down on the ground and actually crawled up the steps of the Capitol Building, and [it] was really an amazing thing to see. And I think it really opened the eyes of Congress. And it wasn’t long after that, in just a few months, when the bill was actually signed by President Bush.

Michael Russo 15:44
And you went,

LR 15:46
I’m sorry?

Michael Russo 15:47
Sorry. And then when it was signed, you went to Washington, D.C. again with coworkers and clients from the Endependence Center, correct?

LR 16:01
Yes, board members, staff clients… there was quite a group of us that, that were able to go and be there. It was the largest group that ever was there on the lawn for any kind of event. Thousands of people were there and I remember that we were worried that, “How are we going to travel to get there?” because travel, it was and it still is very difficult for people with disabilities, especially air travel, but the metro in DC is actually quite accessible. And we were going there, on the train, and one of our clients who was coming, the wheels of his wheelchair actually turned between the platform and the train, and his wheels caught in the middle. And thankfully, a few of us were there to be able to lift him out of that and get him safely on to the train. But that was— it was a very hot summer day. And it was difficult for people, just because it was a hot day, but a lot of people with disabilities are affected more by the weather. And so it was difficult for a lot of people to get there, but determination won out, and it was a great day. It just was spectacular to be there and see people with disabilities being counted as equals.

Michael Russo 18:02
That does sound pretty incredible — really an amazing… an amazing experience.

LR 18:11
Yes.

Michael Russo 18:12
So then after President Bush signed the ADA, how did the bill, or the law rather, change your job at all and what you did for clients at the Endependence Center?

LR 18:29
It changed a lot. I had to go to training through the government to be able to train businesses and agencies on how to become up to code on the Americans with Disabilities Act, both physically in making sure that there were ramps and the automatic doors that open and those kinds of things… sinks at the right height and paper towels at the right height in a bathroom and accessible stalls in bathrooms. So many things that we take for granted now were not available then. And so I had to go attend a lot of training classes before I was able to go out and be a trainer and I had a partner from the Peer Services— Participant Services side. He used a wheelchair and the two of us would go out together and do training for various businesses like Virginia Natural Gas and Dominion Energy and Social Services and Social Security and just all different types of businesses and agencies, depending on how many employees they had. And not only on the Americans with Disabilities Act, but on things like sensitivity training, and how to be— how to treat people with disabilities with respect, in your terminology, and the things that you can do to make it easier for someone to do a job, just like anybody else can.

Michael Russo 20:24
Yeah, I know, for me being born in 2002, it’s— I don’t— like you were saying, a lot of the things that we take for granted, you know, accessibility features like in bathrooms or automatic doors. That’s just something I’ve always seen, so it’s interesting to hear about how it came to be when I never really experienced what life was like without those things.

LR 20:57
If you could take another example and think about it, having curb cuts, you know, when you’re at the edge of a corner of the sidewalk at the edge of the sidewalk, and you have to cross the street, think about being a person who uses a wheelchair and not having any of those curb cuts, and how it’s next to impossible for somebody who uses a wheelchair to get anywhere without those curb cuts, or without a ramp into a building. Just that physical barrier meant that people who use a wheelchair could not get the services or take a job in that— wherever that building was. So we did a lot of advocacy and training with the cities in the area, to Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, and worked with city leaders to make sure that everybody had access to services and employment, just like everybody else.

Michael Russo 22:13
That’s great. Um, and also with the curb cuts, not just for, you know, like having the slope to make it easier to, you know, transition from the sidewalk to the street, but I know a lot of those sections of the sidewalk have like, bumps or ridges. So if someone who may be blind or using…

LR 22:40
A cane.

Michael Russo 22:41
A cane, yes.

LR 22:42
Yes.

Michael Russo 22:43
Thank you— would be aware that there’s— that’s the beginning of the sidewalk.

LR 22:50
Right, or coming to the edge of the sidewalk and before they would walk into the street.

Michael Russo 22:55
Right.

LR 22:56
That’s what that textured sidewalk is for. Yes.

Michael Russo 23:03
Um, okay, um, generally, what are the modern effects and impacts of the Americans with Disabilities Act?

LR 23:17
Well, just like any law, really, there are changes that come along every day and and everybody needs to be adapting to who would be covered under it, whether it’s a different disability that might be covered, or what is considered a disability might change and whether you know, it’s a hardship or not on an employer or a business, to provide accommodations to people, so it’s constantly changing and evolving and we just need to adapt the law to to cover people as things come up.

[The clacking is a dog in the background].

Michael Russo 24:27
Okay, and so could you could you please explain how allergies can be considered disabilities?

LR 24:37
Well, someone who has an allergy, depending on the severity of it, could be considered as having a disability because whether you have a disability or not is taken into consideration by whether you’re able to perform your daily living activities — and that’s with or without modifications to your daily life at home and also in, you know, in a job. So somebody who has a little bit of hay fever [seasonal allergies], that’s not going to necessarily affect their activities of daily living and whether or not they’d be able to perform the functions, essential functions of a job. So you have to look at what the actual allergy is and whether it affects those functions. So, someone with severe peanut allergy would not be able to work in a facility that produces tree nuts and peanuts, because it would certainly affect their daily functioning. They would not be able to function in that situation. So they might need to look elsewhere for employment if a reasonable accommodation couldn’t be made.

LR 26:18
Another example is a latex allergy, and latex is in about over 40,000 products. And it can be found anywhere and things— something as simple as a rubber band, or a balloon, or a latex glove could cause somebody to have a reaction. And exposure to latex increases the [allergy’s severity] and the reactions to it. So if somebody was working in an office, and rubber bands needed to be used, a simple fix, a reasonable accommodation, is to buy latex-free rubber bands. If they were working at a place that had parties for kids, and people wanted to bring balloons in, a simple fix to that would be using mylar balloons or paper lanterns, instead of latex balloons to keep their employees safe, as well as everybody else coming into contact with it. The more exposure you have to latex, the, you know, higher the chances are that you’re going to have that allergy and it’s going to increase [in severity]. So each individual circumstance needs to be taken into consideration and whether it’s severe enough and whether it’s covered under the definition of disability and with the ADA.

Michael Russo 27:59
So we’ve already touched on it a bit, but could you please talk a little more about what is the significance of advocacy and person-first terminology?

LR 28:11
I think advocacy is taking care of people around you. And not only for yourself, but for me, it’s more about people around you. And I see advocacy as education, and in a lot of cases, gentle education is better than, you know, something forceful and, you know, making somebody make a change. So for me personally with latex allergy, or having a latex allergy, I like to gently educate people about what a latex allergy is and what it’s caused— what causes a reaction. And, usually when you gently educate someone about it, they’re more willing to make a change to make it safer for me, for my family, and for, you know, other people who may or may not even know that they have that allergy.

LR 29:26
Being an advocate is just something that is part of me. You know, now most recently with latex allergy because I have a latex allergy, people in my family have it, and very good friends of mine have it so we all look out for each other and are trying to make the public more aware of it so that we can stay safe and other people are safe as well. It started for me with working with people with disabilities a long time ago and naturally, it’s just a part of my life to be an advocate. And if you care about other people, then  you want to help them and educate those around them to keep them safe.

Michael Russo 30:22
Of course, that sounds just like you. So I’m really proud of everything you do, and have done.

LR 30:32
Thank you.

Michael Russo 30:34
And my last thing is, I mentioned before, is just person first terminology. You know, because that’s always— or just terminology in general, when discussing people with disabilities.

LR 30:53
Um, that was a huge part of the training that I did when I was at the Endependence Center was— we sometimes called it sensitivity training. We talked a lot about terminology and the development of language mean and modern situations. The words that you would use to describe somebody have evolved over the years, and what used to be acceptable is no longer. So, person-first terminology means just that: it’s a person before a disability. You don’t look at the person and just see the disability, you look at the person and see them for themselves. So it’s, you know, a person who is blind or a person who uses a wheelchair — not confined to a wheelchair. A wheelchair is what makes that person independent. Because if they didn’t have it, they would have to rely on someone else.

So, the best thing that you can call a person who uses a wheelchair is their name, and just leaves a wheelchair out of it. And that applies to any other disability. You can never go wrong by calling the person by their name. And we don’t use the word handicap anymore because that originally came out from meaning cap in hand, which meant that people couldn’t get education or jobs because of their disabilities. And so they were forced to beg for funds and living situations that were, you know— people were put into nursing homes because they couldn’t be independent. And since the Americans with Disabilities Act, people with disabilities have become so much more independent because they’re able to work, they’re able to complete their educations, because school buildings are accessible. And people with disabilities are just people who should have equality with everyone else. Just because they have a disability doesn’t mean they’re any less.

Michael Russo 33:47
Thank you. And so, before we conclude, is there anything else that I didn’t ask about that you’d like to mention?

LR 34:05
Having the experiences of working with people at the Endependence Center and being part of such an amazing group of people to witness the Americans with Disabilities Act signed into law— something that I’ll treasure forever. [It] was something that, you know, carried through my whole life since then, so maybe [it] prepared me for things later in life, like when you have to advocate for yourself, I learned it then. So I guess that’s it, I don’t really know what else to say. [Laughs].

Michael Russo 35:09
Well, this was very informative and just really interesting to listen to your story and the experiences you’ve had. So, thank you again for helping me with this interview, and I really enjoyed speaking with you. As always.

LR 35:29
Thanks for asking me. It was fun to think about.

Michael Russo 35:35
Thank you very much.

[Dog starts barking].

LR 35:29
Thank you.

 

Historical Context:

The main focus of this interview is LR’s advocacy and her involvement regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act. To give more context to the ADA, I did some research and found the article “What is the ADA?” from the ADA National Network, as well as the piece “The History of the Disabilities Act: A Movement Perspective” by Arlene Mayerson for DREDF, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund. The ADA National Network’s article breaks down the parts of the law and the sectors of life it impacts, such as employment, government, public accommodations, and telecommunications. As it explains, the 2008 ADA Amendments Act expanded the scope of the law and what’s considered a disability. The DREDF article discusses how the ADA was made possible due to the disability rights movement in the decades leading up to its passage in 1990. It includes information on Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which banned discrimination on the basis of disability, following the precedent of civil rights protections of race, ethnic origin and sex, and helping to create new precedent for the ADA. Most of all, the article emphasizes that it was not just one person in a short span of time that made the ADA possible, but rather thousands of people over decades who fought for equality and change.

Bibliography:

Mayerson, Arlene. “The History of the Americans with Disabilities Act: A Movement Perspective.” Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, DREDF, 1992, dredf.org/about-us/publications/the-history-of-the-ada/.

“What Is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?” ADA National Network, Administration for Community Living, Mar. 2021, adata.org/learn-about-ada.

Follow Up:

The interviewee assisted with providing some details for the biography at the top of this page. She also approved this transcript on March 28th, 2021 and requested no changes.

Interview/Transcription Process:

The interview was conducted with LR via a Zoom meeting on March 14th, 2021. The recorded interview was then transcribed using Otter.ai, and the transcript was uploaded to this website.

I edited the transcript for clarity, spelling and grammar to make the text more accurate and have it flow smoothly. The oral history conveyed in this interview is preserved. Any edits did not alter the interviewee’s ideas and only served to make reading the transcript easier for viewers. For example, fillers like “um” were not included in the original transcript and therefore not part of the final edition above; words that were repeated as I or the interviewee gathered our thoughts were removed, but can still be heard in the audio recording at the top of this page. Information in brackets was included to provide more context to the discussed content, explain background noises, or enhance overall clarity of the transcript. In cases where the Otter program didn’t transcribe words, I added them in without the use of brackets, as it was an error on the program’s part, not a grammatical error by me or the interviewee.