Transcript of "Border Narratives: Alisha" video. [Narrator] "Border Narratives", stories of people with disabilities living at the US-Mexico border. [Audio Description] A montage of arid landscapes and cities. Next, a woman with short hair and glasses is interviewed remotely against a virtual cactus background. [Alisha Vasquez] My name is Alisha Vasquez. I am from Tucson, Arizona. I'm fifth generation Tucsonanse. Meaning my family has occupied these lands that have been historically cared for by the Tahanate, Yoemy and Apache people and my family has been here since 1880. [Audio Description] A monochromatic map of North America zooms in to show a red border line between Tucson and neighboring Altar. [Alisha] My great great grandfather Adolfo Vasquez was born in Altar Sonora Which is about two hours South of Tucson. The line that exists between the US and Mexico didn't exist when he was born. [Audio Description] Photograph of the red iron border wall cutting through the desert. A tall cactus in the foreground. [Alisha] It was pretty much not the border as we understand it today until about 1994 and we started to see this fortification of our southern border with Mexico. [Audio Description] An aerial view of Tucson sprawling outward towards arid mountains. Next street car passes in front of a downtown center. [Alisha] Like most cities of its size Tucson is going through this incredible gentrification boom; which is displacing and pricing out people that have been here. Indigenous folks, folks without money, and then of course disabled people kind of fall in that disposable category. And so this downtown center that my grandfather grew up in that my family you know kind of helped create, is going through this just immense wave of demolishing and then building anew without the brown and black bodies that were there. [Audio Description] Alisha sits on a carpeted floor playing with a small girl. [Alisha] Right now I'm identifying as a Crip Chicana mama. I am the proud parent of a three year old named Athena. [Audio Description] Alisha in the kitchen with Athena. Crutches lean against the counter top. [Alisha] I was born with a short left leg and I've had about twenty surgeries to quote unquote "correct" my short leg and so I've been in a wheelchair and crutch user since I was five years old. [Audio Description] Alisha sits outside her small brick home typing on a laptop in the shade. [Alisha] When I started college it gave me a whole new set of lenses with which to understand my life. Being from Tucson, I was the first person in my family to make it by a scholarship to the University of Arizona where I felt like a total outsider. Feeling like the other as a poor person, feeling like the other as chicana, feeling like the other as a woman, all of those things intersected but it was here that I really started to see myself through Crip eyes. And I would say it was still very much trying to mimic the super Crip mentality that I think so many of us have. I think that was part of my pushing myself like "I'm gonna be a success". "I'm gonna go to college to get out of poverty," "I'm not gonna complain because other people have it worse." I think that that for a lot of disabled people gets us stuck in performing and doing things that actually end up hurting us physically, spiritually, and emotionally. [Audio Description] Alisha uses crutches to walk beside her husband while Athena pedals a bike in front. [Alisha] It wasn't until, I would say I was about thirty-three and I really wanted to become a parent, that I finally said "You know what, my body's different," and I started to honor that and I started to unlearn neoliberal capitalist notions of what success is, and I started to unlearn super Cripdom. And that meant you know, giving up a lot of the identities that I thought defined who I was. [Audio Description] Alisha uses crutches to navigate downtown Tucson. [Alisha] When I became pregnant it became harder to walk. I'm definitely physically not ever gonna be what I was four years ago today, but also like I don't miss that I don't wanna be that anymore. And so unlearning those coping mechanisms that I think a lot of especially Mexican-American women hold in order to just survive. They're survival mechanisms my mom gave me a lot of them, but they're from the perspective of an able-bodied person so unlearning them as Crip Chicana mama, it's gotten me to the space to where I can understand why I was the way that I am, understand why society is the way it is, but also its given me the knowledge and power to be very true to myself and that's been, I think the most liberating experience of my life. [Audio Description] Paper flowers hang from a traditional thatched roof. Next Alisha tours a museum exhibit. [Alisha] So the Mexican-American Heritage and History museum was founded in March of 2019 and I was appointed co-director in February of 2022, and I'm hoping to bring my experience as a middle school, high school, college educator, as well as a community activist who very much is honoring place-based history, place-based heritage and place-based culture. I want to create this moment where people can unlearn all of the colonial narratives, all of the meta narratives that we've been fed, to understand that they themselves don't have to believe what the media is telling them, what politicians are telling them, and even what their family members are telling them. I see that as my role as an educator, to create these spaces where people can get talking and to think a little bit more critically about what the border is. [Audio Description] Alisha sits smiling. Her chin resting on her crutches. In the background, a panoramic view of sunny Tucson. [Narrator] Border Narratives produced by Arizona Disability Law Center and Rooted in Rights. Funding by Borealis Philanthropy. END OF TRANSCRIPT