Full Transcript
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. Meet Laura Hernandez.
Laura Hernandez:
I really enjoy comedy and making people laugh and spreading that type of medicine. I see it as healing medicine, to make people laugh.
Speaker 1:
A comedian.
Laura Hernandez:
I do a lot of storytelling. A lot of it is through a blind person’s experience. I’m completely blind in my right eye, and in my left eye I have some partial light perception. It’s funny because sometimes I feel like people are afraid to laugh, and I tell them this is the only time where it’s okay for you to laugh at me. Don’t try to laugh at me when I’m trying to cross the street after the show, you know, laugh at me right now when it’s okay, when I want you to laugh.
Speaker 1:
A poet with a passion for the spoken word.
Laura Hernandez:
I started writing poetry when I was a teenager, pretty much to cope. I had a lot of health issues. I still do, so writing poetry was just a way to cope with that.
Speaker 1:
And passionate about other causes.
Laura Hernandez:
I have been a social justice advocate since I was seventeen. Right when I went to college, it was the first thing I wanted to do. So I became involved with a lot of community organizers in our city. And so I just started to advocate for different issues. Social justice is kinda like the umbrella term for it.
Speaker 1:
Highly educated.
Laura Hernandez:
Finally getting into college, I just loved it. I knew that I was going to be surrounded by people who had more open minds. And I got my two associates degrees, one in history and one in human services, and I went towards getting my bachelor’s in sociology. I decided to also get a certificate in gerontology, which is the study of aging.
Speaker 1:
Facing setbacks.
Laura Hernandez:
I started the master’s program in 2012. I had health issues come up, so I had to take a medical leave of absence. That was it. I decided to leave the program.
Speaker 1:
With a pragmatic perspective.
Laura Hernandez:
I don’t know. I felt like there was some force trying to stop me from getting this degree. And I think the reason is that I might have just reached my end in the world of academia. Maybe this is time for me to focus more on the community, on comedy, and other things that really bring me joy besides just doing things that I feel like I have to do.
Speaker 1:
A perspective gained over a lifetime of struggles.
Laura Hernandez:
Marfan syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that affects the body’s connective tissue. It affects my entire body. It’s very difficult because sometimes doctors are treating one specific issue that I have and then it will just agitate or make another issue pop up.
Speaker 1:
Blind Abilities presents a chat with Laura Hernandez. Join Jeff Thompson as he sits down with Laura, a blind comedian, a poet, with a truly unique perspective on life.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson, and today we’re talking to a comedian, a college graduate, a certificate holder in gerontology. She has a whole list of stuff, but mostly she’s chasing her passions and filling her goals and happiness in what she’s doing. We’re talking to Laura Hernandez. How are you doing?
Laura Hernandez:
Hi, Jeff. I’m doing very well.
Jeff Thompson:
I want to thank you for coming on the Blind Abilities and being willing to share your journey and your stories about your disabilities and the Marfan syndrome that you have been challenged with. Let’s start out with comedy. You’re a standup comedian.
Laura Hernandez:
Yes, I’m a standup comedian. I’ve been doing comedy a little over a year now and it’s been a really great experience. I really enjoy comedy and the whole process of writing jokes and the delivery and making people laugh and spreading that type of medicine. I see it as healing medicine to make people laugh.
Jeff Thompson:
Ah, kind of a doctor.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, a funny doctor.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go.
Laura Hernandez:
So far, it’s been great. I’ve had a lot of wonderful opportunities come up and gone to perform at a lot of different comedy clubs and it’s been really good.
Laura Hernandez:
So, I know a lot of you haven’t seen me before. Me neither. What about that? I don’t know what’s going on here, but…thank you. Yeah, so I’m six feet tall, y’all. Yeah. I said y’all. I feel like sometimes when I say y’all, people wonder am I from the South. And I am. My parents, they’re from Mexicali, so, um….
Laura Hernandez:
How I got started, actually, is I went on another friend’s podcast. You might know her, she’s another Minnesotan. Her name’s Andy Erikson. She was on Last Comic Standing.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, really?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. She was one of the finalists. She didn’t win, but she was, I think, top three.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, wow, that’s cool.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. So she also has Marfan syndrome. That’s a syndrome that I also have. I was born with it, diagnosed officially at four years old. And so we met because I had seen her on there and I was like, oh, man, I really need to connect with her. So I connected with her and she has her own podcast called Deal With It.
Andy Erikson:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Deal With It podcast. My name is Andy Erikson and I’m here with my cohost, Joleen Lunzer.
Joleen Lunzer:
Yay!
Andy Erikson:
I have Marfan syndrome. If you listen to the podcast, maybe you already know that, but if not, I have a heart condition called Marfan syndrome. It’s a connective tissue disorder. We deal with health conditions, spreading awareness, and fighting stigmas.
Joleen Lunzer:
Yes, we want people to be comfortable with talking about what they have, what they’re dealing with.
Andy Erikson:
So, we’re here with another Hernandez, Laura Hernandez.
Joleen Lunzer:
Say your name for everyone.
Laura Hernandez:
Laura.
Joleen Lunzer:
Laura.
Andy Erikson:
Laura. Ah, I love it. It sounds so fancy.
Joleen Lunzer:
It’s Spanish Laura. It’s beautiful. Everything sounds so much better.
Laura Hernandez:
In Spanish?
Joleen Lunzer:
Yes. Don’t you think?
Laura Hernandez:
Well, I don’t know. I could be kind of biased, I guess.
Joleen Lunzer:
Maybe.
Andy Erikson:
I’m here with Laura Hernandez. We are basically heart sisters. We have the same heart condition. We connected on Facebook. Was it after you saw me on Last Comic Standing, or was it-
Laura Hernandez:
Yes, it was. Actually-
Andy Erikson:
Yay.
Laura Hernandez:
My partner Frank was the one that told me about you on Last Comic, and I was like, oh! And then I saw you and I was like, that’s awesome.
Andy Erikson:
Yay!
Laura Hernandez:
They’ll have people come on with different issues that they’re dealing with, disabilities or mental health issues, talking about how to cope.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s cool. I like that. And they deal with it.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. Yeah. Deal with it. Yeah. I talked with her on her podcast and we had both talked about another comic who also has Marfan syndrome. His name is Isaac Martinez. So I had wrote to him just to say hello, just to connect. He, at the time, was going to be putting on a show, a fundraiser show for the National Marfan Foundation. It was going to be at the Ice House comedy club in Pasadena, California.
Laura Hernandez:
[crosstalk] talk about the whole [inaudible] with me.
Laura Hernandez:
So that was my first show. That was my first official show where I had to write a full set.
Laura Hernandez:
[crosstalk] thank you for inviting me to be on this show. I also have Marfan syndrome, and [crosstalk]
Laura Hernandez:
I didn’t let anybody know that it was my first one, I kind of kept a secret. Most people thought that I had already performed. So when I did it, I was very nervous, but I got through it. I don’t think anybody noticed until afterwards, and then people were like, whoa, that was your first time? Yeah, so I kind of fooled everybody.
Jeff Thompson:
So what kind of topics do you do for your comedy. Do you gave a niche?
Laura Hernandez:
I do. I do a lot of storytelling and a lot of it is through a blind person’s experience. I’m completely blind in my right eye, and in my left eye I have some partial light perception. So a lot of my comedy is about how I experience things. And it’s funny because sometimes I feel like people are afraid to laugh, and I tell them this is the only time where it’s okay for you to laugh at me right now.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, the only time.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, exactly. Don’t try to laugh at me when I’m trying to cross the street after the show, you know, laugh at me right now when it’s okay, when I want you to laugh.
Jeff Thompson:
So what’s it’s like preparing for your comedy stuff? Do you do it in braille, do you do it by audio, do you practice a lot?
Laura Hernandez:
I do it by audio. I do it on my phone. I do know braille, but it just kind of takes longer for me to do it in braille. I’m lucky enough to have an iPhone and I just use that for all my material. And then I’ll just rehearse it in my mind, just rehearse it, rehearse it. Because I have to have it memorized. I know a couple of other comics that sometimes they’ll write things on their hands and stuff, you know, when they’re up there. Okay, well, I can’t do that, I have to memorize it. But yeah, I mean, it’s pretty good. I’m thankful for technology on this phone because it’s helped out a lot.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, I want to take it back to my height, because I feel like that’s something most of you all can see, you know? Lucky bastards.
Jeff Thompson:
You’re also a spoken word artist-slash-poet.
Laura Hernandez:
Yes.
Laura Hernandez:
And there’s a lot of pressure with being the bigger person all the time. You know? I constantly get people who look up to me, so I don’t take that responsibility too lightly. I don’t. So sometimes, you know, people ask me, they’re like, Laura, how do you handle ableism? And I have to respond by saying, I don’t know. I’m not able to.
Jeff Thompson:
Do you write your own poetry, then?
Laura Hernandez:
I do. I use a name, it’s called Ojos del Alma, which is Spanish for eyes of the soul. And so that’s my spoken word poet name. I started writing poetry when I was a teenager, pretty much to cope. I had a lot of health issues. I still do, but during my teenage years, I definitely had a lot of surgeries, a lot of first things that I had do go through. So writing poetry was just a way to cope with that. I started doing spoken word and then it evolved into comedy.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, wow. So where can people find your poetry? Do you have a blog, are you on the web?
Laura Hernandez:
I don’t have a blog. Some of my work is published online, but it’s kind of just scattered around. I am planning on coming out with a zine, like a poetry zine, but I have to collaborate with a couple of other people that will help me be able to get that out, because that is pretty visual. And then, I would like to also make it accessible because most zines are very grassroots, it’s people independently publishing. I want to do that, but also make sure that I have it accessible for other formats for people to read it.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, trying to do that. As far as my performances and stuff, I do have some of them on YouTube. I have a YouTube channel, just under Laura Hernandez. And then I have my other social media handles. So if anybody wants to know when I have an upcoming show, I’ll usually post it on Facebook or Instagram and go from there.
Jeff Thompson:
I also read up on you. Social justice advocate. Can you explain that?
Laura Hernandez:
My sexuality, like my eyesight, used to be considered bi. But now it’s more like mono. Monovisual, mono mono.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, so I have been a social justice advocate since I was like seventeen. Right when I went to college, it was the first thing I wanted to do. I’m from San Bernardino, California, so I became involved with a lot of community organizers in our city. And so I just started to advocate for different issues. Social justice is kind of like the umbrella term for it, but I do a lot of work within the LGBTQ community, a lot of disability rights, and a lot of indigenous rights advocacy that I do. I’m involved with several organizations like the American Indian Movement. We have a local organization called ChICCAA, which is an acronym for, it’s really long, it’s Chicano Indigenous Community for Culturally Conscious Advocacy and Action. And so we just use ChICCAA for short because it’s very long.
Jeff Thompson:
Wow. Tough to get that on one t-shirt.
Laura Hernandez:
Right? Yeah. So used to say ChICCAA, but then we had to elaborate because sometimes people think we’re just talking about a person. And no, ChICCAA means this long acronym that we’re not saying.
Jeff Thompson:
You’ve been blind since birth and you’ve had some retinal detachment, and you just mentioned that you still have a little bit of light perception. But you’re also living with Marfan syndrome. Can you tell our listeners what that is?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. Marfan syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that affects the body’s connective tissue. It affects my entire body. My syndrome was a spontaneous mutation, so I’m the first one in my family’s history to have this syndrome. It affects a lot of different issues, a lot of ocular issues, cardiovascular, respiratory, our joints. Pretty much everything in our body. It’s hard sometimes. There’s a lot of rarities as side effects that come up and it’s hard to live with.
Laura Hernandez:
I know that when I was younger, I embraced it right away because I pretty much didn’t have any choice. I also kind of saw it as cool, like I kind of always knew I was different and this kind of medically proves that I’m different. I really try to hold a positive perspective. Around my teen years, I just started to have a lot of depression because it does impair you from doing a lot of things, and I felt like it was just one thing after the other. Not only was my vision very bad, then I would have heart issues, then I had respiratory issues. It felt like it was never-ending.
Laura Hernandez:
Thankfully, I am still living. I have had some close encounters. A couple years back, I had a random blood infection because our immune systems are very low and so I had to be hospitalized, and then due to that hospitalization, I ended up having a heart attack. I had three of my coronary arteries clogged with blood due to the blood infection, that they were just kind of pumping me with antibiotics.
Laura Hernandez:
It’s very difficult because sometimes doctors are treating one specific issue that I have, and then it will just agitate or make another issue pop up. Doctors are becoming more informed now about Marfan syndrome, and I’m thankful for that. A lot more people are coming out, becoming diagnosed, and there’s a couple celebrities, actually, that have come out that have it. So it’s becoming more known. But for a while back, it was very hard because whenever I’d go to the doctor, sometimes my own cardiologists, they didn’t even know about it. They might have read about it during medical school, but they’ve never actually treated anybody. And I live in a region kind of like about maybe an hour and forty minutes away from Los Angeles, so I have some doctors here that are more familiar with the syndrome, but there’s still a lot of medical professionals that don’t know what Marfan syndrome is and it’s kind of nerve-wracking when I go in to the doctor and I have to educate them on the syndrome that I have.
Jeff Thompson:
I bet. You’re not only a social advocate, but you’re actually a medical advocate with the Marfan syndrome, the challenges of sight loss and everything, but you still made it through California State University San Bernardino with a bachelor’s in sociology and a certificate in gerontology. That’s quite the accomplishment.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, I loved school. I always loved school. I think the worst part of school for me was dealing with other kids, and all the bullying and all that. So I knew that-
Jeff Thompson:
Really?
Laura Hernandez:
I had to get through middle school and high school to get to college. If I could just fast-forward from elementary to college, I would have.
Jeff Thompson:
That was the worst part?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Wow.
Laura Hernandez:
Middle school was the worst. But finally getting into college, I just loved it. I knew that I was going to be surrounded by people who had more open minds and interested in real issues in the world. So I got my two associate’s degrees, one in history and one in human services.
Laura Hernandez:
And then after that, I actually took a little break before transferring and I went to do an independent living school for the blind in Los Angeles. It’s called the Davidson Program for Independence, and I went to go do that program. I didn’t finish it. I loved the program, it was great, but I felt like I had already learned a lot of the skills that they were teaching and I didn’t want to take up a space that I know someone else could really get a lot of good use out of it. I absolutely love the program, I think they do very well in helping to teach independent living skills, but I had just already gone there with that experience. I left early. I didn’t end up finishing the program.
Laura Hernandez:
So when I came back to San Bernardino, that’s when I went to Cal State San Bernardino, and I went towards getting my bachelor’s in sociology. Because I’m always such a busy bee at school, I decided to also get a certificate in gerontology, which is the study of aging. That was my specialty. I loved working with the older adult community, specifically people with dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, gerontology, it’s more of an eclectic approach to looking at aging, isn’t it?
Laura Hernandez:
It is. It’s kind of a generalist framework. You get to learn different aspects that affect the aging process. You can learn from child development all the way up to health in later years, as well as grieving counseling, all these different issues that I’d found so interesting, so I really wanted to go towards that. And the university offered a certificate program, so I decided to do that, as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Does it also go into some of the government policies on aging?
Laura Hernandez:
It does.
Jeff Thompson:
I thought that was interesting, yeah.
Laura Hernandez:
It could be used as an advocacy platform in order to do policy change. And so that kind of got me interested in going into graduate school to get my master’s in social work. I wanted to do more and I knew that, as a person with a disability, I have to sometimes do more in order to be at an equal setting with other able-bodied people. So I decided to go into graduate school, and that turned out to be a whole other can of worms.
Jeff Thompson:
I was just on a podcast with Dr. Amy Cavanaugh. She said I used the word disability, and she said in England, they don’t use that word. That’s like a no-no word.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, the word disability here in America is used a lot, and I can understand how, within the community, it can have a negative connotation because it’s disabling, but I kind of feel like maybe we here in American have taken the word and given a different meaning to it. Because I know there’s abilities. I meet a lot of individuals who don’t like to use that term, and for me, I’m like, well, it’s kind of like the language that’s already spoken and I just don’t see it as a negative.
Jeff Thompson:
Right. Kind of like Blind Abilities gives a positive to it. And yet, if I was to say Sighted Abilities, they might think, whoa, what are you talking about?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. And words are so powerful, and that’s something that I definitely don’t take for granted. And as a comedian and spoken word poet and everything, I see the power in words and how one word can really change a person’s feelings, or one word can really mean something completely different to somebody else.
Laura Hernandez:
My first relationship was actually with another blind person. It was like love at first touch. We literally ran into each other. We looked into each other’s eyes and we locked our canes. It was sweet. That time, love was truly blind, that time. It was nice [crosstalk 00:19:25]
Jeff Thompson:
So when you were in college and going to your classes and stuff, what alternative techniques, what accessible devices did you utilize?
Laura Hernandez:
Mostly, I used my laptop, and it has the different screen readers on there. I had JAWS, I had ZoomText. ZoomText, I really don’t use much because my vision is very bad, that the little partial vision that I had left in my left eye doesn’t really work. I used to be able to use it for some PDF or some scanned materials because there’s a lot of professors that just don’t get it and they’ll use articles from the ’50s or ’60s. It’s just photocopies and the screen readers aren’t able to read those photocopies.
Jeff Thompson:
Right.
Laura Hernandez:
There’s definitely a lot of that that goes on, even in higher education, which I think it’s surprising, but it still happens. So I use mostly my laptop with screen readers, but I also had a BrailleNote, Apex BrailleNote. That one’s amazing. I love that. I have it with the braille.
Jeff Thompson:
Refreshable braille?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, with the refreshable braille. I love it. I’ve been using that a lot more than my laptop lately.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, you mentioned something that a lot of students have faced, college professors, teachers that just don’t get it. Can you explain that?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, there’s a lot of professors that are inexperienced in working with students with disabilities, specifically with blind students. A lot of times, depending on the subject, whether it’s math or history, professors still sometimes use the whiteboard and write on the board. And as a blind student, I usually go up to the professors before classes even start, I meet them in their office to let them know.
Laura Hernandez:
But if I’m not able to do that, I find the Services for Students with Disabilities on any campus that I’m at and I speak with them first and register with them so that I can have that backup support to kind of put a little bit of pressure on professors to be accommodating. Because if you don’t have that, some professors, they forget. You’ll go up to them and you’ll tell them, hey, I need these type of accommodations and they’ll be like, oh, yeah yeah yeah, and then they’ll just forget. So having a place on campus specifically for students with disabilities is really needed because it helps to kind of keep the professors in check a bit. I don’t know how better to say that, but to accommodate their students.
Laura Hernandez:
And the most difficult one that I’ve experienced, especially in graduate school, it’s just so much reading, that a lot of the articles, even the online articles, are photocopied chapters of textbooks from a long time ago, that our screen readers aren’t able to pick them up. And then it just takes so much longer to read a good 15 pages, and you need to read it by the next day. It takes a long time.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, a lot of those Xerox copies or something, you know, there’s the binding and they kind of warp the words a little bit when it comes near the binding. I really like what you mentioned about using the disability services office as a backup, which means that you have to advocate for yourself, and that is kind of a security blanket, that it’s there for the teachers that don’t get it.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. You definitely have to advocate for yourself. And I think it’s needed, too. As any individual, it helps you grow and it helps you become a little bit more empowered. Because when you’re used to having people help and do things for you, when you reach the college level, yeah, you have to take that on by yourself. You’re not always going to have people that are willing, so you have to advocate and speak up for yourself to have these resources available to you. And even with the office, sometimes they have so many students that you are able to fall through the cracks. And so if you don’t go in there and remind them, hey, just reminding you that I have a test coming up in a couple of weeks and I need to have a reader, or I need to have this test turned into a different format…you really just have to take it on for yourself. And it makes you, I guess, develop more professionally and also as an individual, you know. It makes you more empowered.
Jeff Thompson:
When did you start developing these advocacy skills? Was it back in elementary school?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. Definitely, as a child, because I had to grow up pretty quickly. Having the syndrome, I was having surgery since I was seven, eight years old. So there were times in elementary when it’s time to go out to recess and everyone’s [inaudible] and I had to speak up for myself and tell the teachers that I can’t go outside right now, is it all right if I stay in. Things like that, that I guess you wouldn’t think a child so young would speak up, but I had to. I had to because nobody knew what was really going on with me if I wouldn’t speak up and explain to them my situation.
Jeff Thompson:
What services did you receive from your school district?
Laura Hernandez:
Not much. I was thankful to have a program called the Visually Impaired Program. They helped me to get a lot of large print material when I was in elementary through high school.
Laura Hernandez:
It wasn’t until I lost complete sight in my right eye due to a retinal detachment when I was sixteen that I was taken out of school and I had Home and Hospital, and that’s when I started to do mobility lessons with my cane, that’s when I started to learn how to read and write in braille. And that was through the Visually Impaired Program.
Laura Hernandez:
I was very high functioning, so I was put into regular classes, and then just had to be taken out for different consultations with the special instructors.
Jeff Thompson:
And that all changed when you were nineteen, when your other eye detached, retina detached?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, yeah, that changed and then I left the regular school and I was having tutoring at home until I finally felt well enough to return. And when I did return, I finished my last two years of high school in this program called Middle College High School, which was a very new program at the time, where they allowed high school students to take maybe two or three high school courses and then the rest of the courses you would take were college courses. So by the time you would graduate high school, you already had college credits developed.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s interesting.
Laura Hernandez:
It was an easy transfer when I graduated high school because I was already familiar with the community college and I was already taking classes there.
Jeff Thompson:
So at what point, Laura, did you get a hold of your vocational rehab in the state of California?
Laura Hernandez:
I started vocational rehab at eighteen. Prior to that, I didn’t really get much help. I was in that weird area where my parents made too much money to get help, but also not enough money to really get everything that I needed. We didn’t really have much help my whole growing up until I turned eighteen. And then that’s when I started to look into okay, I need to get vocational rehab, I need to do this and that. So I went out and signed myself up for everything. Unfortunately, that’s when I realized there were all these services I could have gotten before eighteen, but I was unaware of them.
Jeff Thompson:
You just gotta get on with getting on when you get on with it.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, good for you.
Laura Hernandez:
It’s kind of hard being a blind person in today’s society. I know a lot of people would think that probably not because of all these new technological advances and everything, but it doesn’t mean that they have been accessible. Just take audiobooks, for example, right? Nobody gave a [inaudible] about audiobooks being accessible until able-bodied people realized that oh, I can listen to this when I’m in my car.
Jeff Thompson:
It looks like you succeeded in getting your certificate, your bachelor’s degree, and you got your master’s, too?
Laura Hernandez:
I started the master’s program in 2012. Originally, I was supposed to be a two year program. I did the first year and it was fine, but I had health issues come up. That’s when I endured that blood infection and I had a heart attack at that time. So I had to take a medical leave of absence, and I was out for a while.
Laura Hernandez:
I decided to go back to finish it and again, I had another health issue arise. I had to take three medical leaves of absence. I don’t know, I felt like there was some force trying to stop me from getting this degree. But I’m a bit stubborn, and so this last year, because you have a certain amount of years that you can complete the program with the work that you’ve already put in. Anything after that, you’d have to start all over again.
Laura Hernandez:
So, I went last year to finally finish it because I’m very stubborn and I was just like okay, I need to finish this. And then that’s when I endured another retinal detachment in my left eye. I still didn’t give up, I still kept going to classes even though I was going through surgeries. I would go to class with my eyes patched up. Because I had already been familiar with mobility and my screen reader and my BrailleNote. So I was like, okay, I still don’t need my eyes, it’s fine, I can get through these courses. And I was passing my courses, but unfortunately, with this program, you also have to do an internship and I guess, my level of work that I was doing at this internship wasn’t sufficient, and I wasn’t able to pass. And if you don’t pass your internship, you don’t pass the program.
Laura Hernandez:
It broke my spirit. It broke my spirit because I felt a bit of discrimination because of my disability, and I most always have the self-advocacy and the passion to speak up for myself, but I had just been in such a place that I was very kind of beaten down by everything that was happening one after the other, that when they informed me of me not passing, that was it. And I decided to leave the program. I didn’t have the energy to fight it, even though I knew that this was wrong, I didn’t have the energy.
Laura Hernandez:
And now that I’ve had some time to recuperate, people tell me, why don’t you go back and fight it, try to get in? And I just feel like maybe all of this, there’s been a reason why I just can’t complete this program. And I think the reason is I might just kind of reached my end in the world of academia. Maybe this is time for me to focus more on the community, on comedy, and other things that really bring me joy, besides just doing things that I feel like I have to do.
Laura Hernandez:
Right after that, that’s kind of when I started to really get into comedy because I was in such a place where I had my spirit broken, I was working hard and people still told me that it was not enough, and I was just kind of on this note of, I don’t want to do anything anymore unless it’s something that really brings me joy. Because I was kind of killing myself in working so hard to get this degree, and there was just so much hypocrisy and everything that was involved in it that I was like, no, I need to do something that brings me genuine happiness. And comedy was there for me for that. It was a good way to cope with my feelings at the time, and to release some of that anger that I had. And now that I look back, I feel that it was the best choice.
Laura Hernandez:
It does get me from time to time because I did put in a lot of work into that program and for me not to come out with this degree that shows that I am knowledgeable about all these practices and skills…because then if I try to apply for a job that requires an MSW degree, they’re not going to believe me by just saying, oh, I did the work, but I didn’t get the degree. They want to see the degree, you know?
Jeff Thompson:
And you’re a comedian.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They probably will think I’m joking with that.
Jeff Thompson:
With all your work and school and stuff, looking back, what would you say to a transition student today? What tips would you have for them?
Laura Hernandez:
I would tell them that they should follow their heart. I know that sounds kind of cliché and cheesy, but there’s a lot of intuition that I feel, as individuals, that we have. And sometimes we kind of mute that intuition because we want to follow the standard of what success is. You know, sometimes with vocational rehab, you have a set plan of what your educational goals are and what the goal is to eventually get off SSI and to get a job and to do that. And sometimes we get kind of sucked in, and you kind of forget about the things that make you happy because you’re just kind of on autopilot, doing what you feel is needed.
Laura Hernandez:
Although all those things are great if that’s what really brings you joy and that’s what you want to do, but that’s not always the case for everybody. Success isn’t always the same image for everybody. And that’s what I learned, and I feel like if I could go back to tell myself to listen to my intuition, to listen to my heart, I might have saved myself a couple of years of mental torment, of why I couldn’t be enough.
Laura Hernandez:
I would definitely give that as advice. Or even if you find that school isn’t your thing, there’s still so much to do in the world, there’s so much that we’re capable of doing. A lot of times we feel like we might not be capable because of outside voices, you know, parents or teachers or anybody who’s trying to limit you of what you can do, and that’s not true. And I think this podcast is a great way of showing the versatility, of how many blind individuals are doing what they’re passionate about.
Speaker 6: [inaudible] Let’s bring her up here, [inaudible]
Laura Hernandez:
Hi! Hello, everybody. Hi, [inaudible] conference, make some noise.
Jeff Thompson:
I just want to thank you for coming on the Blind Abilities and sharing your story with us, from Marfan syndrome to your challenges being bullied in elementary school, and rising above that and making your way into college, and your degrees, your certificate, and feeding the fire, as John Kay says.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. I listened to that when you guys had John Kay on there, and that was so great and he was so insightful. I really loved that.
Jeff Thompson:
I like his passion. So when you mentioned that not everyone’s built to work the system and go through it, and then you finally found the spoken word, the advocacy, and the comedy, so I’m glad you found those and it makes you happy and that inner part of you comes out, and that’s where it seems to fit, you know what I mean?
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah. And it’s funny because sometimes when you really pursue something that you’re passionate about, you’ll start to realize that maybe you should have started doing this sooner. Because as soon as I started to do comedy, I started to get some recognition in the sense that people would hear my standup and be like, wow, I never knew about that and, you know…because I like to spread awareness through my comedy. I don’t just like to do cheap laughs. They’re fine sometimes, but that’s what I fell in love with about comedy, that you can send a message in a way where people might not even know that they’re being taught a message.
Laura Hernandez:
And I had a bit more recognition than all my years of doing schoolwork, which I thought was ironic. I was like, oh, okay. Here, you got a career as a standup comedian, that most people would be like, whoa, what kind of money are you going to get out of that? But then again, I was trying to be a social worker and there’s not much money in that area, either, so. It’s not really about the money, it’s about your passion and that’s what feeds you.
Jeff Thompson:
It’s great that you found that.
Jeff Thompson:
Laura Hernandez, thank you very much for coming on, and it’s been great talking to you, and good luck with getting back up on stage there, and break a leg, I guess. Or is that actors? What do comedians break?
Laura Hernandez:
I don’t know, their souls, I guess.
Jeff Thompson:
Break out people in laughter.
Laura Hernandez:
Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
Laura, thank you very much.
Laura Hernandez:
Okay, Jeff, thank you.
Speaker 1:
This concludes Jeff’s chat with Laura Hernandez. We’d like to thank Laura for taking time to chat with us, and we wish her all the best in her careers as a poet of the spoken word and as a comedian. Look for Laura’s channel on YouTube. That’s Laura Hernandez. L-A-U-R-A H-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z. As usual, we’d like to thank Chee Chau for his beautiful music. You can find Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.
Speaker 1:
For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com. We’re on Twitter, we’re on Facebook, and be sure to check out our free app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
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