In Emily Perl Kingsley\u2019s 1987 essay \u201cWelcome to Holland\u201d \u2013 which has since been widely disseminated to new parents of children with disabilities \u2013 she describes her experience raising a child with disabilities as extensively planning for a trip to Italy, boarding the plane to Italy, and then being surprised and not a little disappointed when the pilot announces that instead they have landed in Holland. \u201cSo you must go out and buy new guide books,\u201d Perl Kingsley writes. \u201cAnd you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met\u2026 and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills\u2026.and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts\u201d (Perl Kingsley, \u201cWelcome to Holland\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a sibling of someone with autism, \u201cWelcome to Holland\u201d initially really resonated with me. Since discovering it, I have wrestled with whether the essay is a valuable contribution to disability studies or if it comes off as condescending and dismissive of what it means to be disabled. (The essay is undeniably centered around the able-bodied or able-minded parent\u2019s perspective, which is its intent, and parts of it read sort of as describing disability as being \u201cdifferently abled,\u201d though it never uses that term.) However, after reading Alison Kafer\u2019s introduction to her book Feminist, Queer, Crip<\/em> and Jim Sinclair\u2019s essay \u201cDon\u2019t Mourn for Us,\u201d I am persuaded that \u201cWelcome to Holland\u201d has value, even if it is far from perfect. In addition to being two of my favorite pieces we read over the course of the semester, this paper will argue that Sinclair\u2019s essay is an excellent practical application of Kafer\u2019s \u201cpolitical\/relational\u201d model to autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To understand how \u201cDon\u2019t Mourn for Us\u201d fits within\u00a0 the framework of a political\/ relational model, it is essential to understand what precisely Kafer is arguing. First, Kafer calls for, as many disability scholars before and since her writing have done, a movement away from the traditional medical model of disability. Under the medical model, disability should be approached solely through a clinical lens, and the goal is to treat the condition rather than mitigating the social circumstances that constrict disabled lives (Kafer 5). Although Kafer acknowledges that this method is flawed and outdated, she does not go as far as the social model of disability, which states that disability is not a product of a medical condition, but rather social attitudes, norms, and physical structures. \u201cAs much joy as I find in communities of disabled people, and as much as I value my experiences as a disabled person, I am not interested in becoming more disabled than I already am,\u201d Kafer wrote. \u201cNor am I opposed to prenatal care and public health initiatives aimed at preventing illness and impairment, and futures in which the majority of people continue to lack access to such basic needs are not futures I want\u201d (Kafer 4). With this understanding in mind, Kafer argues that \u201crecognizing illness and disability as a part of what makes us human\u201d is essential, while she avoids a complete rejection of the medical model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0Under Kafer\u2019s political\/relational model, \u201cthe problem of disability is solved not through medical intervention or surgical normalization but through social change and political transformation\u201d (Kafer 5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sinclair also indirectly advocates for an understanding of autism beyond the medical model. Autism, he says, is not an appendage; instead, it is inherently a part of the person. He discourages parents (and policymakers, etc.,) from seeking a cure: \u201cTherefore, when parents say, I wish my child did not have autism, what they\u2019re really saying is, I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead,\u201d Sinclair writes. \u201cThis is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure\u201d (Sinclair, \u201cDon\u2019t Mourn for Us\u201d). Here, he makes the case that Kafer made, pertaining to disability generally, specifically to autism: autism is not a \u201cproblem\u201d that should be treated through the medical lens. However, he argues that parents should be angry about the political and social conditions that make having autism more difficult than it otherwise should be: \u201cBetter than being sad about it, though, get mad about it \u2013 and then do something about it. The tragedy is not that we\u2019re here, but that your world has no place for us to be\u201d (Sinclair, \u201cDon\u2019t Mourn for Us\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of what I love about both pieces is that they don\u2019t pretend that having a disability is sunshine and rainbows all the time. Both Kafer and Sinclair allow for \u2013 and Perl Kingsley gets at \u2013 is the mourning for changed expectations. As part of her political\/relational model, Kafer writes \u201cI want to make room for people to acknowledge \u2013 even mourn \u2013 a change in form or function while also acknowledging that such changes cannot be understood apart from the context in which they occur\u201d (Kafer 6). Kafer says that it is okay for disabled people to feel real loss as a direct result of their impairment, while acknowledging that the impairment is made much more difficult in daily life because of social and political norms that permit discrimination and inaccessibility. Sinclair also creates space for this period of mourning, saying that \u201cmuch of the grieving parents do is over the non-occurrence of the expected relationship with an expected normal child. This grief is very real, and it needs to be expected and worked through so people can get on with their lives \u2013 but it has nothing to do with autism\u201d (Sinclair, \u201cDon\u2019t Mourn for Us\u201d). Again, Sinclair\u2019s understanding of autism permits sadness as a result of shattered expectations, but like Kafer, he removes the burden of bearing that grief from the disabled person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kafer\u2019s introduction to Feminist, Queer, Crip<\/em> provides for an important framework within disability studies. The political\/relational model strikes a solid middle ground between the outdated medical model and the social model, which too often fails to acknowledge some of the pain inherent in disability that goes beyond failing to meet societal expectations. Because Sinclair so eloquently rejects the medical model while asking parents to learn the language of autism and to work to improve a world hostile to people with autism, his essay fits solidly within that framework as a practical application of the political\/relational model to autism specifically. Both writers allow disabled people and families of disabled people to mourn what they\u2019ve lost without letting that grief consume them. As it turns out, \u201cWelcome to Holland\u201d may have been right after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I pledge \u2013 Kate Seltzer<\/p>\n\n\n\n Word count: 1102<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kafer, Alison. Feminist, Queer, Crip<\/em>. \u201cIntroduction.\u201d Indiana University Press, 2013. JSTOR,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0 www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt16gz79x. Accessed 28 Apr. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perl Kingsley, Emily. \u201cWelcome To Holland.\u201d Emily Perl Kingsley<\/em>, 1987, www.emilyperl<\/p>\n\n\n\n kingsley.com\/welcome-to-holland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sincllair, Jim. \u201cDon\u2019t Mourn for Us.\u201d ANI, Autism Network International Newsletter<\/em>, 1993,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0 www.autreat.com\/dont_mourn.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Emily Perl Kingsley\u2019s 1987 essay \u201cWelcome to Holland\u201d \u2013 which has since been widely disseminated to new parents of children with disabilities \u2013 she describes her experience raising a child with disabilities as extensively planning for a trip to Italy, boarding the plane to Italy, and then being surprised and not a little disappointed … Continue reading “Kate Seltzer final”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcJhts-z8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2179,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}