
Stephanie Farfan
A young Latina, Stephanie Farfan is both completing her master’s degree and working at RespectAbility, a nonprofit fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities, as the Policy, Practices and Latinx Outreach Associate. Farfan first joined RespectAbility as a Fellow in the Spring 2018 Cohort. She returned in August as a full time staff member and already has made quite an impact. She was instrumental in the launch of RespectAbility’s new Spanish-language resource guide. She also represented RespectAbility at a Fiesta Educativa conference in California and even appeared on CNN Español to spread the word.
But before she started working at RespectAbility, she participated in interviews for other jobs. One of them, at a nonprofit near her school, sticks out in her mind. She excelled during the first part of the interview. Then, as Farfan puts it:
“The person who would be my direct supervisor came in and her eyes got really wide when she saw me because I’m a Little Person. Suddenly, she believed I couldn’t do the job, even though I was very qualified and it was just a data entry position. She kept telling me ‘I don’t think you’re smart enough. We really need to hire someone who is very intelligent and has very good attention to detail.’ I quipped ‘Well, I have a 4.7 GPA, I think I’ll be fine.’”
Farfan has been more than just fine. She has taken advantage of her unique perspective on life. In fact, she thinks that having a disability has improved her life in certain ways. Being a Little Person has “given me a community and a sense of culture,” she said. “It also shapes the way I see the world around me and how I react to things. If I didn’t have a disability, I wouldn’t have this personality.” [continue reading…]