In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, here are some Asian autistic people you should know about!
Lydia X.Z. Brown is a Chinese-American adoptee. They are heavily involved in disability justice work, and their writing on disability is foundational to the movement.
Yuh-Line Niou is a Taiwanese-American politician who serves in the New York State Assembly.
She represents the 65th district, which includes Chinatown. She originally ran as a member of the Working Families Party, but she is currently in office as a Democrat.
Kodi Lee is a Korean-American musician and singer with perfect pitch, who recently won America’s Got Talent.
He is also blind (due to optic nerve hypoplasia) and has Addison’s Disease, which affects hormone production in the adrenal glands.
Niam Jain is a South Asian painter and visual artist from Canada, whose paintings are vibrant and abstract.
His speech is limited, so painting is an important form of self-expression for him.
Hikari Ōe is a Japanese composer of classical music. He is the son of Kenzaburō Ōe, a Nobel Prize winning author.
He is visually impaired and epileptic, and has limited speech. He uses musical compositions to help express himself.
Helen Hoang is a Vietnamese-American romance novelist, and autistic parent to an autistic daughter.
Her first novel, The Kiss Quotient, is about an autistic woman exploring her sexuality and figuring out romance.
Naoki Higashida is a Japanese author and visual artist who types to communicate.
His most famous book, The Reason I Jump, was recently turned into an award-winning documentary film.
Amrit Khurana is an Indian visual artist whose life and work was featured in the documentary version of The Reason I Jump.
Her speech is limited, and she uses art as an outlet to express her thoughts and experiences.
Raj Singh Tattal is a Punjabi Sikh visual artist from the UK who is most well-known for drawing detailed portraits.
He had not drawn for over a decade until he was diagnosed as autistic, which led him to decide to channel his ability to focus for hours on end into creating art.
Last but not least, Ping Lian Yeak is a Malaysian-Australian visual artist with limited speech.
He has been featured in several documentaries, and his artwork was displayed at the United Nations headquarters in 2008 in honor of Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month.
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In the study, autistics and neurotypicals were recruited to see if they would donate to a good cause that would make them lose money, or support a bad cause that would benefit them financially.
In one condition, the decisions were private. In another, the decisions were public.
In the public condition, both autistics and neurotypicals were more likely to donate to the good cause that made them lose money.
But in the private condition, neurotypicals were much more likely than autistics to support the bad cause that would earn them money.
One of the main ways that nonspeaking autistic people are denied agency, is through repeated and incessant demands to communicate.
I watched a documentary the other day called “The Limits Of My World” and there was one scene in particular that drove this point home.
The documentary is about a nonspeaking 21 year old autistic man named Brian, who lives in a caregiving facility.
One of his caregivers was helping him dry off after his shower, when she pointed to the mirror and said, “Who’s that? Brian, who is that? What’s your name?”
I couldn’t count how many times he was asked. And the irony was, she clearly knew his name.
Over time, her tone shifted from a light and playful “Brian, what’s your name?” to a demand: “Brian, tell me your name.”
When people say they’re against eugenics because (for example) altering autistic people’s genes might “accidentally get rid of special talents and skills”…
They aren’t actually anti-eugenics.
In fact, that argument is very much in line with the core ideas of eugenics.
When people say “Autism shouldn’t be eradicated because…” and then follow up that statement with things like:
- “Autistic people are intelligent”
- “Autistic people can be productive”
- “Autistic people have special talents”
- “Autistic people can be independent”…
They are doing two things:
1. Feeding into the idea that a disabled person’s only worth comes from how well they can be exploited economically
2. Erasing autistic people who don’t fit those criteria, and implying that it would be okay for *those* people not to exist.