A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

103
couldn‟t talk about it… I just stuck to the disability rather than looking at the
disability and the cultural needs… because there was nothing there… (l.1:476ff.)
Speaking of her experience of attending a local authority day centre, she suggests the other
disabled people attending:
were probably thinking what‟s she doing here… she should be with her own folk…
(l.1:510ff.)
What Surinder describes here is a sense of rejection by the Asian community because she is
disabled and a simultaneous rejection by the disabled community because she is Asian:
leading not only to a sense of detachment from both communities but also clearly working
against the development of a positive disabled identity. Describing the way that
discrimination is experienced simultaneously at different points of identity, Ayesha Vernon
and John Swain have observed that
the more overt the discrimination, the more heightened one‟s awareness and sense of
vulnerability around that particular identity (Vernon and Swain, 2002:84).
Surinder‟s experience of isolation was made more intense by her sense of having to divide
herself into distinct categories. Because at least services have existed for disabled people she
attempted to fit herself within these, even though they were, in her words „white-centric‟
(l.1:478). At the same time, this meant exposing herself to racist values, as expressed volubly
by a local authority care worker who told her that „all non-whites should go back to their
own country‟ (l.1:286).
Surinder states that sometimes she is made to feel like „the lowest of the low‟ (l.1:525):
not am I only disabled but I‟m… and disabled people aren‟t recognized, but… you
know… below that I‟ve been placed as an Asian disabled person, who is certainly
not recognized… one iota… (l.1:526ff.)
Restitution and „the Sick Role‟
As Jennie says, she „gets sick‟ of:
people coming up and saying “Smile, it might never happen…” all the time... and
thinking they can intrude in that way… if I‟m just looking miserable… because it‟s
my business if I‟m looking miserable… I have turned round to these people a
number of times and said “Well, I would smile… but it‟s a continuing hideous