Tiffany Yu is the CEO & Founder of Diversability
AboutTiffany Yu is the CEO & Founder of Diversability, an award-winning social enterprise to elevate disability pride; the Founder of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, a monthly micro-grant that has awarded $92.5k to 93 disability projects in 11 countries; and the author of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World.
As a person with visible and invisible disabilities stemming from a car crash, Tiffany has built a career on disability solidarity. Now that she has found success, she works to expand a network of people with disabilities and their allies to decrease stigmas around disability and create opportunities for disabled people in America.
Jay Ruderman:
Welcome to All About Change. Now is a great time to check out my new book about activism, Find Your Fight. You can find your fight wherever you buy books and you can learn more about it at JayRuderman.com.
Today my guest is Tiffany Yu. Tiffany began her career in investment banking, but chose to pivot and dedicate her life to advocating for people with disabilities. At nine years old, Tiffany was in a car crash that left her disabled and led to the death of her father. Now she’s the CEO and founder of Diversability, an award-winning social enterprise to elevate disability pride, the founder of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, a monthly micro grant that has awarded $92,500 to 93 disability projects in 11 countries, and the author of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World. As you and the audience know, the Ruderman Family Foundation has long been active in disability advocacy and it brings me enormous strength to meet and learn from Tiffany, a young leader in the space.
Tiffany Yu, thank you so much for being my guest on All About Change.
Tiffany Yu:
Thank you so much for having me.
Jay Ruderman:
Tiffany, I want to start off with something you’ve talked about, PTSD, and telling a whole version of your story long after it actually happened. Why did it take so long for you to tell it? What was going on there?
Tiffany Yu:
So I’m the daughter of Asian immigrants. My dad is from Taiwan and my mom is a refugee from the Vietnam War. And one of the things that I’m learning as a result of that cultural background and growing up in that cultural upbringing is that shame is viewed in the entirety of the household. So I did some research and when a death happens in the immediate family, part of that is leaning into, oh, somewhere along the lineage there was some bad luck and this is why this needed to happen in the family. The same with the car accident and me acquiring disabilities as a result of the accident. And in some ways I feel like it was amplified within this Asian cultural upbringing, but I also think that in 1997 there was still a lot of shame and unknown around disabilities. I think about how things I think are changing from my parents’ generation to my generation where now I’m seeing a lot more grasp around disability pride, a lot more disabled people coming onto social media, or authentic casting that’s happening in Hollywood around disabled people and disability narratives as well.
And to be honest, now that I think about it, the car accident was 28 years ago, so it was a long time ago. And around November 29th, which is the anniversary day of the car accident, I’ll usually share something on social media. And over the past couple of years, there was one year where someone I went to elementary school with said, “Hey Tiffany, I knew about the car accident but I didn’t know about your dad.” Which also signaled to me that the people that I grew up with, because this car accident happened when I was in fourth grade, they knew something happened, but they didn’t know all the details.
And then recently I reconnected with someone I went to high school with and he said, “Oh, Tiffany, I knew about your arm, but I just assumed it was from birth.” And I’m kind of putting these puzzle pieces together for my own adolescence that is reinforcing to me that I just didn’t share a lot of it. So it wasn’t until I was in college where I was meeting so many new people for the first time that I had realized, oh, I am kind of rusty here. I actually haven’t told anyone about these details. And at that point in time, because it had already been so long of me not sharing, I had essentially been habituated into not sharing any parts of it.
Jay Ruderman:
So I’m going to tell you now why that struck a chord with me. When I was learning about your advocacy and who you are, and I’ve never told anyone about this. When I was younger, a teenager, maybe 14, I was diagnosed with scoliosis and I had to wear a brace, but I wore it in such a way and wore clothing to hide it. So I was in school in middle school I guess at the time, and people didn’t know. And I wouldn’t let anyone touch me. And I think that there was sort of an embarrassment that I had. And I just wrote a book called Find Your Fight, which is about advocacy. And I talk about certain disabilities that I’ve had, depression, anxiety, but I didn’t touch on this, I didn’t write about it.
And I’m thinking after I learned about you and what you went through, why I didn’t talk about it. And I’m still sort of thinking about that over the last few days. What is it? Because now this was maybe, I don’t know, 40 years ago that this happened and why is it still something that I choose not to talk to people about? I don’t know. I mean, I think we all have stories, some of them we tell and some of them we don’t tell. And I don’t know why I haven’t told that story in the past.
Tiffany Yu:
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that.
Jay Ruderman:
Thank you.
Tiffany Yu:
And I will say that has been one of my favorite parts of being on this journey is people who realize there are parts of their stories they haven’t shared and maybe doing some of that reflection of better understanding why or why not.
Jay Ruderman:
I don’t know. I mean I think it’s a part of who I am. It’s a part of what I think about, but I think that I was approaching it as an embarrassment, and maybe this is what I was integrated with growing up society I grew up in, that I would be seen as the other. Look, I grew up a long time ago and the other was not something you wanted to be. And maybe now we’re at a place where the other is something you should be proud of. I don’t know, I’m just going off the back of the envelope here.
Tiffany Yu:
I mean something I’m thinking about when you talk about the embarrassment, I think about the ways that shame festers in secrecy, silence and judgment. And when I learned that, I actually took a critical look at myself and I said, “Where are the areas that I feel a little embarrassed or a little bit of shame?” And I think I still am unlearning some shame, but I feel very empowered in my disability story. But for a long time I didn’t like the way my hand looked. It looks different. And I think similar to what you said, this desire to not be the other or not have something look so different.
And so I thought about that. I said, “Okay, I have shame about the way my hand looks.” And in 2020, many of us were turning onto short form video and all of these different platforms. I said, “One of the ways I think I’m going to tackle shame around the way my hand looks,” because I would even look at past photos of myself and I’d be hiding my hand behind my hip or behind someone else or behind a table or under a table, is I said, “Secrecy, silence and judgment. Which one of those can I tackle that will help me unlearn some of the shame around how my hand looks?”
And so I started putting my hand onto social media and I said, “Hey, my arm’s paralyzed. This is how I do X, Y, Z thing.” And I will say, the deluge of comments really, I think touched on this adolescent Tiffany who felt so much shame and embarrassment around my body and the way it worked and didn’t work. And I had to remind myself, “My whole life doesn’t exist in social media. Let me make sure I have community that if I’m feeling a little bit insecure, I can turn to these other places as well.” So yeah, I don’t want to give shame its power. And part of how I am tackling, not giving shame, that power is by bringing more light on the things that people might have shame about.
Jay Ruderman:
I want to talk about something that you’ve touched on and it’s something that I wonder about in the disability space, that some disabilities are seen and some disabilities are not seen. Can you talk about people who have disabilities that are not seen? Does the community in general accept them as part of the disability community, or do you see any divisions within the community?
Tiffany Yu:
Ooh, so much to unpack there. Well first I’ll start by sharing that the majority of disabilities are not apparent, right? This can include Tiffany, who lives with PTSD. It’s anxiety, depression, like you mentioned. It’s ADHD, OCD, hearing related disabilities. And part of what I feel excited about is to have more people who have non-apparent disabilities be transparent about them because it also helps interrupt the narrative that disability has a certain look.
But I think to your question around whether people who have non-apparent disabilities are embraced within the disability community, I hope that’s changing. I will say there was a period of time where, even as we’re recording this call, unless I showed you my hand or told you, you may not know that I have disabilities. And so I guess I want to share two things. And one is that people who have non-apparent disabilities, sometimes you have a choice and a strange privilege in a way of how much you want to share. And sometimes you may see someone who has a non-apparent disability decide not to share because they see the way that people who have more apparent disabilities are treated. And if we are getting stares or people are questioning our capabilities simply because we have visible disabilities, then why would someone who has a disability that is not apparent most times? Because disabilities can become apparent at any time, it deters them from wanting to share.
So again, I think we’re starting to see a change within the community that is embracing that disability doesn’t have a look. We are welcoming many people who have long haul COVID, which depending on how it manifests, can be considered a disability. We’re welcoming many of them into the community. And they have their own long haul COVID support groups, which is really great. But I also think a lot about cross disability solidarity. How can we show up with each other? Because even though our disability experiences may be drastically different, I think there are two things that unite those of us who have disabilities, whether they are seen or unseen. And the first is that we have all experienced this system of oppression that is called ableism, which is the devaluing of disabled bodies and minds. And then the second is that we’ve had to learn how to adapt in a world that wasn’t built for us.
And I think about the ways that the term Asian-American came into consciousness in the sixties, again, with a bunch of people from different countries who don’t have shared history or shared language. We just happened to all have black hair. And part of why they came together in solidarity with each other was because they had more power and influence together as a collective. And I see that within the disability community as well.
So me personally, I welcome anyone who believes that they have a disability. Whenever I share about my work, I’ll always get someone come to me who says, “I have asthma or I have diabetes. Does that count?” Or they’ll say, “Hey, when I was in university, I did use my disability resource center to get some accommodations, but I don’t consider myself having a disability.” I’m not here to police whether someone identifies or not. It’s just to say we all have this shared experience. I think the more of us who understand that so many more of us are disabled than we realize, I think the more that we can start to tackle and dismantle ableism and this devaluing that we are seeing.
Jay Ruderman:
That’s very powerful. And so much agree with what you’ve said. And it’s a perfect transition to my next question. The website of the organization that you run, Diversability, has a section dedicated to allies. So what does an ally to the disability community look like?
Tiffany Yu:
I come back to this definition of ableism that I use, which is a system of oppression where we devalue someone based on the way their body and/or mind works. So when I think about allyship, it’s what are the actions that we can take where we are not devaluing someone based on their disability status?
I will share that. I also wrote a book recently, I think it came out last fall, so congratulations on yours. The book is called The Anti-Ableist Manifesto. And right now for those who can see the video, I’m holding up a piece of art that says The Anti-Ableist Manifesto at the top. And there are about 30 statements on the manifesto that range from disability is not a bad word or a bad thing, don’t erase history, diversify your feed, halt microaggressions. And each of these statements actually correspond with different chapters in the book, which is great if you… So you can start out with the art, figure out which statements on the piece of art resonate with you and then dive more deeply into it. But for me, an ally is really someone who thinks about the experiences of communities they might not be a part of. An intentional decision to show up with a willingness to learn and figure out ways to advocate alongside us.
Jay Ruderman:
And the community needs allies because, I don’t know what the figure you use, but historically the disabilities community has been about 25% of the population, which is a very large percentage. But to get to the majority, we need allies. And I think that’s something very important.
Tiffany Yu:
I will say that part of allyship or even thinking about how to become an advocate or activism is where are my spheres of influence? Where can I shake things up a little bit? One of my own personal wins, when I was living in San Francisco, I got appointed to the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council. One of the things I thought about when I was in that role was again thinking about, “Okay, what are the different levers that we have?” So we now have direct communication with a lot of different departments and can ask them about what they’re doing around disability inclusive disaster response or hiring programs that they’re doing. And we also have a line into the mayor. So we have an opportunity to write letters that are signed onto by the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council to really share, “Okay, this is what we’re hearing from the community,” and we can trickle this up.
So then even if I take that a layer down and I think about people who might be listening to this who say, “Oh, well, I’m not on a council or a commission.” All of those councils and commissions have public meetings that you can then go and attend as a member of the public and make a public comment to. And if that’s not something you want to do, there’s an email address or a phone number that you can use to share more about how you can make your city or wherever your local area is more inclusive.
Jay Ruderman:
Tiffany, I wanted to ask you, you and I had organizations and we have people that work with us. I remember a case where an employee, Ellie Wolf, who has since passed away, brought to me an issue. Major League Baseball used to call people who were injured the disability list for over a hundred years. And he’s like, “That really has to be changed. They’re not permanently disabled, they’re injured.” And I contacted Major League Baseball and they changed it to the injured list. Have you had an employee who has come to you with a significant story that has led your advocacy forward?
Tiffany Yu:
I don’t know if you know this, Jay, but the Ruderman Foundation is actually mentioned in my book a couple times-
Jay Ruderman:
Oh, thank you.
Tiffany Yu:
… because I also remember there was an initiative of the Ruderman Foundation called Link20. And I actually do remember this major League Baseball was one of the advocacy actions.
One of the ones that is mentioned in the book is around the Paralympic medal pay, which was an initiative that was driven by Jenny Sichel, who was part of this group called Link20, which was this initiative of the Ruderman Foundation to bring together young disability advocates to figure out how they could band together again in solidarity with each other and in community with each other to make change.
But one of the ones that does come to mind was right around the beginning of the pandemic there was a campaign called NoBodyIsDisposable. And this was during a time where many hospitals were experiencing a lot of people coming in with severe symptoms related to COVID and doing something called hospital triage, which is they were deciding who got a hospital bed and who didn’t. And on paper as disabled people, simply because of our disability status, many of us are viewed as having a lower quality of life. So if it just so happened that I had severe symptoms and needed to go to the hospital and there weren’t any beds, there may have been a chance that a doctor or the hospital would’ve decided that I wasn’t worthy of a bed, determining who deserved a bed and who didn’t. So this was, again, in partnership with a lot of organizations to send letters to not only raise awareness that this was happening, but also send letters to different insurance companies and hospitals that this is something that we didn’t want to support.
And then I think one big one that I think a lot about is the fact that it’s still legal in over 30 states to pay disabled people below minimum wage. The organizations that have something called 14(c) certificates. So you can literally just go online and search for who has a 14(c) certificate and see who is legally paying disabled people below minimum wage. And I fundamentally believe that every single human being, at least in the United States, all of us, there is some job that we can do where we can be paid at least minimum wage.
Elizabeth Warren (Clip):
My staff came across a few reports about working conditions of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In Rhode Island, Pedro, a 25-year-old man with an intellectual disability, spent three years sorting and packing buttons. Pedro’s boss described him as an excellent worker. He was paid 48 cents an hour. In New York, workers with disabilities package pharmaceuticals at a nonprofit organization. They were paid 33 cents an hour. The CEO, by the way, was paid more than $400,000. In Iowa, dozens of adult men with intellectual disabilities worked at a turkey processing plant. They began work every day at 3:00 in the morning, and they were housed in a crowded schoolhouse together. They were paid $2 a day. Now, Dr. Mank, you’re an expert on the labor market for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Congress has passed labor laws, civil rights laws, and other laws protecting Americans with disabilities. It’s 2017. Can you explain why wages this low are not illegal?
Dr. Mank:
The original legislation was passed in 1938 that allowed payment of subminimum wage. This was somewhat updated in 1966, but because of the section of the Fair Labor Standards Act called 14(c), it’s perfectly legal.
Tiffany Yu:
I will say that the Link20 initiative and a lot of the work that the Ruderman Family Foundation has done has really inspired and created a lot of ripple effects within the disability community too.
Jay Ruderman:
Right. I’m thinking about my background and I come from the world of politics, so communication was important to me when I transitioned into advocacy. But you got your start in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and had a lot of success with the issue of your micro grant. I’m wondering how that background shaped your advocacy?
Tiffany Yu:
Well, I’ll share two stories first. I was a summer intern at Goldman in 2009. And while I was there, I got introduced to a lot of the different employee resource groups that they had. So they had one for Asian employees, for women, for queer employees, and they also had one for disabled employees. And here I was literally the most junior person at this bank getting introduced to vice presidents and managing directors, those are the most senior people within the firm who were now, I felt like sponsoring and mentoring me to be successful in my internship, to then get that full-time offer to come back. And it actually wasn’t until I got there that I realized how powerful a disability centered community could be, which has inspired literally all of my work. With Diversability, we’re a big community around building cross disability solidarity or across disability movement.
So it actually wasn’t until my experience in investment banking at Goldman that I started to find my own voice as a disability advocate. And I share some of these stories throughout the book. But one other thing that happened was every single new hire had an ergonomic assessment done of their workstation. So many of my colleagues and I got a second monitor or a keyboard wrist pad. I got a left-handed mouse. And then the ergonomic specialist asked me if I could use a headset so that I could use speech to text technology to help me type. And here I was 21 years old, becoming disabled at nine. And that was actually the first time I’d ever heard of speech to text technology. And there were so many things about that experience that I appreciated was that every new hire had different ways to adjust to their workstation so they could work best. This is how I think about accessibility and accommodations. They aren’t special. Everybody got an assessment. And then I also appreciated how the ergonomic specialist was proactive in offering a variety of different ways that might assist me in doing my work best.
I just wanted to share those two stories because I think they not only inspired who I’ve become as a disability advocate now. I don’t want to be the exception. But as I fast-forward, I guess one of the things I think about a lot in my own advocacy is what I call disability-centered economic justice, which is looking at the ways that we create more financial literacy within the disability community. But then I recently started angel investing, which means putting small amounts of money into startups that are growing. And I currently have two disability-owned startups in my portfolio, and that makes me really excited is that we’re seeing disabled people starting to be represented everywhere. We don’t just exist on the philanthropic or charitable side, which is important as well. We need funding for different disability advocacy initiatives. But we’re starting to see real companies with solid business models start to emerge that are run and led by disabled people.
So I come back and I think, like you said, I run The Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, and every single month we award $1,000 to a disability project around the world. And in a couple of months we will surpass $100,000 of grants globally. And keep in mind, depending on who you are, $1,000 is a lot or a little. But when I started Diversability in 2009, we had gotten a $500 grant, which was the most amount of money I had seen for a project that I was working on. So sometimes the money matters, yes, but it’s also the vote of confidence in an idea from your peers, that they want to help you succeed or take your project to the next level.
I remember grabbing dinner with a friend and I was thinking about my own advocacy. And it’s interesting being in this space because you want to think about how do I avoid advocacy, burnout, or compassion fatigue? And I remember I was at this dinner and I was thinking about how I feel like I haven’t made that much of an impact. And the friend I was having dinner with actually I think had gotten hired as a speaker, and she was like, “Tiffany, this fund that you created at Georgetown went directly to supporting my livelihood.” This is what she said. So I’m actually getting to see the impact of that fund, even if it’s small amounts in the beginning, happen right away.
So yeah, I think it’s just remembering that we’re all part of a bigger movement and also thinking about how can we create more sustainability in this space? And I’ll just share a very small example of this, which is my book, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto, it came out last fall. And I did receive an advance from my publisher, so I was paid. And I used part of that advance to hire a disabled designer who is the designer behind The Anti-Ableist Manifesto art. And then I also used that money to hire a disabled editor. And we hosted our first launch event in Los Angeles at a disability-owned bookstore called The Last Bookstore. And so these are all ways where I was like, “Okay, here are ways that I can invest in disability-owned businesses, even if it’s disabled solopreneurs, all throughout the supply chain of even just this one project of launching a book.”
Jay Ruderman:
Awesome. Well, Tiffany, thank you for being my guest on All About Change. I’ve learned so much from you. It was a pleasure talking to you. And thank you.
Tiffany Yu:
Thanks so much for having me.
Jay Ruderman:
Thank you for being part of the All About Change community. We aim to spark ideas for personal activism, helping you find your pathway to action beyond awareness. So thank you for investing your time with us, learning and thinking about how just one person can make the choice to build a community and improve our world. I believe in the power of informed people like you to drive real change, and I know that what we explore today will be a tool for you in that effort.
All right, I’ll see you in two weeks for our next conversation, but just one small ask. Please hit subscribe and leave us a comment below. It lets us know that you value this content and it supports our mission to widely share these perspectives. If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out this next video. I chose it for you and I know you’re going to enjoy it. I’m Jay Ruderman. Let’s continue working towards meaningful change together.
Today’s episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website Allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation.