Sara Fernandez embarked on a journey eight years back from her boyfriend’s homeland, the Dominican Republic, and made her landing at Newark, New Jersey. While passing through the airport’s security checks, she overheard a conversation between two T.S.A agents debating whether to lift her physically to facilitate the scanning process. Fernandez is different — she is a little individual with dwarfism. Interestingly, she had just begun her journey in the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which is responsible for implementing the anti-discrimination policies of the Department of Homeland Security, including those within the T.S.A. Following their uncanny conversation, she ensured that the agent went through some sensitization training.
Fernandez’s roots trace back to Pittsburgh, where she was lovingly fostered by parents who were also little individuals, their paths having crossed at a Little People of America conference. Her father, an immigrant from Argentina, had a knack for numbers and worked as an accountant. She fondly remembers bonding over her father’s naturalization ceremony. Fuelled by their staunch belief in the principles of equality, her parents encouraged her to never let her physical stature define her potential or capability. Despite this, as a young girl, Fernandez preferred to blend in, often being thoughtful, watchful, and somewhat nervous of attracting attention.
With law and social work degrees in hand, Fernandez joined the federal workforce via the Schedule A program, which aims at streamlining the hiring process for eligible candidates with disabilities. Love blossomed, and she wed her then-boyfriend, a man of average height, and together they welcomed their son into the world – a five-year-old little individual.
Throughout her time in the civil rights office, Fernandez constantly found herself pondering over the legislation and policies that enabled her to build a successful career. To ensure accessible workspace, D.H.S facilitated her with a comfortable parking spot, installed step stools in commonly frequented areas, and even had her customized chair imported from the E.E.O.C. As the pandemic hit, her supervisor was empathetic towards her health and afforded her the flexibility to work remotely, owing to her auto-immune condition.
The fiscal year 2021 revealed over ten percent of the federal workforce encompassed individuals with disabilities, with a substantial number being disabled veterans. Over the past decade, the employment rate for adults with disabilities has witnessed a positive increase from seventeen percent to almost twenty-three percent, with a significant surge post-2020.
Fernandez spent her work days at the D.H.S. Headquarters located on the expansive St. Elizabeths campus, a site in Washington, D.C., which was formerly part of the Government Hospital for the Insane. Within the walls of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Fernandez played a pivotal role in enforcing protocols around anti-discrimination and linguistics accessibility, conducting equal opportunity awareness programs, and overseeing accommodation requests for D.H.S employees.
Apart from these duties, C.R.C.L. had the hefty task of setting appropriate guidelines and mechanism for grievance redressal to tackle complaints from the public. The domain of their work was expansive, dealing with situations as seemingly small as the one Fernandez experienced at Newark Airport up to ones of more acute concern: addressing sexual harassment in immigration detention centres, catering to the needs of wheelchair users during FEMA disaster recovery operations, combating racial hostility within the Coast Guard, and responding to assault cases involving federal security personnel.
In and around the capital, D.H.S. officers, their faces concealed behind masks, swooped in on courtrooms and closely monitored immigrant-dominated areas. Now, she had no one to turn to if her husband, whose features stood out due to his darker complexion and broken English, were to undergo any peril. As she says, ‘In these volatile times, I constantly worry about speaking Spanish in public. The fear lingers – what if he’s targeted unfairly?’
The post Fight Against Discrimination: A Little Person Standing Tall at Homeland Security appeared first on Real News Now.
About Author
