Five-Star Disability

Here is a blurb about DeafBlind parents who have a DeafBlind son.

That is interesting read,, yes.

Happy holidays!

ÇRoberto Cabrera, who is DeafBlind Queer, was born to DeafBlind parents in Santiago, Dominican Republic. At the age of one and a half, his mother and he moved overseas to live in Florida. Throughout his elementary and middle school years, Roberto attended public schools in Daytona Beach and Miami and learned English and American Sign Language. He helped his mother for sight and written translations because English was not his mother’s first language.

After graduating from Leigh High School in San Jose, California, Roberto moved to Santa Ann and enrolled in the Santa Ana College. He attended and graduated from college, with an associate of arts degree in business management. Roberto earned his bachelor’s degree in Human Service with an emphasis on Mental Health and his master’s degree in Counseling with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from California State University, Fullerton. Since April 2014, he works as a Senior Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor at the California Department of Rehabilitation.

Roberto has served on numerous committees and boards of Deaf organizations: Students Navigating Accessibility; Deaf Eye and Mind; CAD (California Association of the Deaf) Employment Task Force; Council de Manos (C5) Youth Líderes Committee; 5th Biennial C5 National Conference Committee; California Manos del Corazón (CMC); and Southern California Chapter of CAD. He now serves the C5 Director of Inclusivity. He also is the Co-Coordinator of the CMC La Raza Youth Program and DeafBlind Connect Program.

Roberto recognized that he had struggled with his sightedness during his graduate school years. He admitted his ASL students in the evening class that he identified DeafBlind, and his students accepted him as a DeafBlind ASL instructor. The main reason was that Roberto wanted to be prepared if any emergency situation happened in the classroom or campus building during the night. He met his two DeafBlind Latinx co-presenters who were Tactile Communications (TC) alumni, and they discussed and shared their experiences on the journey of the DeafBlind Latinx identity. They presented their workshop “Overlooked Us?: DeafBlind Community” at the 5th Biennial C5 National Conference in Los Angeles on October 27, 2017. After the conference, Roberto had grown to embrace his DeafBlind Queer Latino identity. In January 2018, he trained to become one of the DeafBlind mentors at the Foundation of Protactile (PT) hosted by the Southern California Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (SCRID) and Southern California Association of DeafBlind (SCADB). In summer 2019, he enrolled in the TC program and learned how to maximize the autonomy of DeafBlind people by providing necessary training in a linguistically and culturally appropriate setting.

Roberto was elected President of SCADB for the 2018-2019 term. He strongly believed any events should be led by DeafBlind individuals. It would help DeafBlind individuals to grow and thrive becoming one of the community leaders. SCADB hosted the workshop series “The DeafBlind Way for Dummies” in San Bernardino on December 1 and 2, 2018, in San Diego on February 23 and 24, 2019 and in Santa Ana on March 9 and 10, 2019. The fundraising purpose was for the future PT ASL workshops with SCRID. Roberto, SCADB Representative, involved the Deaf Counseling Advocacy & Referral Agency’s CoNavigator Task Force in collaboration with Northern California Association of Deaf-Blind, Helen Keller National Center and LightHouse for the Blind – San Francisco Bay Area for developing the training curriculum. SCADB worked with ProTactile Theatre to provide the play in Los Angeles on February 1-3, 2019. The title of the play was “Hija de Zorro,” a Spanish definition of “Daughter of Zorro.” The PT play offered DeafBlind people a unique way to experience dramatic storytelling, through direct interaction with actors. The fundraising event percentage went to the C5 Conference DeafBlind Interpreting Service Fund.

Roberto and his DeafBlind colleagues presented their workshops: “DeafBlind Way: Communication and Culture” at the 55th Annual Texas Society of Interpreters for the Deaf Conference on June 22, 2018; “Pro-Tactile: DeafBlind Way” at the National Center on Deafness Summer Institute on July 26, 2018; “ProTactile is for Everyone” at the CAD Education Symposium on September 13, 2019; and “ProTactile Immersion: Educational Setting” in San Diego on September 28, 2019, and in Los Angeles on October 5, 2019. One of the workshops discussed how interpreters and educational staff impacted DeafBlind students in educational settings.

Roberto is a core team member of Western Oregon University’s DeafBlind Interpreting National Training and Resource Center – DBI (DBINTRC). He is also a DeafBlind mentor of the 2019 and 2020 DeafBlind Interpreting Institute (DBII) cohorts operating by the DBINTRC. The week-long onsite protactile language immersion training provides hands-on experience and mentorship and presents a unique opportunity for valuable feedback while growing and practicing protactile language.

Thank you, Roberto Cabrera, for educating everyone about Protactile Philosophy and empowering the lives of the DeafBlind community throughout California!

Taken from a Facebook post.