David Hernandez-Saca is an assistant professor of disability studies in education at the University of Northern Iowa within the Department of Special Education. He is co-editor of a book titled Dis/ability in the Americas: the Intersections of Education, Power and Identity which was published earlier this year. He and I also studied and became friends during our undergraduate years at UC Berkeley! David has a great deal of personal and professional experience with disability which is one of the reasons I wanted to be sure to talk with him for one of the first episodes of The New Normal. In this conversation, David and I explore a number of topics, including disability as a social construction, intersectionality, and the potential for real, systemic change in this COVID era.

Leave a voicemail to provide feedback and tell me what you would like to hear! https://anchor.fm/christopher-carr3/message

Additional resources:

• Dis/ability in the Americas: The Intersections of Education, Power, and Identity (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021)


• The Hechinger Report: Is the pandemic our chance to reimagine education for students with disabilities? (December 7, 2020)


• The 1A from WAMU: What Does Intersectionality Actually Mean? (March 29, 2021) SERU COVID-19 Survey, The Experiences of Undergraduate


• Student Experience in the Research University (SERU): Students with Physical, Learning, Neurodevelopmental, and Cognitive Disabilities During the Pandemic, (May-July 2020)


• BBC: Covid: Learning disability death rates 'six times higher' (November 13, 2020)