How Disability Activism Was a Catalyst for My Film Career

I sat on the carpeted floor of my freshman-year dorm room at UCLA, having just completed a particularly arduous political science data analysis project that reaffirmed my decision to become a film major was the correct one. I was mindlessly scrolling on Instagram when I stumbled on a video post by the Disabled Student Union (DSU). In it, the university’s student body president was encouraging students to join the “Strike for Safety” that was currently happening in the administrative building, a protest against Chancellor Gene Block’s mandatory in-person attendance policy during the height of the Omicron wave of COVID-19. She said they would stay there all night if it meant their demands would be met.

For me, a multi-organ transplant recipient and immunocompromised person, this university policy was far from ideal, but not detrimental. I was healthy enough to likely withstand getting COVID, but there was always a chance, a margin of error. I had spent much of my childhood actively pushing against the idea that I was a part of the disabled community. One could say I was even aggressively attempting to fool people into believing my normalcy. My desire to “pass” was often easily achievable, as there’s nothing about my body with clothes on that gives away my medical history.

I had been seeing posts about the event for quite a few days, but could never bring myself to register. I felt like I was in middle school, debating whether or not I was cool enough to be invited to a birthday party. As silly as it sounds, I never felt “disabled enough,” or that I remembered enough of my childhood illness, to claim my place in that community. But as the video finished, I found myself putting my shoes on, checking to make sure I had my student ID, and walking out the door. I am not one to believe in divine intervention or even the presence of God, more generally, but there was no evidence up until that point in my life to suggest I would want to go, and yet I did.

The trek from my dorm room to Murphy Hall was long, and I could feel my heart beating out of my chest with every step. “What am I doing?” I thought. “I don’t belong there.” And yet the invisible hand pushed me down the hill that linked the residential part of campus to the academic one. I would only go for a few hours, then leave. Do my civic duty, get whatever this desire to be connected with these people out of my system, and then go back to my “normal” life. As I walked up the steps, a part of me hoped the doors would be locked; that way I could at least say I tried. But the doors weren’t locked.

When I got up to the second floor, I was shocked by the scene staring back at me. A long hallway wallpapered with posters that read “#UCLAbleist” and “Vulnerable is Valuable,” so that you couldn’t even see through to the wall. I was greeted by a very cheery tall guy in a mask, one of the co-presidents of the DSU. Looking back, I should have greeted him with a big hug and said, “Thank you for doing this. I have needed this community for longer than I am even conscious of. Thank you for taking on this fight.” But instead, all I could muster was, “Hey.”

More than 50 people were sitting on the floor, talking and laughing, some with pizza in their hands, others staring at their computers, doing homework. If I didn’t know the context of the situation, I would have thought I was walking into a cozy club meeting or a sleepover.

I saw a kid from my film fraternity and waved to him. He was reading a copy of The Communist Manifesto, and of course you don’t disturb a college student while they’re reading The Communist Manifesto, so I walked toward the end of the hallway, with the same pit growing in my stomach that I felt on my first day of freshman year. I caught the eye of a girl sitting in a chair, also surveying the scene. She had thin blonde hair and a nasal cannula in her nose. She turned to me and extended her hand. “I’m Maeve,” she said, her smile exuding such light that it made me drop my shoulders and audibly let out a small sigh of relief. I learned that she had cystic fibrosis and was considering getting a lung transplant. But the cool part was before I learned any of those things, I learned she was an art student, she was from L.A., and she loved vintage clothes.

Growing up, I always associated the disabled community with dying, not living. Sick kids who would eventually pass away or be sick forever. That idea filled me with profound anxiety and sadness, so I just stayed away. But here I was, sitting on the floor with Maeve, talking about our taste in music, love of movies and, in the same breath, our medical histories. Throughout the rest of the night, I talked to more disabled students who were there because they couldn’t be silent about their right to safety at UCLA. And the more people I talked to about my own story, the more they made me realize that those rights were mine too. With each person I spoke to, a layer of the wall I put between my inner child and me began to fall away.

As the evening progressed, it was decided that a small group of people would occupy the building overnight, as the Chancellor not only refused to meet DSU’s demands, but refused to even take a phone call with the organizers. I would like to say that I stayed over that night, but I didn’t. The anxiety in my stomach was still too all-consuming. But I did go back the next day for a few hours, and then again the next day. And by the third day, I had bought an air mattress from Target and slept right outside Chancellor Block’s door. And yes, he did have to step over me in the morning to get into his office.

On the fifth night, we all crowded around a small computer screen to watch the last episode of the second season of Euphoria. As the credits began to roll, I took a look around me at all the strong, resilient disabled people I had spent nearly a week sleeping next to, and all I could think about was how our stories needed to be told. Not in an inspirational way, or one that dramatized our existence, but one about disabled kids doing seemingly trivial things like sitting around watching their favorite TV shows; the moments life is made of.

The sit-in lasted 16 days and to say it was life-changing would be a profound understatement. It carried me into the past three years of my filmmaking career and lit a flame in me that has yet to go out. Little did I know that just four years later, I would be heading to both Sundance and South by Southwest with a short film, Unholy, about my experience as a feeding-tube user at a Passover Seder. I truly believe that I wouldn’t have a filmmaking career without the sit-in and what it taught me. More than that, I am lucky enough to know, at 22, the kind of art that I want to make for the rest of my life. Work that holds vulnerability in the same breath as power. Stories of those left behind can actually fuel a movement, and most importantly, give people community, in the places they never expected.

Featured image shows Daisy Friedman on the set of Unholy; all images courtesy Daisy Friedman.