“Disability history and culture isn’t recognized or documented in our society, and yet we’re everywhere,” said Wong, who has spinal muscular atrophy. “You just have to notice.”
Wong is being honored for her work in creating and managing the Disability Visibility Project (DVP), which she launched in 2014, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. DVP is an online community resource dedicated to documenting the stories of people with disabilities.
Originally intended to be a yearlong project, DVP continues to thrive in an ongoing community partnership with the national oral-history organization StoryCorps. Participants are encouraged to create and share their own stories to document their lives and what matters to them, without any editing or interference. DVP also creates an online space where people can come together and have thoughtful conversations via Facebook and Twitter.