My name is Liliete Lopez. The first time I ever set foot in a classroom I was 15. I just graduated from Queens College with a double major in Political Science and Urban Studies. I\u2019m about to begin a master\u2019s program in Urban Affairs at Queens College. I\u2019m from Nicaragua, where people with disabilities have no rights. I came to the United States when I was 14. I had never attended school before that.<\/p>\n
So when I came to the United States, I not only had to learn English; I also had to learn to read and write. I went right into high school and it was awful. I felt like a captured animal. The other children didn\u2019t understand me. I attended a high school for the blind and visually impaired, and of course, I thought it would be a friendly place \u2014\u00a0but it wasn\u2019t. I was bullied by teachers and students who told me I was never going to make it. But I believe in angels. I found people that motivated and encouraged me, especially Paul Geraci, a counselor from the New York State Commission for the Blind, who told me: \u201cYou will go far; you are college material.\u201d<\/p>\n
I credit my parents with a lot of my success, because they never treated me like a person with a disability. Neither did my brother or my sister. They taught me to make decision on my own: that just because I had a disability didn\u2019t mean that I was unable to think. I want to work in public policy with people with disabilities: veterans, and low-income people. I feel that I could make a difference in their lives.<\/p>\n
Liliete received her master\u2019s degree in May and plans to teach students with disabilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My name is Liliete Lopez. The first time I ever set foot in a classroom I was 15. I just graduated from Queens College with a double major in Political Science and Urban Studies. I\u2019m about to begin a master\u2019s program in Urban Affairs at Queens College. I\u2019m from Nicaragua, where people with disabilities have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversations"],"yoast_head":"\n