All About Change - ERIC GARCIA - Journalist & Author of We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Eric Garcia is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist focused on politics and policy. Eric is also autistic, and this past August wrote his first book called We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation. After becoming frustrated by the media’s narrow portrayal of autism, he traveled across the country to speak with autistic people about their experiences and debunk different myths that exist about it.    Listen to the latest episode of All Inclusive as Eric and Jay discuss misconceptions about autism, what policies autistic people need, and what autism in America actually looks like through the eyes of those he interviewed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Jay Ruderman, and welcome to the All-Inclusive Podcast. Stories of activism, change, and courage. This is all wrong. I say put mental health first because if you don't... This generation of Americans has already had enough. I stand before you not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen. Each episode, we bring you in-depth and intimate conversations with inspiring individuals trying to change the world. When we have bad ideas about autism, that creates bad policy.

And in many ways, that prevents autistic people from being truly able to live the most fulfilling lives. And today on our show, Eric Garcia. I know that my story is only that, just one story. But I want to know if my story was indicative of any larger trends. Eric is the senior Washington correspondent for The Independent. As a journalist, Eric is focused on politics and policy. But this past August, he wrote his first book called We're Not Broken, Changing the Autism Conversation.

Well, I think we focus too much on trying to cure autism and not enough on trying to help autistic people live fulfilling lives. Eric wrote this book out of a deep frustration with the media's coverage of autism. It's his attempt to dispel the many stereotypes that exist about it. We're Not Broken is a love letter to autistic people. We need to see that autistic people are fine as they are, that they're good people as they are. He dives deep into topics like education, healthcare, and policies which continue to leave autism and other disabilities out of the conversation. Eric paints a new portrait of

what autism in America would look like if the autistic community was allowed to shape and be part of the conversation. Eric, welcome to All Inclusive. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So, Eric, you're a political reporter for The Independent, and you've been involved in politics for a while. So let me just jump into the issue of how autism has been covered in politics. And I've gone through some of what you've written in your new book, and some of your reporting. And we don't have to go that far back when Hillary Clinton, President Obama,

made comments about curing autism. And in fact, President Trump in the debate, which you talk about, you know, talked about, you know, vaccines and the epidemic of autism. Tell me about that whole period and how that made you and others in the autistic community feel and where we may be today. the autistic community feel and where we may be today? Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting because I think that in the 2000s, which was around the time when you saw Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and

John McCain talking about autism and kind of playing footsie with the anti-vaxxers and talking about curing autism, that was kind of the conventional, I don't want to say it was the conventional wisdom. It was more that that was just something that was given legitimacy. So at the time, there's still Andrew Wakefield, the physician, the British physician who had put out that study about vaccines and autism. His study hadn't been retracted from the Lancet. about vaccines and autism, his study hadn't been retracted from the Lancet. And this was still something that was swirling around on internet circles and in pop culture. Oh, Renfrew was talking about it. So it was given an air of legitimacy. And at the same time, this was around

the time that Autism Speaks was launched, which focused very heavily on curing autism. The difference, I think, between Hillary Clinton, Obama, John McCain, and a lot of these other people is that they eventually changed as public understanding and public consciousness changed about autism. Donald Trump didn't really change. So by the time Donald Trump said in 2015 that autism has become an epidemic, and then by the time he was president and he talked about the increasing rates of autism, those ideas had become thoroughly debunked.

We had found out that, you know, of course, vaccines don't cause autism. We had talked about how the increased rates weren't really about an increase in autism as an increase in diagnosis but I think that what we saw was that they still were talking about it from a curing perspective whereas if autism was something to be avoided rather than autism being something that should be accepted and people should be accommodating toward autistic people, I should say. So do you feel that with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, that they shifted, they understood that what they were saying was no longer the policy that was being accepted by most people

in the autistic community? Do you ever feel that Trump understood that what he was saying about vaccines and the rise in autism? I remember in one of the debates, he talked about a friend whose child had gotten a vaccine and developed a fever and then had autism and that it's a problem in our country. Did he ever change? Not really. He never really retracted his ideas about autism and vaccines. Even before COVID, there was a measles outbreak, I remember, in like 2018, 2019. And he said like, oh, the kids need to get the shots. But he never stopped. He never retracted saying I was wrong about vaccines and autism. I shouldn't have said that. And then ofed saying I was wrong about vaccines and autism. I shouldn't have said that. And then, of course, I think that that sowed the seeds for his supporters to say that the COVID-19 vaccine isn't safe.

But he never really retracted his ideas. And I think that he genuinely believed them. We know that Trump delves into conspiracy theory, you know, is a genuinely conspiratorial person. Some of them are because he wants to just blatantly lie to his supporters, like him talking about the big lie and the election being stolen. But then others, I think he genuinely believes. I think that he genuinely believes in some of his conspiracy theories about the media, or he genuinely believes some of his conspiracy theories about Crooked Hillary or any of those

other theories. But yeah, I don't think that he ever really retracted them. And I think that that lack of retracting them allowed for anti-vaxxers to sow seeds of doubt for the COVID-19 vaccine. And there's a direct through line from the autism vaccine panic to the modern day with COVID-19 vaccines. Even the way that he talked about the COVID-19 vaccine, he talked about Operation Warp Speed. that he talked about the COVID-19 vaccine. He talked about Operation Warp Speed. That probably gave into some of the conspiracy theories about the vaccine because it made it seem like,

oh, this is moving fast. It's cutting regulations. It's going around things. So even though his administration was talking about the vaccine, the way they talked about it gave credence to these ideas from anti-vaxxers that it was done at a quicker pace or it was done at a faster clip. And as a result,

they skirted some regulations. He's since at some rallies said, you know, take the vaccine, but his lack of a retraction allowed for some really bad people to capitalize on that. So, you know, talk a little bit about why that feeling that vaccines cause autism is a debunked theory, because you've had a lot of celebrities, Jenny McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, Jim Carrey, you know, people that have come out and been talking about this in the media. Just, you know, for the record, why is that a debunked theory? First and foremost, it should be noted that Andrew Wakefield, who was the physician who put up the study in The Lancet in 1998, he lost his medical license because it turned out that he was being paid by companies that were suing vaccine companies. The other

thing is that he just did bad research. He did faulty research. And on top of that, not only did he lose his medical license, but that study in the Lancet that he put out was retracted in 2010. But even before then, almost as soon as that study came out, there were people who were debunking it. There were people who were saying there's little evidence that this is the case. But it was only in 2010 that it was retracted. But you know, there was never any real legitimate scientific evidence to prove otherwise to prove that or to prove the case that vaccines cause autism. So let's talk a little bit about your book, We're Not Broken, Changing the Autism Conversation. When did you first get the idea to write this book?

So the way I got the idea to write this book is I was at a party in 2015. And my friend, Tim Mack, he was the host of this party. He offered me a drink. And I said, oh, I don't drink because I'm on the autism spectrum. And he's like, oh, there's a ton of people in DC who are on the autism spectrum. He's like, you should write a piece about them. And I thought, Oh, you know, when I get good enough, I'll do it. And at the time, I was an economics correspondent at National Journal. I was perfectly happy doing that for the rest of my life. Then what happened was National Journal

magazine, the print edition of National Journal was going to shut down and Richard Just, who was the magazine editor at the time, he said, I want you guys to pitch the most gopher broke stories before I'm out of a job at the end of the year. So I pitched this idea to him and initially we thought it would be

kind of this fun, you know, kind of chatty, talk of the town kind of piece, you know, and then he said, well, why should this piece exist? And, kind of chatty talk of the town kind of piece, you know? And then he said, well, why should this piece exist? And then I guess in a mix of hubris and frustration, I was like, well, I think we focus too much on trying to cure autism. And now that I'm trying to help autistic people live fulfilling lives. He's like, there's your piece, 10,000 words, let's go. So I wrote that piece, blew up in a way that I didn't really even expect. And you know, I'm a political journalist. And I think initially when that piece came out,

I think when I first started talking with people about writing a book, they wanted it to be a memoir. But I'm a political journalist. I've written for National Journal, Market Watch, Roll Call, The Washington Post, The New Republic. So I wanted to look at it from a political perspective. And the other thing that I noticed was like, I was like, I know that my story is only that, just one story, but I want to know if my story was indicative of any larger

trends, or how my story was an outlier. So what I did is I decided to hit the road. And this book is basically a compendium of multiple trips to Nashville, Tennessee, Michigan, the Bay Area of California, West Virginia, other interviews around Washington, D.C., to see what happened when we have bad ideas about autism that creates bad policy. And in many ways, that prevents autistic people from being truly able to live the most fulfilling lives. So that was really what I did.

And I decided to focus on a number of aspects. But you know, the top ones were policy, education, employment and poverty, housing, healthcare, relationships, gender, race, and then you know, the future of all these things. So I want to get into a couple of issues regarding some of the things you brought up. First around policy. From what you've written, and based on my experience, many people with autism are left out of the policy debates on issues of autism and disability. Why is that? I think that the first, from the time that autism was really being studied in the 1940s, that it was really being comprehensively studied,

either in Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore or in Nazi-occupied Vienna, the main definitive authorities on autism were clinicians and psychiatrists. And they were the ones who were promoting ideas of like refrigerator mothers and unloving parents causing autism. And then afterward, I think that when parents were starting to take back the conversation, when they were trying to take back power, they were the ones who were considered the definitive authority. So the organization that would eventually become the Autism Society of America, it was composed of parents, people like Bernard Rimland and Ruth Christ Sullivan, who she just passed away a few weeks ago. These were parents trying to assert their power when they've been blamed for autism for so long. They thought that autism

needed wealthy benefactors because there wasn't a lot of research or a lot of focus on autism. But once, of course, a famous person's kid is involved, then there's a lot of research or a lot of focus on autism. But once, of course, a famous person's kid is involved, you know, then, you know, there's a lot of research into it. But I think the reason why autistic people themselves weren't included was because a lot of people thought they couldn't advocate for themselves. The difference is now the first generation that grew up with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and who grew up with better diagnosis criteria, this generation was born and raised from like the 1980s to the 1990s. They've now grown up. I'm part of that generation. And now they're able to speak for themselves. And it wasn't because they weren't able to, it's just that they didn't have the resources to. Right. There's been a lot of tension between the Autism Self-Advocacy Network and Autism Speaks

and sort of feeling like, hey, we don't need our parents telling us what to do. We can speak for ourselves. Is that still an ongoing dichotomy within the autism community? Yeah. I think that a lot of autistic people are saying that we can speak for ourselves. And we can make work to, you know, advocate for ourselves, and that we do have a lot more similarities and differences. So I think that divide is still going on. You're starting to see more policymakers listen to autistic advocates, not as much as many self-advocates would like, but still making a decent enough difference. I read in the book that many of the Democratic presidential candidates from Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren to Cory Booker to Pete Buttigieg, had autistic people advise their presidential campaigns

or listen to or included autistic people in their campaigns or interviewed them or consulted with them. So this was a real thing that happened. I think that you're starting to see the policy conversation change just because more autistic people are involved in it. So you're starting to see the change now. And that's why you're starting to see people like Jessica Benham get elected in Pennsylvania. She's a Democrat.

Now, I never thought that somebody like me, a working class kid, queer, autistic, would ever be able to serve in a place like this. And Yulene New in New York, she's also a Democrat. Yulene New was elected to represent the 65th Assembly District in Lower York. She's also a Democrat. Eulene New was elected to represent the 65th Assembly District in Lower Manhattan. But also Republicans like Briscoe Cain in Texas get elected as in-state legislators. You know, there's an interesting fact that I heard, and I just want, maybe you can correct me on this or comment on it, that there are more people being diagnosed with autism, but it doesn't mean that there are more autistic people.

What does that mean? So what happened is that for a long time, autism had a really narrow definition. It's important to remember that autism didn't get its own separate diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1980. Of two previous iterations in 1952 and 1968, it was seen as a symptom of schizophrenia. So it was seen as a very narrow and very rare condition. And it wasn't until there were different permutations included in the DSM, like pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified,

and Asperger's syndrome and a lot of other conditions that you saw an increase in the diagnosis. Also, the other part about that Individual Disabilities Education Act is that it required public schools that received money from the government to report how many autistic students they were serving to the federal government. So you just naturally saw more people getting, you know, being reported. And then on top of that, what you're seeing is that you've also seen the numbers increasing in recent years. That's because we're getting better at diagnosing girls and women and people of color and black and Latino autistic people. So it's not, it's more that we've included more people

because for a long time, we thought that it was only something that affected, you know, upper class people. And then now we're realizing that it affects a lot of other people. So now you're, so it's just that you're seeing more people who otherwise wouldn't be diagnosed, get the diagnosis.

So I want to get back to the book for a second about one of your main arguments as I take it. I'm going to quote, society should stop trying to cure autistic people and instead help autistic people lead fulfilling lives. Was this an impetus for writing the book? It was, it was. It was an impetus for writing that initial magazine article, and it was an impetus for writing the book. Yeah. I think that what I saw was, and I still see it to this day, that I think that a lot of the focus on autism is people being nervous about it, or people being afraid of it, or people wanting to cure autism, or if not cure autism, then mitigate the symptoms of autism with their kids. But what I also saw was that a lot of times this really hadn't borne a lot of productive fruit. Meanwhile, a lot of autistic

people are languishing. One of the things that I also noticed was throughout my time when I traveled throughout the country is I met plenty of incredible autistic people who were much smarter than me, much kinder than me, much harder working than I am, much, you know, just better people than I am, but who languished. And it was because of misunderstandings about autism or because people tried to fix them, or they were always felt like they were the odd person out or whatever. And my feeling was, it was the lack of understanding, it was the lack of empathy. It was the focus on trying to cure autism, that was preventing autistic people from leading good, happy lives. So that was really what this book was meant to counteract in a lot of ways. What do you think are some of the most harmful myths or stereotypes

about autism? I mean, let's start with the big one that vaccines cause autism. That's not the case. Let's talk about what the anti-vaccine myth really is talking about. Yes, it's about, you know, vaccines, but it's also at its core, it's arguing that autism is something to be avoided. It is something that is dangerous, it is something that is scary. And it is something that if you could do that you should do whatever it takes to make sure your kid isn't autistic, right? That's what it is at its core. Otherwise, there wouldn't be fear about your kids becoming autistic because of vaccines. The other one what I say is that there's a lot of dichotomy between, quote unquote, high functioning and low functioning autistic people. I think that a lot of people might say that I'm quote unquote high functioning because I, I don't get overwhelmed, that I don't have trouble reading social cues or social interactions or that I misread such situations. I think that

a lot of quote-unquote low people we consider quote-unquote low functioning are capable of many good things and they just need the right services. Or even if they have difficulty with meltdowns or difficulty with communication a lot of times it's the focus on trying to stop those symptoms rather than listening to what's causing them that leads to problems so that's why i tend to prefer terms like high support needs for people we would normally consider low functioning and lower support needs for uh people we consider quote-unquote high functioning because it's focused more on what they need rather than how people see them or perceive them the other one is that the idea that autistic people that's mainly a condition that affects upper class white male adolescents

you know it affects a lot of adults a lot of women and non-binary people and transgender people are autistic. And there are plenty of people of color. And I think when we don't understand that people of color can be autistic, and that can sometimes have deadly consequences, or they get misdiagnosed as having behavioral disorders, or it leads to, you know, police interactions and police violence, like the case with Arnaldo Rios, when his caretaker, Charles Kinsey, was shot because he was trying to protect him. So that, you know, there are plenty of misperceptions, I think, because of how we see autism. So I want to ask you a couple of personal questions.

Sure. You're a very successful political journalist in Washington. You are a quantity and people want to read you, but why did you not speak out about being autistic until your second job? What made you want to open up about it? I think that I still was dealing with a lot of, and I still think I still do deal with a lot of internalized ablities. I was worried that it would prevent me from getting jobs. It would prevent me from finding stable employment. I didn't want to be judged simply for being autistic. But I think that also came at a big expense because that prevented me from getting accommodations that I otherwise would have gotten. I thought that, oh, well, I must have a job. So I must not be quote unquote,

that autistic. I must not really need to disclose being autistic when really, you know, that was doing myself a disservice because I wasn't getting the help I needed. And I was really languishing in my first job. And I was really struggling in my first job, which was when I was a reporter at MarketWatch. And B, I was really doing a disservice to my co workers because they didn't know how to help me. And they didn't know how to be a good coworker for me. So it was bad all around. And at the same time, I also completely empathize with why people wouldn't want to disclose.

You know, I have a nephew who's autistic and he's young. You know, he's a teenager. But I'm thinking about some of the personal challenges that you've written about, about dating and work. And what'd you learn from those experiences? In dating, I'm still figuring that out. You know, I'm single right now. But I think that I've learned is that you should be with someone who accepts you completely for who you are. I've dated neurotypical women. I've dated autistic women. A lot of people say, do you prefer one neurotype over the other? My response always is I prefer someone who's cool. It's not one is better than the other. It's that there are pluses and minuses with every person and every neurotype. But why is it, in your opinion,

important to label autism as a disability and not a disease? And also, what language should people refrain from when discussing autism? Let me answer the second question first. Like I mentioned, I'm not a fan of the terms high-functioning and low-functioning because I think they set really unrealistic expectations for both types of people. I think they set really unrealistic expectations for both types of people. If you call someone low-functioning, I think that it sets expectations so criminally low that it either allows people to be super patronizing to autistic people, or what it does is it says, well, they're low-functioning, so we really don't need to spend that much money on them,

or we don't need to focus that much on them them or we don't need to focus that much on them. We don't need to think about educating them or we don't need to think about making sure that they have a good housing or enough money to live or things like that. Conversely, if you're called high functioning, then the feeling is, well, they're quote unquote high functioning.

So we really don't need to spend that much money on them because they can do without things. They don't need to spend that much money on them because they can do without things they can they don't need that much accommodations and you know either way they're getting screwed and rather i would prefer terms like i said high support need or low support need um i think also i think autistic people ourselves instead of saying person with autism we prefer that people say autistic people because what we want people to recognize, at least what I want people to recognize is that I want people to say that autism is an inextricable part of who I am. And this is going to segue into the disease is not disability. I need you to see the disability.

And I think people need to see the disability as an inextricable part of someone. And that to change their autism is to change who they are fundamentally. That's what I want. And that's not to say that you don't want to mitigate some of the symptoms like meltdowns or you don't want to change some of the comorbidities or the other conditions that might come with autism like heart disease or epilepsy. But we need you to see the autism. we need to see that autistic people are fine as they are, and that they're good people as they are, they can live good and happy lives. And that goes to your question about disease, disability and not disease. A disability is something that, you know,

that doesn't mean that they're that it's all good. You know, there are certainly impairments with disability and it like just like with deafness or using a wheelchair or anything else. For example, cancer is something we want to eliminate, period. Cancer is a terrible thing that kills people. Alzheimer's, we want to get rid of Alzheimer's. We want to get rid of heart disease. Disability is more defined by how the world disables people, rather than it being an actual, you know, an actual malady. And I think that what we want is we want people to see autism as something that's a disability. And I say it's a disability, they deserve all the rights that other disabled people

deserve. So that's what I would say, you know, does that answer your question? Of course, and they're very powerful points. I want to talk about a couple areas where autistic people are faced with interactions with society that may not be perfect. So let's talk about medicine. You interviewed an autistic woman named Lydia Wayman in Pittsburgh. Yes. And her medical complaints were not taken seriously. How has the medical system failed autistic people and what can be done to change that? Lydia's doctor, Arvind Venkat, who's helped her in a lot of ways,

he said, you cannot think of a worse place for an autistic person than an emergency department between all the bright lights and people poking you all at once and all of these, you know, intervening things and people pestering you with questions but i think the other thing is like is as i said is as lydia said i should say is that you know they often don't take autistic people's needs seriously uh because they they're taught that autistic people can't understand what's going on with them or they can't advocate for themselves or oftentimes oddly enough lydia was doing what people told her, which is to keep a positive attitude and be happy and smile and things like that. But oddly enough, it was those very things that made people think that she wasn't really sick.

So oddly enough, it was playing the social games that prevented doctors from really taking her seriously. So that's one clear example. And then I think another one is that a lot of times, you know, autistic people are oftentimes not eligible for organ transplants because people don't see their lives as valuable. We saw this a lot with COVID-19 also, and that a lot of autistic people were more vulnerable because they were in congregate care settings during the pandemic, and they still are. So let's move to the issue of the makeup, the portrait of what the autistic community looks like. And you talked about this, that historically the people of color and women in LBGTQ have been left out of the portrait. But also you mentioned that disproportionately the autistic community identifies with the LBGTQ community. So can

you talk a little bit about that? So there was a study on autism research in 2018 that surveyed 309 autistic individuals and 310 typically developing individuals. And it found that 30.9% of typically developing autistic people reported being non-heterosexual. autistic people reported being non-heterosexual. 69.7% of the autistic group reported being non-heterosexual. That's more than double. So that is definitely a day. But for the longest time, I think our focus on autism has been on cisgender, heterosexual, mostly men. And a lot of comedies and dramas and movies like that are focused on this idea that autistic men and a lot of comedies and dramas and movies like that are focused on this idea that autistic men and reality tv shows are focused on autistic men who can't get a date and that certainly might be some aspect of it but it's certainly not the whole of of autism and it's

certainly not all of autistic people especially at that large of a part of the population identifies as LGBTQ plus. Let's talk about policing. Yeah. Always fun. Always fun. Our foundation wrote a white paper. It was essentially our first white paper that said most people who are killed by police are people with disabilities. Talk about law enforcement and how law enforcement can better support people with mental disabilities, especially people of color. I think we see that a lot of times police are ill-equipped. Even if they're trained in understanding autism, they still are focusing on obviously promoting safety.

And oftentimes that gives them a lot of leeway with shooting or with police violence. I actually think that's too big of an ask for police officers. I actually think that this is not necessarily a job for policing because that's above their pay grade, even if you're trained for a few hours. I don't think it's the best thing. I think that better what needs to happen instead, I should say, is focus on how do you reduce interactions between autistic people and a lot of other disabled people or people with mental illness and law enforcement more than anything else. Yeah, it's so important. And I think that there's been some discussion in some communities about using a mental health professional to be on the scene or to be consulting when an incident does come up because police, as you say, are not always

equipped to deal with these situations. Yeah. And I want to say that, as I said, I'll repeat it again. I think that's too big of an ask for police. Let's talk about parents. Sure. We talked a little bit about this before, but sometimes parents can play a harmful role in perceptions of autistic people. And how can they be better allies for their children? I think one of the things that I think that you should do is that like,

they should listen to a lot of autistic adults. Autistic parents will say that they're well automatically. And I know because I've seen this even in my own experience. And I get it sometimes on my Twitter mentions where they'll say like, I feel like you erased my child's experience when you talk, when you do these interviews, my response is, I don't want to erase anybody's experience. I think that i have more in common with your kid than people that you might realize and i think that those similarities might help you so i think that's one thing is listening

to other autistic people uh even if they look different or they speak differently or whether they can speak at all there are so many commonalities that that can help autistic people. I think the other thing is starting from a baseline assumption that your kids are human and they deserve all good things and that you wouldn't do to your child what you would do to your other child. I think one of the things let's talk primarily about the Judge Rottenberg Center, which is the facility in Massachusetts that administers shock therapy. Nobody would ever think to do that to a typically developing child. But for some reason, we think that it's okay and it's legitimate for autistic people because

they're autistic. That's not okay. And I think the thing that you need to do is to start from that assumption of, would this be considered a humane thing if this person was not autistic? And most people, if they saw the Judge Ron Briggs Center, they'd say, hell no. It's in Waltham, and it's around the corner from where my daughter goes to school, and I know the history of it, which is awful. We have so many issues that we could get into, but I just want to touch on a couple that I think are so important. You know, I read that only 19% of autistic young adults have ever lived independently. And also that 50 to 75% of autistic people are unemployed or underemployed. So what's your advice on how more people with autism or autistic people can live independently and how more autistic people

can be employed in the workforce? That's not so much a question for autistic people. Those numbers are an indictment of all of us, really. They're an indictment of society. As I said, there are some incredible autistic people I know who deserve good employment, but because a lot of times education gaps are too big or education isn't accessible or adaptable or accommodating, that prevents them from getting college degrees that will allow them to get jobs. It's expectations from employers or misperceptions from employers. It's also, to the point about parents, a lot of times it might be parents thinking that their kid might be better in a cognitive care setting instead of living independently or living within the community. When numbers are that high, it's usually not an individual failing. So rather than giving advice about how autistic people can change, I think the more things that we need to do

is we need to look at how are we failing and how are we not serving autistic people, that these are just such atrocious numbers. Yeah, they're big issues that we need to get better, society needs to get better at. Let me ask you, what'd you learn about yourself while writing this book? And finally, I want to ask you the most important insights that you want people to take away from reading the book. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I learned is that there's many ways to be autistic. And all of them are valid.

I think when I started writing this book, I was worried that I wasn't autistic enough or I wasn't the right kind of autistic. I worried that I didn't know enough about the history or I didn't know enough or because like a lot of my friends growing up were neurotypical that I didn't have the same experience of other autistic people. It's a lot of like my anxieties about being Mexican American and the fact that I don't speak Spanish and the fact that I've never been to Mexico. And I think that what I learned is meeting so many incredible autistic people

is that there's no right or wrong way to be autistic. And then the other thing that I learned was that I'm incredibly fortunate. A lot of things had to go right for me to live a good life. And I think I live a pretty good life now. And the thing that I also saw was how many people, like I said, haven't been able to live good lives through no fault of their own. And that's usually because of gaps in society. So I learned how incredibly fortunate I am. And as far as what I want people to take away from autistic people, I want to take them to take away that autistic people are fine who they are, and that they're fully human,

and that they deserve all the respect that other people of all walks of life deserve. Eric, it's been a pleasure having you as a guest. I want to urge my listeners to check you out and your writing in the independent. I think your political insights in America are really, really interesting. I think people would really enjoy reading your articles. I think people would really enjoy reading your articles. But I also would like to urge my listeners to go out and buy Eric's book, which is We're Not Broken, Changing the Autism Conversation. It's a powerful book.

It's a book you need to read. And I'm sure you can find it on Amazon and wherever you buy your books. But do not not read this book. It's very important. So Eric, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation and I wish you much success in the future. Thank you for having me. I much appreciate it. All Inclusive is a production of the Ruderman Family Foundation.

Our editor is Yochai Meital. Jackie Schwartz is our producer. If you enjoyed this episode, please check out all of our previous conversations. Look up All Inclusive wherever you get your podcast. As always, if you have an idea for a guest or just want to share your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you. You can tweet me at Jay Ruderman or email us at allinclusive at rudermanfoundation.org. Please help us spread the word. Tell a friend or family member and consider writing a review on your favorite podcasting app. That really goes a long way.

I'm Jay Ruderman and I'll catch you on the next installment of All Inclusive. But not goodbye