Article by Alexandra Sepe

A few Saturdays ago I made my monthly Park Place mall trip to drink expensive iced coffees and look at flamboyant prom dresses. I didn’t know, however, that this mall trip would change my outlook on life.

Right outside of the mall Starbucks, an elderly man wearing a cream baseball cap initiated a seemingly friendly and unimportant conversation with me and my friends. He introduced himself as Richard. And let me tell you, everyone needs to meet a Richard. Richard asked us “Do you girls know what the best way to travel for free is?” We responded—in unison— “No sir”. Richard then proceeded to tell us that teaching English abroad was one of his greatest privileges as he got to explore vibrant and rich cities like Tokyo. But, he made sure to tell us that in order to do so we need a 4 year Bachelor's degree. 

He then proceeded to preach the idea of believing in yourself before anybody else. We were confused to say the least. But, Richard was going somewhere with this. I remember him distinctly saying “you’re the first person that should pat yourself on the back and say 'good job' or 'bad job, do better next time'". And that once you believed in yourself, anything was possible. Any change you wanted to enact, any bizarre hobbies you might want to pursue, if you believe in yourself it is possible. Richard said that that was something he made sure to tell all his students. 

Richard was curious about what our plans for university were; 2 of us responded with “We are going to the UoA”. So, Richard asked us to do him a favor: to fight for disability rights. It turns out that Richard, a man in his 70s and suffering from a chronic illness, spends his days fighting for people that—as he describes it— “society doesn’t care about”. He was sitting outsise that mall Starbucks to study the mall's doors, to see if they were accessible to all. Richard is responsible for some of the renovations that recently underwent at the University of Arizona. They made the campus buildings more disability friendly. His next project will take place at Pima Community College. We then learned that Richard has spent nearly his whole life giving back. He is a retired veteran and he advocates for veteran rights,  he also didn’t just teach in Japan, but in prison too. 

Richard wants to give suffering —whether mentally, socially, or physically— people  a voice. And that inspires me to do the same. Richard asked us what our future majors were. I said political science, my friend Emma said animal science, and my friend Elia said she wanted to pursue medicine. Richard then told us something along the lines of “there you go! You got a perfect trio; rely on each other, teach each other things”. That is the way to fight for change (whatever it may be). Richard taught me to rely on myself first, but to not be afraid to rely on others as well. The University of Arizona hosts several yearly workshops on Ableism called “Ableism 101”; I encourage students to educate themselves on this topic if they haven’t done so already and to fight for what is right (whether that is by joining the workshop or having an open-minded conversation with a peer).

Richard started a conversation about travel and youth and transformed it into one about justice and change. We should all be more like Richard.