Jose Rosario, Cool Cat; Voice from the Disability Community
This is an interview with Jose Rosario, a bad ass activist, mental health therapist, super smart and fun guy who has somehow never watched Star Trek. It is a part of the Cool Cats: Voices from the Disability Community series, in which Meriah interviews cool people from the disability community so you can get to know them.
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Jose’s “Short” Bio
Born to young Puerto Rican parents, José Rosario developed Cerebral Palsy as a premature baby. His family’s journey towards equity deeply impacted his mental health. Currently nearing his PhD in Clinical Psychology, his research focuses on cultural trauma in intersectional communities. He is an Interdisciplinary Minority Fellow for the American Psychological Association, member of the Congressional Diversity and Equality Advisory Board for Congressman James Langevin, and member of the Rhode Island Attorney General Community Advisory Board. He has been honored with the Chris Martin Humanitarian Award and the Victoria Lederberg Award for Excellence in Psychology. José is a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator helping business, nonprofits, and educational institutions to understand and implement identity-inclusive mental health protocols and culturally aware community healing.
An Interview with Jose Rosario, Cool Cat
Meriah: [00:00:00] Okay. Welcome Jose. Thank you so much for joining me here on Unpacking Disability and, the Cool Cat Voices from the Disability Community Series where we try to. bring disability community together and introduce cool people from the cross-disability community of which you are definitely one. And thank you so much for being here.
Jose: Thank you for having me. I’m so glad that we have a space to also show people with disabilities is not one note characters. We are complex.
Meriah: Oh, absolutely. I’m wondering if you can take a minute to introduce yourself.
Jose: Sure. Who am I? That’s a great question. I am a speaker. I’m an activist.
I’m also a therapist. I’m mental health therapist, and I’m a researcher. All of my work is about intersectional violence and how intersectional communities, queer bipoc folks, [00:01:00] queer, disabled folks react to violence and engage in healing. And so, I’m often thinking. About how folks are experiencing harm from various directions.
And we don’t just cower in fear. There are ways in which we pick ourselves up as a community and move forward. And so, wanting to bring that to light and support and affirm that as much as I can.
Meriah: Wow. Thank you. There’s so much I want to talk to you about. Yeah. So much. One of the things about the Cool Cat series is as I started this a long time ago,and I ask the same set of questions to everybody. And the point of that is really to emphasize the difference in our answers and how we are so very different. Like we’re all coming to this with a lived experience and disability and we’re so diverse. I think that’s part of the beauty of everyone answering the same set of questions.
Diving into those questions, [00:02:00] I am wondering what is your connection with disability?
Jose: Oh, such an intimate connection, right? I have been disabled my entire life, and I recognize that disability is the one identity where it can happen anytime in your lifespan. So, all I know is my experience as a disabled person.
I was born premature. A couple of months into birth, I stopped breathing and, acquired some brain damage, which led to my CP diagnosis. And so being in a wheelchair using canes like this has been a huge part of me. And I think for a long time there was this. Tension, right? The sort of like, why me aspect to this?
Why am I different? What did I do? Why did I have to be this way? And I have very fortunately swung on the other side of the pendulum and been like, you know what? The way that I have to access the world, the way that I have to go into a space and be like, how do I arrange myself here? How do I navigate?
This has been a skill that has taught me a [00:03:00] lot. It’s taught me to think on my toes to be flexible. And I have really found meaning in that. And as I get older and as I delve deeper into my own career, I’m finding myself really looking, and we were talking about this before this about ancestral wisdom, right?
And I come from some pretty cool disability activists, right? Like those people are the people that we come from as a disability community. And so really finding strength and love and affirmation and people like Judy Heumann, for example, is a big hero of mine. So that’s my sort of quick spiel on how I feel about disability.
And I love the word disability too. It’s a historical term, right? It is a civil rights term. I want to reclaim that word.
Meriah: I feel very strongly about that too. Amen.
Jose: Yeah.
Meriah: Quick question, Star Trek or Star Wars.
Jose: I have to be honest, I am, I’m not familiar with either, but I love Baby Yoda, so for my partner, I’m going to say Star Wars.
Meriah: Yoda is pretty cool, yeah. Can [00:04:00] never fault Yoda.
Jose: that’s all I got. So, we got to go with what we have.
Meriah: Okay. If you could live in any other country for two years, where would you go?
Jose: Oh, my goodness. I would say Puerto Rico, but obviously that’s a complicated. Answer, because of the colony status. But I think if I had to think outside of that, I’ve actually heard that London is pretty accessible. Given that we don’t have the A DA in another country, that it can be pretty accessible.
Meriah: Wow.
Jose: That’s cool.
Meriah: And what dish would you bring to our community picnic potluck.
Jose: Oh, you picked the right question for the right person. I am a foodie. I love cooking. I think food allows me to connect back to my family.
I think I’d have to bring some kind of Puerto Rican dessert, specifically coconut rice pudding. I know it sounds odd. No, I love it. I love it. Yeah, I could eat it every day. There’s something about the spices and the coconut. It just brings me right back home. [00:05:00] Yeah, you’re with me. Yeah.
Meriah: So, I’m wondering if we could move in now to, and this is probably going to be a really big question for you because you’ve done so much. But how did you come to doing what you do? Like how has your career trajectory flowed?
Jose: Yeah. I always say that I thought my career was going to be something very different. I trained as like an addiction scientist, so I was very traditionally, psychology focused, right? Looking at things like interventions and randomized control trials, and I thought that was where I was going to be. Like, I really thought I was going to be that guy that just did trials all the time. My life changed. Overnight, really, in 2017, somebody asked me to come to a talk, and I thought, oh yeah, I’m so ready. I’m going to bring my data and I’m going to make charts that match the colors of the conference and it’s going to be so great for my nerdy brain. And they were like; we don’t want that.
We want you. And in sharing my own experience of being a mental health professional, of being different. [00:06:00] That was the theme of the talk. I realized that I’m not happy with science that is decontextualized. Like I want to think about how people’s lived experiences impact mental health and psychological wellbeing.
And from that talk finding people saying I wish my brother could hear this. I wish my neighbor could have heard your talk. It made me realize I’m not alone. There are so many people who have lived experiences that impact our mental health and that led me to the Phoenix Empowered the idea that like, we have to rise up, but we actually have to be empowered to rise up.
Otherwise, it’s not going to happen. And so that’s where my life’s work Really pivoted and now it’s all about that. It’s all about uplifting the stories and educating the public to be like, mental health is not one size fits all, and we need to do better. We have to, for the communities that are suffering currently in our world, I get passionate all, yeah.
Meriah: Thank you. And that is so interesting, like how you were really on one track and then it just [00:07:00] serendipitously evolved and expanded to include more of who you really are, huh?
Jose: Yeah. I don’t even recognize that person anymore. I feel like I’m living in my truth now.
Meriah: And where would you like to see yourself in five years?
Jose: In five years? I have a dream that our nonprofit will be able to open a holistic, fully radical, healing centric center for wellness that can provide more services nationally and do more than we’re already doing.
I think in five years, I want to see us being at the forefront of the mental health conversation and talking about how identity and mental health are interconnected. That’s my goal for the next five years, I’ve always loved video production.
I’m a film nerd, and so thinking about different media ways to talk about mental health has always been interesting to me.
Meriah: Yeah. I couldn’t agree with you more about how that. That identity and that inter intersection and all of that just really, it’s all connected.
Yeah. But I’m wondering, could we [00:08:00] also take a minute just if you could, tell, talk a little bit more about your nonprofit? What is the Phoenix Empowered about?
Jose: Yeah. So, we have a, the two-pronged mission, right? The first part is uplifting stories, and we do that in a couple of ways.
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We have a blog that people contribute to. We’re actually relaunching our podcast because. Ironic to the story I just talked about my career launch, the first season of our podcast. I’m going to name it. I’m going to say it. It was pretty boring. It was pretty sciencey and academic and some of the feedback I got was like, Jose, where are you?
Like, where’s your voice? And so, we’re coming back with a new co-host. It’s a lot of fun. We’ve been recording, it’s one of my close friends whose also part of TPE, and so we’ve just been able to sit and talk. So that’s another way that we’re doing storytelling. And then a lot of our work is education.
Two years ago, we piloted a mental health literacy program for providers for primary care and outpatient providers, and now that’s called national. So, I travel, and I do talks and consultation and I [00:09:00] train. we are busy and right now with the things in the world that are happening, a lot of folks are wanting identity centric mental health training, and so we’re looking at how to beef that up and how to provide that on a larger scale.
Wow. It’s been, yeah, it’s wild. All the while I’m getting a PhD by the way. I’m almost done. fingers crossed. I will be done by May 2026 universe, please.
Meriah: Wow, you’ve got a lot going on.
Jose: I told you that. Enough coffee in the world, and I’m Puerto Rican and have been drinking coffee since I was six,
Meriah: But the TPE just sounds so cutting edge and so cool because it’s this weaving together of so many different factors that, in my opinion, really genuinely transform and shape who we are. They go towards that social transformation and change, like all that good stuff, huh?
You’re, yeah. Diving into [00:10:00] some real authenticity.
Jose: Yeah. I’ve had so many people say to me, how have I never heard of cultural trauma? How have I never heard of the radical healing model? And so being able to uplift the incredible scientists, particularly women of color, who have been at the forefront of the radical healing movement and people of color who have been at the forefront of the radical healing movement, has been really important to me.
And it’s also important to the way that I practice, right? I consider myself a therapist that wants to tap into cultural authenticity. Ancestral wisdom, how do you want to live your life? And it’s all rooted into who I am as a person.
Meriah: Yeah. And that’s just a, living here in Hawaii as I do, cultural trauma is, it’s real. It surrounds everything here.
Jose: for sure.
Meriah: Yeah. So … I love what you’re doing. Love your model. so not to be morbid, but what do you want people to remember about you when you’ve gone
Jose: I’ve been talking about this a lot because one of the things I’ve always said is that the Phoenix Empowered is not Jose show. [00:11:00] It’s actually not about my story, it’s about the collective story of so many minoritized groups and so I think when I’m gone, I want to leave the foundation for more change to happen. I want to be able to mentor and support the next generation to come on and say, we’re going to keep pushing for progress, for human rights, for civil liberties, for psychological wellness. That is comprehensive. So, I think as long as I’m able to make a dent in the work and allowing myself to maybe bring forth more radical healing therapists and scholars, then I think that’s, that would be enough for me.
Meriah: Yeah.
Jose: Yeah.
Meriah: If you could say something to yourself in the past that is you that was really struggling with something related to disability, what would you say?
Jose: Yeah, immediately. I’m such a therapist, but I go back to that inner child, right? The child that would sit in his closet, which by the way, I recognize the [00:12:00] symbolism being queer and hiding in my closet, but I would hide in my closet and cry and be like. God, why me? Why did you do this to me? And I think often about how I would probably turn to that kiddo and say, this is a part of who you are and it’s going to shape how you see the world. And how you see the world is actually pretty cool. It’s going to make it so that you’re not satisfied with the bare minimum and you’re not satisfied with the status quo. it brings me. Strength. All of my identities bring me strength. And so, I would want to hug that kid and be like, there’s more for you to do here and you haven’t figured that out yet.
Meriah: Yeah. And I’ve always really believed that about disability, that it’s this platform upon which we experience our reality in this world. And that lens and that experience, that platform that we’re approaching our lives with is awesomely unique. Yeah, we really do see things so differently and it really is something to appreciate, especially I think as we get older, it’s easier to do that, huh? Yeah. [00:13:00] Like when we’re younger, it’s just. All this pressure to be like everybody else.
Jose: Yeah. We see it as static when we’re younger, but I think as we get older, I think we realize it’s more flexible and dynamic and it’s changing moment to moment and we’re able to respond to that. We have the skillset to be like, okay, the world around me is changing. I am still me. How am I going to operate in this space? In the way that works for me. It’s a pretty incredible skill, I think.
Meriah: It really is. And what do you like about your particular disability?
Jose: When you see a person walking with canes or walking with a wheelchair, and I think. Inspiration porn. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Incredible Ted Talk by Stella. Yeah. Stella talks about how like we’re always patted, and gold starred for what we do. The thing that I like is that I’m able to confuse people, that people take a look at me and they’re like, oh, he’s in this space. I like that. I like that I can show people that disability is nuanced and complex and often not [00:14:00] something I’m thinking about in like when I’m making my decisions about my life, I’m thinking about all of me, all of the pieces, the son, the brother, the partner, whatever that may be.
Meriah: And what’s one thing that you wish people would get about disability? Understand.
Jose: We need to move away from a deficit model. We really need to stop seeing disability as something that needs to be pitied or cured. I think we really need to see it as something that is beautiful and to give voice to people with disabilities at the table. How many times do we have conversations about accessibility? Without people with disabilities at the table. And frankly, if we universally designed things right, if we thought about accessibility at the jump, we wouldn’t have questions about access in the present. So, we really need to be having more conversations. I think legitimacy to our experiences is so important and crucial right now with everything going on with healthcare and with access to resources. [00:15:00] we need the support, but we need to be heard.
Meriah: And what single piece of technology makes your life easier?
Jose: I’m going to flip it a little bit, if that’s okay. in another life, I was a disability services counselor at a university, and I got to see this really cool piece of technology that I got to tell you was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I am a big, smart Pen fan. I love the idea of being able to record while you’re writing and then being able to tap and go back to the recording. I think we could all use things like that, and so I find things like smart pens really helpful. For me personally, text to speech is really helpful. I’m a two finger typer. So, if I can speak to a computer, I am all about it. But I think technology in and of itself continues to get more and more accessible. It’s really exciting. I can only think about what it would be like to be in college now with more resources available and more resources that are free too, which is really cool.
Meriah: Alright!
This is just my water bottle, but it’s also got the Star Trek stuff in it, the reason why I love Star Trek so much is because Star Trek’s vision and I grew up with Star Trek. Every Thursday night as it came out, brand new. We’d sit around and watch the episodes. So, I grew up with it. And in Star Trek, the approach to the world is so different. One, they’ve evolved past money. There’s no money, there’s no nothing. Everybody’s moving into like work that they’re engaged with, that they love this contributing factor. Like all of this and the way that they see things is so completely different. The chief engineer in the enterprise, which is like the main StarCraft, is blind.
Jose: Oh, wow.
Meriah: Yeah. And then they cover all of these different disability intersections in Star Trek. for example, one of the episodes had, a deaf man who was an interpreter. It was called the Interpreter. And his job was, he was the interpreter. And they had, all these episodes that cover disability in these completely different ways. Even [00:17:00] the ship’s counselor who’s sitting next to the captain all the time, she’s an empath. So, they value that skillset as well. And so, like when they, the ship comes up, they’re meeting aliens and, not googly, green, whatever, but they’re meeting like another race They put them on screen, they’re talking, they have a universal translator, so it translates everything. They can always understand each other, and that’s why, and then the screen goes off, the captain turns to the counselor and he’s okay, so what do you sense? She’s I’m sensing, hostility, or I’m sensing this and this, and she’ll talk about what she’s feeling from. another race. And so, there’s this whole validity to all of these things, like from like emotions, from like the way that we see things, from like the way that we emote everything in Star Trek. And it’s always been my personal like vision for our future. And because I grew up with it too. It’s this idea that it really is about [00:18:00] value. It’s about. Access. It’s about seeing things in a different way. And our cultures, you know this particular US American capitalistic culture. Is very much, shaping this mainstream to value things in this certain way, but it doesn’t have to be that way. And with, I’m circling back to technology, I promise. I love it. Technology and with the tools and with our different, seeing things in this different way and being open and being curious. It changes. Everything.
Jose: I think I need to go back and watch Star Trek. This is sounding right up my alley. I don’t where have I been?
Meriah: Yeah. Strange New Worlds is a good place to start with. It’s the new episodes, and they’re all on Paramount not to be an ad here. Strange New Worlds is probably a good baseline. It gets you going. In viewing some of the Next Generations, some of the older episodes, there’s some things that you would never put it on air now
Jose: a monument of the time
Meriah: Yeah.
Jose: Love that. We got to be more radical sometimes. We sure do.
Meriah: How can people connect with you?
Jose: Yeah, listen, we are always open to working with folks who care about mental health, justice and equity. You can find us at the Phoenix Empowered on all platforms, or you can find us at TP Empowered on X in blue Sky. You can also reach out directly to me at connect@thephoenixempowered.org and let’s talk about how you want to see the world be a better place. You can maybe write for our blog or come on our podcast. There are lots of really cool ways to get involved. At The Phoenix Empowered and More to Come. We have a lot of exciting things and we’ve been talking a lot about how we have a responsibility, knowing what we know about mental health experiences to respond.
And so, we have a lot of cool ways that we’ve been talking about, thoughtfully responding to harm, and we’d love to have people involved in that,
Meriah: I can’t wait to do that. Thank you so much for being here Thank you. Just such a delight to meet you.
Jose: So true. I hope I get [00:20:00] to come back and we can have more conversations. Yes. I’ll report back on Star Trek. It’ll be great. Thank you for having me. And thank you for creating this space. How cool.
How to Reach Jose Rosario and Phoenix Empowered
- connect@thephoenixempowered.org
- www.thephoenixempowered.org
- @thephoenixempowered
