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Author LaSpina, Nadina, author.

Title Such a pretty girl : a story of struggle, empowerment, and disability pride / Nadina LaSpina.

Publication Info. New York : New Village Press, 2019.
©2019

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department  B LASPINA, N.    Check Shelf
 West Hartford, Noah Webster Library - Biographies  B LASPINA NADINA L    Check Shelf
 Windsor Locks Public Library - Adult Department  B LASPINA    Check Shelf
Edition First edition.
Description x, 338 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Form Also available in electronic format.
Contents Part I: Che peccato: what a shame. Riposto -- The best hospital -- Blood sisters -- Blythedale -- The real world -- Better off -- A place where I never want to go back -- Part II: Fighting back. We can fight for our rights -- Just one of the graduate students -- The handicapped teacher -- Amputation -- You do what you have to do -- Not a real cheery picture -- Part III: Love and activism. Love and activism on two continents -- Free our people -- No need to settle -- The handsome new guy -- Dead of winter -- Danny -- Crips are beautiful -- Part IV: Come sono contenta: how happy I am. Vado via contenta: I'm going away happy -- Come sono contenta: how happy I am -- Thank you, life -- I promise we'll have fun -- Riposto.
Summary "Such a Pretty Girl is Nadina LaSpina's story--from her early years in her native Sicily, where still a baby she contracts polio, a fact that makes her the object of well-meaning pity and the target of messages of hopelessness; to her adolescence and youth in America, spent almost entirely in hospitals, where she is tortured in the quest for a cure and made to feel that her body no longer belongs to her; to her rebellion and her activism in the disability rights movement. LaSpina's personal growth parallels the movement's political development--from coming together, organizing, and fighting against exclusion from public and social life, to the forging of a common identity, the blossoming of disability arts and culture, and the embracing of disability pride. While unique, the author's journey is also one with which many disabled people can identify. It is the journey to find one's place in an ableist world--a world not made for disabled people, where disability is only seen in negative terms. La Spina refutes all stereotypical narratives of disability. Through the telling of her life's story, without editorializing, she shows the harm that the overwhelming focus on pity and on a cure that remains elusive has done to disabled people. Her story exposes the disability prejudice ingrained in our sociopolitical system and denounces the oppressive standards of normalcy in a society that devalues those who are different and denies them basic rights. Written as continuous narrative and in a subtle and intimate voice, Such a Pretty Girl is a memoir as captivating as a novel. It is one of the few disability memoirs to focus on activism, and one of the first by an immigrant." -- Publisher's description
Subject LaSpina, Nadina -- Health.
People with disabilities -- Biography.
People with disabilities -- Social conditions.
Poliomyelitis -- Patients -- Biography.
People with disabilities -- Civil rights -- United States.
LaSpina, Nadina.
Disabled Persons. (DNLM)D006233
Poliomyelitis. (DNLM)D011051
Women. (DNLM)D014930
Civil Rights. (DNLM)D002961
United States. (DNLM)D014481
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
LAW / Disability.
Health. (OCoLC)fst00952743
People with disabilities. (OCoLC)fst01057245
People with disabilities -- Social conditions. (OCoLC)fst01057340
Genre/Form Biography.
Autobiographies.
Autobiographies. (OCoLC)fst01919894
Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
Other Form: Electronic version: LaSpina, Nadina. Such a pretty girl. First edition. New York : New Village Press, 2019 9781613320990 (OCoLC)1107317651
ISBN 9781613320990 (paperback)
161332099X (paperback)
9781613321034 (hardcover)
1613321031 (hardcover)
9781613321041 electronic book
161332104X electronic book
9781613321058 electronic book institutional ISBN
1613321058 electronic book institutional ISBN
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