State's mentally retarded prepare for first vote
By Alice Keesing
Advertiser Health Writer
Carl DiPalma plans to walk into a voting booth on Sept. 21 and mark his ballot — a right that until this year he and others in Hawai'i with mental retardation were denied by law.
DiPalma follows local events. He believes it's time for a change in the political balance in the 50th state. He wants to see more pay for teachers and more support for the disabled. And he wants to have his voice heard.
"We're citizens like everybody else," said DiPalma, 37, who lives in an 'Ewa Beach care home. "I'm going to take that right and vote for the best person who should be in office."
A bill signed into law last month makes Hawai'i just the seventh state in the nation to grant voting rights to people with mental retardation.
It is among the victories won by people with mental retardation and their advocates in recent decades. In some respects, it has been a slow road — those with mental retardation are still denied things that others take for granted. State law can terminate their parental rights and deny them a say in whether their child is put up for adoption. They often fall between the gaps of welfare assistance. About 800 people are on a waiting list for services.
"From our perspective, I think things are changing," said Garrett Toguchi, executive director of The Arc in Hawai'i, part of a national advocacy organization. "We're looking at 50 years of trying to change things and there have been lots of small steps. But the stigma is still there."
One problem is that many people don't understand mental retardation, said Lambert Wai, president of the Arc.
"They're afraid of people with mental retardation," Wai said. "They feel that they could be destructive or harmful to the community. Mental retardation is simply a retardation of the growth of the brain ... it doesn't mean they're dangerous."
Toguchi discovered the prohibition on voting in Hawai'i statutes years ago while he was working for then-Lt. Gov. Ben Cayetano.
Toguchi helped introduce a bill this session, and Cayetano this month signed it into law. Toguchi calls the change in the law a victory for those with mental retardation, even though many were voting already.
DiPalma said he was among them and that he wasn't even aware of the law. No one ever tried to stop him, he said, but he did get a "hard time" when he asked for explanations on items on the ballot.
With the change this year, people will not be denied the right to register or to vote because of mental retardation.
"It's important because they were considered second-class citizens before and this makes them fully fledged citizens of the state so long as the court hasn't declared them incompetent," Wai said. "A lot of them work. They have every right to vote. They understand what's going on."
Wai became involved with the Arc after his daughter was born with profound mental retardation 48 years ago. At that time, there were no services for people like his daughter, Wai said, and he and his wife took care of her at home. It was a stressful job that was "25 hours a day."
The alternative was placing their daughter in the Waimano Training School and Hospital in Pearl City, which for many was the symbol of the community's misunderstanding of mental retardation. Despite efforts to help the patients, Waimano home was plagued by reports about patients being shackled and sedated; female patients being put on birth control without their consent, and unclean conditions.
The home was closed in 1999 and its patients mainstreamed into the community, mostly in small care homes.
"The change has been dramatic," said Wai, whose daughter now lives in a care home where staff help her get the most out of life. "She's about the most disabled you could think of, yet every day she's happy, smiling. They're out in the community two or three times a week, they go to the movies, they go bowling and on picnics. Before she would have been sitting in an institution."
Reach Alice Keesing at akeesing@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
