Felipe was born in Mexico City. When he was 15 months old, he got an eye infection. His family did not take him to get medical attention because they were very poor. After a few days, Felipe’s parents noticed that his condition had significantly worsened, so they took him to the hospital. It was too late. The infection had already resulted in blindness.

Felipe’s family dedicated themselves to taking care of Felipe, and trying to help him get ahead in life. But the lack of economic resources was an ongoing problem; the little money the family had was not sufficient to get any treatment for him or to help him become educated or learn life skills. Hiring professional help of this kind would have been very costly, so Felipe’s family decided to immigrate to the United States, work hard, and find out what resources he might have access to in the U.S. After Felipe and his family became citizens, they were eligible for Social Security benefits.

Even though they received economic support from the government, the family still did not have the information and knowledge about services for him in the community. In 1981, Felipe joined the Chicago Lighthouse for people who are blind or visually impaired (http://www.thechicagolighthouse.org/), where he landed a job filling jars with soap, and putting together packets of toothbrushes/toothpaste and disposable napkins for local hospitals. He also packaged ironing boards in preparation for shipping.

Felipe says he has always believed that, even though he can’t see, he is capable of using his arms and hands to work. Unfortunately, there was not much work available, and for most of the last 15 years he worked just a few hours a week, making very little money.

Felipe looked for another job on his own, but was not able to find one. He then turned to Access Living, where he got a lot of information his employment rights as a person with a disability. He went to many workshops to get information about community services available to him.