Disability news and resources in North America

Library > Countries > North America

This page lists the countries in North America with resources and recent highlights.

Countries

• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Belize
• Canada
• Caribbean
• Costa Rica
• Cuba
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Grenada
• Guatemala
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Jamaica
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Trinidad and Tobago
• United States

Recent Highlights

In El Salvador:

Invisible, forgotten and tortured: the reality of persons with disabilities in El Salvador. (In Spanish, 2025, Cristosal)

In Trinidad and Tobago:

Searching for silence: Tinnitus 1 - 0 Trinidad and Tobago. (Feb, Disability Debrief)

In the United States:

What being institutionalised taught me about resistance. And why these lessons come back as Trump attacks marginalised communities:

“It can feel like we must yield to those in power. But what the institutions of my childhood taught me is that obedience only gives permission for systems of exploitation to continue. When I had lost all other freedom, non-compliance reignited my will to survive.” (Jun, Disability Debrief)

The Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Expanding Public Education for Disabled Students:

“Although this policy could have taken away resources from non-disabled students, in fact, education and employment also increased for non-disabled individuals. These effects align with evidence that the mandates increased spending per student by up to 15%. Families were also impacted: the mandates increased employment among mothers of disabled children and the probability that disabled individuals became household heads. Over the long term, the mandates paid for themselves by generating government revenues in excess of their cost.” (Apr, Arxiv)

The Access Coalition Releases Unprecedented Suite of Inclusive Design Resources to Transform Retail Spaces, including the inclusive spaces playbook. (Feb, AAPD)

Disability Justice Organizers share where they find hope in the struggle for disability justice as we go into the second year of Trump 2.0. (Jan, Truthout)

The Precarity of Disability Rights Historically and in the Trump Administration.

“The current administration has largely rejected the value of disability rights, as well as a broader set of rights and programs that pursue active pathways to enable opportunities and participation by a range of groups. To undercut disability rights, they define disabled people as unworthy, emphasize and even manufacture conflicts to justify the denial of disability rights, dismantle the infrastructure required for disability rights, and reconfigure power relations across settings to disempower disabled people in claiming rights. Meanwhile, they assert instead the value of competition and negative rights, although the opportunity to compete and the “freedoms” of negative rights are not actually possible for people with disabilities without a communal commitment to access and support. They center a medical model in which cure is imposed on some, and left unaffordable for others, in which one’s ability to meet the standards of normalization and productivity determines inclusion and one’s failure to meet these standards justifies exclusion. Most of American history had been characterized by policies and practices that defined disability as a personal tragedy and left disabled people disempowered, and now this relational view has surged back into political prominence. The fragile infrastructure of disability rights is indeed easily subverted. As relational claims, rights quickly fall apart if these claims are no longer recognized as legitimate, if the rights holders are again constructed as unworthy, and if the infrastructure for participation and empowerment is decimated. In this context, even rights on paper do little to empower disabled people.” (Jan, Societies)

Winter Storm Checklist for Disabled People. “This checklist highlights disability-specific actions to take before storms hit, including planning for power loss, heat, communication, and accessible evacuation.” (Jan, The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies)

“I'm honored to be your ancestor” Remembering Alice Wong, in her own words. (2025, Disability Debrief)

Get set for independence: Why I left the rehab hospital more disabled than when I arrived. (2025, Disability Debrief)

Yield: An comic illustrating the dehumainzing bureaucracy: “To survive as a disabled person, I have to give away so much of myself.” (2025, Crucial Comix)

What to Know and Do about Ongoing Changes to U.S. Disability Law and Policy. (2025, HPOD)

On the Architectural Hostility of Doorknobs:

“For me, a doorknob is never just a doorknob. It’s the first handshake with a room. It’s the opening sentence of a building’s story. It is a dense, information-rich object, a metal or porcelain palm that tells me everything I need to know about the space I am about to enter and the people who inhabit it. It’s a tactile bellwether for empathy, consideration, and sometimes, for danger. It is the gatekeeper, the greeter, and the warning sign, all in one.” (2025, Sightless Scribbles)

They Took Sledgehammers to Sidewalks – Here’s Why. History of activism from 1960s and 1970s at the University of California:

“How were we going to make ourselves free?” (2025, PBS)

Building A Disability-Inclusive AI Ecosystem: A Cross-Disability, Cross-Systems Analysis Of Best Practices. Specific recommendations across employment, education, benefits, healthcare and other sectors. (2025, CDT)