Adrienne Miao interviews Matthew LeFluer, a self-advocate with autism. Matthew works extensively on committees with disability organizations and the State of Vermont — including the CDCI Community Advisory Council. Matthew has a lot of experience with disability service systems in Vermont, and he has a lot of advice for how to make those systems work better.

https://youtu.be/0GFAxfqgdQY

A full transcript of the episode appears below.

Adrienne Miao: Thank you for joining us. My name is Adrienne Miao. I am the Community Services Coordinator at CDCI and I am so excited today to have our guest, Matthew LeFluer joining us. Matthew, do you mind introducing yourself?

Matthew LeFluer: Thank you, Adrienne. Yes, my name is Matthew LeFluer. I live in Alburgh Vermont in Grand Isle County, the last town before Quebec, Canada and Rouses Point, New York. I use pronouns he/him. I live with family. My occupation is City of Vermont, statewide, 15 to 16 probably to be determined committees across Vermont. I work as an advisor, a council member, and a committee member and a commission member. My work is very, very complex across the state of Vermont, but I do it for just the individual access needs of the person. I try to make sure that their access needs are met fully by the ADA American with Disability Act law, but also as an individual to make sure that everybody has a right to the way of life in the Green Mountain State that they care and love about. Thank you for having me.

Adrienne: Thank you, Matthew. We are going to talk a little bit more about the work that you have become involved in and we’re so happy to have you on the CDCI Community Advisory Council right now. But I want to ask you a little bit about growing up. My first question is, have you always been a doer? You seem to be very involved.

Matthew: Yeah, when growing up, I always had the notion of being a doer. Not at first. I thought I would just step back and let someone else do it, to take charge. See where that would’ve brought me to or where that would go. But in life, I say to get things done… I have to self-advocate for myself and my family and try to be a role model for children, families across the state, but also in my own circumstances is try to be better at trying to communicate to other people. Try to understand people in their way.

Try to figure out what I truly want. What I truly want is the collaboration and cooperation of individuals no matter what background they’re from. Because what I see in my life is if I don’t collaborate or keep in contact with individuals in my life, then nothing will get done. As for the question as for me being a doer, I take this very seriously because there’s people out there that don’t take their job very, very seriously. I want to show it, see what they do, not what they say approach to my work because anything less, it’s just plain lip service, not true. I don’t like giving lip service to people. For me and my life, I think being true to myself and my way of looking at what I can offer to be my authentic self in that process, is the best way to serve the community of Vermont statewide. Thank you for asking that question.

Adrienne: Thanks, Matthew. We’ve just mentioned that we’re both in Vermont right now and I know you do a lot of work across the state. I’m wondering what are some things that you like about living in Vermont?

Matthew: Thank you for asking that question. What I like about living in Vermont is the snow. As you may know, winter weather is very, very breathtaking to myself and my family. It’s just been a miraculous site to experience. Yes, it’s cold, wet and heavy. Sometimes it’s a chore to have to clean your driveway, snow blow your driveway, do it by hand. But it’s also very beautiful that I’d be able to experience it firsthand, and that is one aspect. One part of why I like Vermont is that winter beauty that everybody likes here.

Another part of the reason why I like coming to Vermont, is it’s a small state which is not as crowded. It’s more open, open free. It has some advantages there of why it’s so free. It has the better health advantages among other states. But also, it has the nature of why it’s called the Green Mountain state of Vermont. It’s that nature aspect that people come to live and enjoy and it’s quiet on days. For me that’s very peaceful. Number three, which I like about Vermont, that stands out among others, it’s the democracy of Vermont.

Voting rights and how it’s being run. There are some progress moving forward, but for all in all, it’s done pretty good so far. Voting rights are individual rights and individual rights are disability rights. It all works together. I think Vermont has shown the nation that everybody has a right to vote no matter what. I think in a democracy which is under attack from extremists across the nation, I think Vermont has done pretty good on protecting individual rights. That’s number three of why Vermont stands out among the rest. Thank you.

Adrienne: Thanks, Matthew. In telling your story a little bit, I’m wondering if you could share a little bit about what school was like, what it was like growing up and when you came to Vermont.

Matthew: Thank you, Adrienne, for asking that question. Let’s start off about my livelihood when I grew up. I actually did not live here in Vermont. I actually lived in the state called Iowa, they call it that state for a reason. It’s a state that I was forced living there. Growing up, I was an orphan. Me and my twin brother were orphaned. Our birth mother, not our adopted mother, our birth mother was a heavy user on drugs and was an all-out partier all night. We don’t even know who the father is at this point.

All I know is she was living her life at this point with me and my twin brother in her womb at this point. She did drugs that affected me and my brother cognitively, ADHD, fetal alcohol syndrome, born premature. Then from that point, we actually had safe haven with an Amish family, which was in Kelowna, which took us in until we were adopted by my true mother and father. Which was they wanted us since day one and we’ve been living with them ever since. But for all in all, my growing up there, it was a challenge.

I wouldn’t sit there and say it was the best, but that’s all I remember was growing up there. Then me and my family moved from Iowa to Vermont in 1994. 1995 was actually physically in Vermont, but 1994 is when we moved. 1993 is when we started our move, made our tracks way here, our movement here. 1995 was when we actually settled down here. We’ve been in St. Albans, Vermont for one year. We’ve been in Alburgh ever since, which is for 26 years.

One year in St. Albans, then we moved to our permanent home as we currently live in Grand Isle County for about 26, 27 plus years. Growing up in Vermont in the school system was I should say for me, was so-and-so. My town currently, as you may know, Alburgh has that same, it still was then, still is now. They’ve done better but the resources and tools in Alburgh for the special education when I was growing up at the time was none. There was none available.

Plus the atmosphere changed tremendously in the school system for me and my brother. I felt very, very tense the first couple of times I was there. Because me and my brother, we’re twin brothers. Me and my brother were the only person of color there at the school. It was tense already and it wasn’t welcoming. I wouldn’t say that it was welcoming. I would say that it was challenging, it was hard for the staff to understand individuals with disabilities.

They still have that problem to this day, there’s nothing I could do about that. But there’s nothing I could do about currently to this day about what’s going on in that school system. Everybody knows that school system, special education is not as good where it should be. But back then, there was none. Growing up in a town, in a state for the first time, it was challenging because for a town that’s mainly white, having two Black kids in this town was very nerve wracking.

It was very, very hard to tell other communities that my mom and dad are white. They adopted us. But they were wondering why did we adopt two Black kids? It was just how it was perceived as. We took it as any other person would. We took it with respect and said, “They’re just curious.” That’s all we did. Vermont’s a curious state. Whereas Iowa’s more full-blown racist and they put the R in racist big time because they would literally go after you. I think Vermont has done a lot better than my home state of Iowa has ever would’ve done in my life span actually. But thank you for asking that question.

Adrienne: Thank you Matthew for sharing. I’m wondering if the adversity, that tenseness that you felt has had a role in shaping your interest in the work that you do today. Do you think...