Featured Individual: Meet Leslie Gonzalez

SEE ME, NOT THE WHEELCHAIR

BY DAROLYN “LYN” JONES

Meet the very funny, very tenacious, very bright young Indianapolis native and now Ball State University student, Leslie Gonzalez.

Leslie self-identifies as Hispanic, disabled, and part of the LGBTQ+ community. She was born in Indianapolis and graduated from Warren Central High School.

Leslie was born with arthorogriposis multiplex congenita (AMC), a disease characterized by joint contractures (stiffness) throughout her body which in turn limits her muscle use (muscle weakness) and for her has additionally created a scoliosis condition.

Leslie comes from a Mexican background and almost every weekend in the summer, there is a cookout and campfire with her family. You can hear the music and laughter in her backyard. Spanish is her first language, and it wasn’t until the 8th grade that she had a full command of Spanish and English.

Leslie’s entry into the world was challenging. After her difficult birth, she remained at the hospital for eight additional months, while the doctors ran tests and monitored her to see if she was progressing. Her parents were told, Prepare for the worst because she may not survive . She could not drink or eat without aspirating and had to have a gastrostomy tube ()G tube placed, which she continued to use until she was 11 years old. But with many hours of therapy, determination, and practice, Leslie learned how to eat and drink safely. That’s a good thing, because Leslie can often be found hanging with friends between classes at Ball State’s popular Atrium, where students can choose from all kinds of comfort foods to help sustain them.

Leslie has endured ten surgeries throughout her life to release and ease her muscle and joint limitations. Her last surgery was four years ago, when she was fifteen. Use of her hands is limited. She has about 65% mobility in her arms, and she can grab most things. But her arms do get fatigued, especially with all of the typing students do in college. Leslie can type with both of her hands but she does sometimes struggle to reach every key. She uses assistive speech-to-text technology on both her laptop and her phone. Those technologies, Leslie points out, are not perfect and they do sometimes slow her down and can disrupt her flow of thoughts. But she’s learned to slow down and adapt. And just like her friends, Leslie knows how to access popular TikToks and Youtube on her phone.

Leslie pushed herself in physical, occupational, and speech therapy. The doctors said she’d be three years behind everyone else in school. She wasn’t. After or before classes, you can find Leslie at Ball Gym working on her triceps. Leslie reminds us, Just because I’m physically disabled, doesn’t mean I can’t work out. What most of us don’t realize about people like Leslie is that they have been “working out” their entire lives. It’s part of their routine and norm.

Leslie admits she was bullied and often ignored in elementary school, but in middle school, it got better. And by high school, she was the one who always had funny stories to tell.

“On my last day of 8th grade, I was heading to my bus, happy about moving to high school, and I let this guy hitch a ride on the back of my power chair,” Leslie recalled with a laugh. “We were zooming down the hallway and drifted to the side and put a hole in the wall. Teachers are always telling you to leave your mark. Well, I literally left my mark on that school!”

Leslie left her mark in high school, too. In fact, she didn’t just leave a mark but paved a trail. She did something that had never been done before. Leslie was the first wheelchair user to join the United States Marine Corps Junior Recruit Officer Training Corps (MCJROTC). It was not easy to get in. She had to contact the senior marine drill instructor at her high school to request permission. She advocated for herself, and her request prompted a conversation that led to allowing her to join.

In the first two weeks of a JROTC program, a lot of pressure is applied to new recruits, which includes many mentally and physically challenging tasks. Master Sergeant Vincent Liddle and Juan Añorga said as long as she gave 100% and more they would give her a chance. She was given some accommodations, but no breaks. For example, when the other students were doing push-ups, Leslie did flutter kicks to the cadence count. When they did calisthenics, she did leg lifts, crunches in her chair, and arm work. She survived that introduction and remained an active JROTC cadet all four years.

“It was difficult at first because I didn’t want others to think they were going to let me do whatever I wanted or that I would automatically get in because I had a wheelchair,” she said. “I had to work just as hard if not harder to do all of the physical, mental, and academic work that JROTC required.”

Leslie left her mark in high school, too. In fact, she didn’t just leave a mark but paved a trail. She did something that had never been done before.

Getting her uniform on correctly was extra challenging, but Leslie took pride in wearing it to school for the next four years. Being in JROTC opened her up to more friends, helping her feel included and less isolated.

Now, Leslie is a directing major in the theater program at Ball State. She loves composing music and editing video to make the experience more authentic, examining angles, sounds, and sights. Last summer, Leslie had an internship with Eskanazi Health, editing content for their podcasts. She is back this summer, again assisting with the podcast content and editing, and also with the lobby concerts held at Eskanazi in the summer. She dreams of traveling around the country and the world, making music and having an impact on the music industry.

Leslie remains very close to her family. Her sister and niece are very special to her. She appreciates how hard her dad works for the family, and how much her mom assists her daily so she can be on campus just like other students, actively participating in her classes and engaging socially with friends.

Leslie always tries to make her actions speak louder than her words

Leslie always tries to make her actions speak louder than her words. “As the first [disabled] person to be in JROTC, it was mentally and physically hard, but that program made me confident and grew my character,” she said. “If you really see me, you can see the courage and motivation I have for myself and for people like me. I’m advocating for people in the way that I live and present myself in the world. I don’t think about it as a responsibility—I just do it. There are always going to be obstacles, but I just think about how I’m going to get around them. See me, not the wheelchair. I’m a regular person with ambitions, dreams, and goals. I have much more power than people understand.”