Check out one of our awesome YO! members in this article! July 13th, 2012


By TERYL ZARNOW
COLUMNIST
FOR THE REGISTER

[email protected]



For many new high school graduates, this is their summer of anticipation: On the pad, waiting to launch into the college world.

The trajectory for Louis Do, Westminster High School Class of 2012, will be to the San Francisco Bay area - but the impact is always greater than the distance.





Louis Do, 19, follows the voice of Andy Griffin, an orientation and mobility specialist with the Westminster school district. Do learns to ride a bike in the Westminster High's parking lot. Although Do is blind, that hasn't stopped him from wrestling, white-water rafting, snow skiing or mountain biking. Do maintained his balance and enjoyed the biking experience.

CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER


"I'm breaking away," he says. "I am being who I want to be."

Sounds like an anthem for misbegotten youth, but in this case it has special meaning. Louis, born in Vietnam, is blind as a result of his premature birth.

That's what Louis is but it's not, well, who he is.

He also graduated magna cum laude, was named Lion of the Year, and spoke at graduation to a standing ovation.

Don't focus on the fact that he is blind, Louis instructs, but don't make him sound supernatural or amazing.

"I'm just somebody who does what needs to be done."

• • •

You might call Louis, 19, a tad assertive.

He starts by telling me how I should write this: He wants readers to see him as an ambassador for the notion that human potential isn't defined by appearance or, in his case, eyesight. Look past the fact that he's blind -- because for Louis, that's no excuse. He anticipates a productive life.

"I want to help society," he says, explaining his plan to teach history after college. "I've gotten all this education. What use would it be if I am going to just sit at home?"

Andy Griffin, an orientation and mobility specialist with the district, remembers Louis calling him in 2009 to say that he was an incoming transfer student. Louis told Griffin support services he would require.

"I've never had a kid advocate for himself," Griffin says. "I've never seen this tenacity."

Transferring as a sophomore, Louis was pre-registered into honors and advanced placement classes. Because his records indicated he was in special education, the school figured it was a mistake.

"I said give me a trial and see how I do. I stayed in there and never left."

Wendy Schwartz, a transition specialist with the school's workability program, has advised students in special education for 28 years. She took Louis to Los Angeles in April when he swore the oath of allegiance as a new U.S. citizen.

"We have a lot of amazing kids," she notes, "but not many Louises. He sets his own objectives. He's always been told what he can't do. His response is: So, he will."

Louis says he's tired of hearing "you can't" from people who look at him but don't see.

If it's scary to cross the intersection guided only by a white cane, imagine wrestling, white-water rafting, snow skiing or mountain biking when you're blind. Louis has done it all.

Why? Because he wanted to -- and because he can.

As president of the youth program at the Braille Institute in Anaheim, he organized a fundraiser for cancer research. At "Dinner in the Dark" guests ate blindfolded. He wants to help fight cancer, Louis explains, because that disease poses a "real" challenge.

• • •

Traditional Asian culture, he explains, assumes that he needs to be taken care of because he is blind.

"A lot of blind people are very sheltered. They surround themselves with other blind people, their parents coddle them, and they are not exposed to society ...They end up at home."

Louis has made other plans.

He's been reared by an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins and moved frequently. Each new school: a new set of bruised shins. Since seventh grade he has always been the only totally blind student at his school.

He prefers liberal arts to math and science. In geometry, his teacher taped BBQ skewers to paper to illustrate theorems.

"I appreciated the innovation in the process," he observes wryly.

Next month he will be leaving for the Hatlen Center for the Blind in San Pablo, where the curriculum is life skills. He will share an apartment with a blind roommate and start college part-time.

Louis grins anticipating independence: Paying bills, washing dishes, using mass transit and eating an omelet if that's what he feels like.

Thanks to technology, he's already linked to the world. An avid fan of spy novels, Louis speed reads in Braille. He uses a PDA for the blind that displays in Braille or talks to him and a computer with software that translates from his screen.

Now he wants to experience that world. His plans and funding sources are nearly finalized. Then he will announce his intentions to his relatives.

He's discussed them with his teachers, however, who are clearly a support system. They also include health teacher Leonard Ibarra and his case manager Josh Amstone.

"Mr. Ibarra understood my fears of independence," Louis says. "It's a whole new world. Should I? Really? I have to do it."

As his teachers describe it, Louis has created a kind of No Excuses Zone around himself. No parking allowed for pity.

In his graduation speech, he advised students: Don't always take the safe route.

"I use a cane to navigate my way literally, but we all navigate figuratively with our own canes, tentatively feeling our way forward into the future," he said. "Find your own cane and walk your own path."

As we finish, I realize Louis had his way with my interview, after all.

We've spent hours talking about what he can do - and practically no time at all discussing what he can't.

Louis can be reached at [email protected]

Contact the writer: [email protected]
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