Episode 77 Transcript


Published: Thursday January 30, 2025

Title:
Leah Kaplan: Friendship, Humor, and the Strength to Overcome

Subtitle:
From Orphanage to Advocacy: Leah’s Unyielding Triumphant Tale

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome to pushing forward with Alycia, a podcast that gives disability a voice each week. We will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths.

Let’s go.

Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. I’m Alycia. Today’s guest. Is absolutely amazing in the advocacy space. She is also so funny and lights up the room when she walks in. Her name is Leah Kaplan. She is a passionate advocate for disability inclusion and active living.

She has a congenital disability. Let you describe what that is and how it shows up. She’s an adaptive athlete. She has dedicated her life to overcoming challenges and inspiring others along the way. She and I first met in NYC and New York when we were both walking, rolling in the runway of dreams, fashion show. She approached me and I was literally drawn to her immediately. She walked for,

Leah Kaplan: Tommy Hilfiger and JCPenney.

Alycia Anderson: I rolled for Target. We met that day and we’ve been friends ever since. Thank you for being willing to do the show. It’s so nice to see you again.

Leah Kaplan: Yes. Hello, everybody. I’m Leah everything she said about me. It’s true. And also I think the same thing to Alycia.

Alycia Anderson: I think we need to start with your backstory cause you have a really incredible birth story. So maybe you can share a little bit about your birth story, your disability, whatever you’re comfortable with to lay down the picture of who you are and where you came from.

Leah Kaplan: So I grew up in Seattle, Washington, but I was born and adopted from China when I was age 6. That was back in 1996 That sounds very old, but it’s not. I grew up in an orphanage for the first six years of my life. And I knew exactly why I was adopted. My mom never hid it from me.

She was always like black and white. This is why, and this is how we’re going to process it. It’s up to you how you want to process it, but I’ll help you through it. I was abandoned when I was a baby. And most likely it was because I was a girl and because I had this physical disability. My congenital disability is I’m missing most of my left arm, and while growing up in the orphanage, I would say that may be who I am today.

I don’t think I’d be the same person if I stayed in the orphanage and lived with a family there. So I grew up in Kansas, Seattle, and I grew up with my mom and we have four other siblings. They’re all adopted with physical disabilities as well.

So I got to be in a family with other physically disabled siblings.

I wasn’t really alone, and it was nice.

Alycia Anderson: Wow. That’s an interesting piece of your story right there that you grew up in a way that you could relate to disability and be, probably have a feeling of being included right out of the gate, whether your disability was similar or not.

Leah Kaplan: Yeah. It’s interesting going in because I was the only one in my orphanage that had, I think, an obvious physical disability like mine. Some of the other, kids in the orphanage, they had other disabilities like medical conditions. A lot of them were medical conditions or some of them were albino as well, but I don’t remember all the other ones.

They were in different sections. And I was, but I was the first one of my mom to be adopted with a really big physical disability. And then after me, my mom adopted my sister with no arms, just grew to love the adaptive community.

Alycia Anderson: That’s incredible.

Leah Kaplan: She’s amazing

Alycia Anderson: Okay. So you grew, you started your life in an orphanage, you moved to Seattle, you grow up in a family with that’s integrated with multiple disabilities. Can you share, what’d you say?

Leah Kaplan: And multicultural, too.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, and multicultural. I love it. That’s the beautiful story of inclusion with disability today is that intersectional.

Identity piece that kind of brings us all together. Disability being the piece that bridges the gap. So that’s really awesome too. I love it. How has advocacy from this point, like growing up with a disability, you’re growing up in this family. That’s super diverse. Advocacy seems to be a pretty big part of your platform and who you are.

Can you speak to what initially inspired you to start to find your voice from a disability inclusion standpoint and even an active living standpoint?

Leah Kaplan: So I would say, I didn’t know what the word advocacy was. I think having a role model like my mom who was our advocate I didn’t realize she was really advocating. I always thought that She was just being a Karen about every situation. When you’re a teenager, you feel like there’s a spotlight on you or wherever you go and any mistakes you make.

I was in special education in elementary. Not a lot of people know that. So I was an IEP. I had a huge learning disability. English is my second language and I had a lot of emotional stuff and social skills.

I had no idea how to deal with and cultural differences. And so I was with a lot of students who I learned disabilities and I just really grew to love them, but I just didn’t see them any different. And I was like, some of you guys are American. You guys also have a disability.

We were in a safe classroom. And we also can, we’re all not great spellers. We all have some speech issues and then going back to our normal classroom, it was sometimes just were back to being invisible again. And I think as time went on, I started participating in more sports, adaptive sports, met more people like me all because of my mom. And I just realized. I liked who I was when I was with that community and how can I sustain

Alycia Anderson: That’s what we were saying a lot when we were all at the runway of dreams, how nice it was for us to just be there together as a community and kind of be one and not be sticking out of the crowd. So I love that picture that you just painted. Cause I think a lot of us with disabilities. Probably feel the same way as when we’re have that opportunity to be together.

You feel like you can relax for a minute or something. So you started in sports when you were young, like where did that begin? What was your interest?

Leah Kaplan: So my older brother, I had two older brothers, but one of them was very active in sports. He was so cool. He had soccer. He did baseball. He was such a boy I was like, okay, can I do soccer? And also I had girls in my classroom. They were so girly and they were like, we do gymnastics. And I was like, I can do that too.

So me as a little kid, parts of me are still the same. I’m very like, okay, if you can do it, then I can do it. I don’t even think twice about how there was just like. Okay. Hey mom, I’m going to gymnastics. So I did gymnastics for a little bit and then soccer became my main sport that I did all through elementary through high school because I love the community and I love being around, hanging out with other girlfriends.

That was always fun gossiping with them and stuff. And just playing sports. I never, and then in high school, I did some sports as well. My mom was always just Hey, do you want to do the sport? Like here’s some signup paperwork. And also when schools would announce their sports signup, was just always doing what everybody else was doing.

Cause I was like, if my friends are doing it, why can I not do it? There was never a reason. As I got older, I started to notice. I started to notice that I was different for sure. I started to notice, maybe I do stand out, I think. And also I am taking a lot of things personally now because people are looking at me differently and I’m now noticing,

Alycia Anderson: when did that happen?

Leah Kaplan: I would say that started happening in, middle school,

Alycia Anderson: Me too.

Leah Kaplan: On the soccer field, I remember there was girls who were just sometimes would comment about my arm or on the sidelines, some the player’s siblings, the kids would point at me and be like, that girl has one arm. And I would look around and be like, Oh, that’s right. I don’t, boo happy Halloween, it wasn’t always Halloween. So I just, but I just was like, Oh, so I got self conscious. And then I just started to identify myself as the one armed girl. Because that’s what people saw me as, and my friends would make jokes like, Oh, you’re the one armed girl. One arm Asian girl. was like, you’re totally right! Absolutely. There’s nothing wrong with you labeling me that.

Alycia Anderson: Do you think humor has been a big piece of who you are. Like, do you think that’s been like at that age, even maybe a little piece of survival, like either laugh about it or cry about it?

Leah Kaplan: Oh, yes. I would say the humor, honestly. My dad had a great sense of humor. So he would always joke around with me.

The siblings and I, we’d start poking fun at each other because we’d start mocking how other people would talk to us. For example, my sister without arms, when she wore long sleeves, people thought she was playing the game of hiding her arms.

So everybody would go up to her. And some people are like, where are your arms? They thought they were playing. we were sometimes be like, she actually doesn’t have any arms. So can you like back off?

Alycia Anderson: Wow.

Leah Kaplan: And then we started realizing instead of turning all this, like all the ignorance from other people or like the people who are naive and everything. We had to laugh about it almost because they don’t know, but also it is funny. We can have fun with it. And even in elementary, I was always joking about my arm being like a hotdog in a bot and, or a monster or something, because sometimes I think it’s like testing the waters to see what other people are comfortable with. And I just started to develop a sense of humor and not just my arm. Through everything, because I just sometimes don’t take life so seriously. Everyone takes it so seriously sometimes. I’m like, can we have a little comic relief in our real life?

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. And I think sometimes it’s easier to learn and understand things that you don’t know if you’re able to like, smile through it and have those types of experiences. Like my dad always used to tell me, try to smile because it’s going to allow other people in. And yeah, I think so junior high, you’re realizing there’s differences.

When do you become like empowered, disabled, Leah.

Leah Kaplan: When I was a senior in high school I don’t know what happened, but I there someone came into my dream, the future me came into my dream and said, You’re meant to be bigger. You’re meant to like, be loud. And I remember that whole senior year, I dedicated myself. I was also a teacher’s assistant in a classroom with development disabled students as well.

And I just, I loved who I was. I just loved it. I was like, Gosh, you guys are so cool. I would walk around the student in his wheelchair. We just have a great time. And then I just started thinking. I started thinking about these ideas for the student and I was like, why do I just stay silent? Why don’t I, speak on behalf of the student too, because I met his parents and his parents were just so beautiful. and they just thanked me so much. And I was like, I really appreciate you guys thanking me, but, I love your son. He’s awesome. And so then I started thinking about why can’t we have the building? Our building had no they had no electric doors. And we had we’re getting more wheelchair students and I advocated at our school to get to get electric doors and they weren’t under the ADA compliance anyways, but they probably just thought they were going to get away with it.

So I talked about it and I just felt a sense of like empowerment of it. I think I can. I think I can do this if it doesn’t happen right away. At least I love this feeling.

That’s

Alycia Anderson: amazing. And you know what? That’s pretty brave at that young of an age. I don’t remember a whole lot of students advocating loudly when I was a senior in high school. I still think that’s pretty young to be like set. Like I feel power in this. I’m ready to use my voice. I know I’m probably just comparing it to myself.

I was not ready. I was still like, Oh, how do I hide this wheelchair? And it just wasn’t possible. So that’s really powerful. How did that translate into your career?

Leah Kaplan: So it changed my career because I just, I love the teacher. She was so awesome. She has such a big heart. She was so loved. And why wouldn’t you want to be loved when you get older? So if you love some, way people are, why not try to, find your own way of becoming some sort of them.

So I decided to become a teacher in the special education. Cause I was like, I want to be with these kinds of students. These students are like magnificent. They’re like more hilarious than anything. And I think they need a little bit of light. They need someone who can make them laugh. And if I make them laugh, then that makes my day. So I went to college and I got my four year degree in special education. And then I taught for four years in all different kinds of special education, high school, middle, and elementary.

Alycia Anderson: That’s amazing. I was going through all of your social media and there’s an image of you with a student on your social media. An article or something that, was a little girl that had a limb difference as well, very similar to yours The light that was in her eyes to be with you, it translated through this one image. So anybody that’s listening to this, we’re going to leave all Leah’s social media information and the show notes.

It’s such a beautiful image. Can you talk about those moments of impact with your students to have a teacher that they can relate to you? I think that’s really powerful.

Leah Kaplan: Yeah. So that was such a unique situation. Actually right before I moved to that school, I was having a hard time in my job. There was lack of support and lack of leadership that was willing to help me advocate for the students.

I fell upon this classroom and then there was a student, that student, this little girl, second grade. And she just ran up to me. She saw my arm before I even see, before I could even look down the hallway. And I’m like, what is this girl doing? And she was like, her mouth just dropped to the floor and was like, I think we have the same arm. And I was like, gosh. I was like, yes, girl we do. I was like, Oh my gosh, you’re just so cute. And she’s thank you. And I was like, let’s hang out later. Like I’ll find you at recess. go out to recess and I started going out to recess like every day to hang out with her and just do these little things with her. And I think, I felt like a big sister and she felt, I think she felt really cool because, kids would stare at both of us. Cause she was always stared at and I was like, Oh, we’re good. I’m with you. You know what? We’ll stick by each other. And kids would stare, but you both have missing arms. And she’s yeah, just like Miss Kaplan does. we can do everything. We can do anything. And I started I was like, let me teach you how to do like your hair.

Let me teach you how to tie your shoes. Also I’ll play with you and your friends a little bit too, just so they can see that an adult one arm can have a career too.

Alycia Anderson: I can’t imagine how good that felt for her other than just literally trying to imagine it. And I never had that type of experience through sports. I did like through coaches and adaptive sports outside of school, but there was never, ever one moment in my entire education where there was a teacher that I felt like I could relate to like that.

So that must have been like huge for her and probably for you too.

Leah Kaplan: It was awesome. I just felt so happy for her. I was like, I hope you remember, I hope like I helped you building core memory. And I also would talk to her mom and I would always ask permission I was like, Oh, could I can I talk to Reagan about this or just tell the mom like I would go to the classroom early because her mom was a teacher to there and Reagan was hanging out there and so she Reagan started to learn where my classroom is and she started hanging out in my classroom early in the morning before school start just to hang out. She’s what are you doing? And I could just tell she was watching me, how I do everything. And then I decided I asked her mom and her grandma and I said, would she like bike that’s adaptive for her? Cause I have a bike that I’ve outgrown. And, cause I started my, and it was my first bike.

I started during my triathlon journey. She liked It, it’s got like all these adjustments to it. It’s not perfect. And they just were like, yes. We would love that. And they were like, her birthday is actually coming up. And I was like, done. I was like, let’s me put it in my car. And then I surprised her in the morning.

She came out to the trunk and I was like, this is yours.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, wow.

Leah Kaplan: And I was, it felt so good to just donate my bike and not have to put it to waste.

Alycia Anderson: That’s pretty powerful advocacy that you’re doing just at The level of education. I think that’s some of the most important work that we can do as advocates. I love that story. It’s so beautiful and it’s a good transition point. So you mentioned bike. I know that you are a powerful athlete, like competing at the highest level possible.

You have gone out for the Paralympics. I believe you’re a triathlete. Can you talk a little bit about your accomplishments as an athlete?

Leah Kaplan: So accomplishment as an athlete, I would say 2024 is where I went the furthest I could ever go. And I did it all by myself, meaning I had to learn how to be part of get into the para triathlon world. My mom used to do all the paperwork, but I had to figure it out. I had to advocate, ask questions and just say, Hey, are you willing to take me on?

Are you willing to be my coach? Could I attend one of your camps as well? What does it take for me to. Try to make the pair of games Paris. And everyone’s here you go. This is the list. This is the races you need to go to. And I was like, done. I started making friends with it. So we were all part of, a team going for the same journey. I would say in the beginning of the years, I was just thinking about the end game. I was like, I just want to make that. And I didn’t even realize I should appreciate the journey at all. I grew my mental health actually as an athlete grew over time as it got closer and closer to 2024. Cause there was a lot of races where I, sometimes I didn’t win. Sometimes I got my butt kicked. Sometimes I didn’t really feel good. I felt like an imposter sometimes. Cause I just. Didn’t feel like I was worthy of being here. My time was super slow. there was a lot of that thought process.

And I had a coach who would just talk to me all the time and , just vent with me and remind me of where I am and where I started compared to most athletes and also not comparing your times to athletes who’ve been competing for 15 years. So I learned how to do triathlon and how to ride a bike four years ago.

Alycia Anderson: Wow.

Leah Kaplan: So I didn’t know how to race. I didn’t know how to bike on a racing bike. So yeah, I unfortunately did not make the games to Paris I would say the probability of making it as it was getting closer and closer to july 2024 I knew probability was getting like very thin And I think that was hard for me because I also like to challenge myself I didn’t want to accept that and just keep on going. I was willing to use my own money a lot of journey, I’ve used my own money out of my own pocket because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

And I want to see how committed I can be to something like this. So I got injured in March. I broke my collarbone right before a international competition. And then I was out for rest of the season. And so I couldn’t try again at another race that would go for Paris, even though I think the probability was still thin and that really hurt a lot.

Cause I, I worked so hard and I just was like, Oh man, I feel as strong as that. As ever right now and put that to test, but right now I’m going to just mentally process it, cry about it. There was days it wasn’t easy.

Alycia Anderson: I’m so happy that you shared that because I think a lot of us can relate to having big dreams and big goals and not making, not reaching it or having to try again or having a no. Talk about your mental health journey with that, and what was on the other side of healing from it?

So my mental health journey I would be lying if I said it was easy. I’d be lying. If I said, Oh, after every race, I was always like, yay. I thought there’s a win in every single race. That’s not true because at the end of every single race, For at least 10 minutes, I would find every flaw that I did, and I would say, honestly, that helped me to grow because it also taught me to give feedback to myself know that I could do something better, even though you can think you can do something better. It doesn’t mean that you did anything bad. It just means that you have room for improvement. And so I had to learn that and I had to see a lot of athletes go through that as well. And only person that was judging performance was me. And after I got injured and watching everybody continue their journey to try for Paris, was a lot of FOMO, a lot of FOMO just looking online. But I had to channel that and just be like, I need to support my friends because they would do the same for me. I can’t feel sorry for myself. I am so also so proud of my friends for making it this far that I want to support them. also the Paralympics is so much bigger than just me, also, if I made it. It’s educating people, also. So why not like support, what NBC has been doing to promote Paralympics? And I was like, heck yeah. I’m happy. I’m a gold medalist cheerleader.

Alycia Anderson: I love it.

Leah Kaplan: So I was just like, heck yeah. I got channel it and I miss everybody. I did feel like I was irrelevant though.

I felt like my friends, they couldn’t tell me if they were racing either. They were like, we don’t want you to feel bad. And I was like no, please tell me you’re racing. Then I can cheer you on. It’s okay.

Such a huge growth for me, and it just showed it. It validates that I’m just not a competitive person, but I’m not a person who’s all who’s poor me. I just know. I love seeing other people happy and winning because I’m winning too, because I was part of their journey. ,

Alycia Anderson: You’ve all built each other and got each other to where you were for sure. And I love the two things that you said there was imposter syndrome creeped in, FOMO creeped in. And I think that’s like very relatable to a lot of us. Disability or not, especially with social media and all the noise that’s going on, we’re watching what everybody’s doing and it can make you feel bad sometimes and make you feel littler or less or whatever.

But I think trying to see beyond that, like those, what I have found in my life is when there’s like adversity, whether you End up succeeding or not. When you push through that and you at least try, there’s lessons on the other end that make you maybe not every time, but potentially make you a lot stronger.

Alycia Anderson: You learn something from it. You’re prepared better for the next try. And it always has motivated me to try again. More often than not. So I think sometimes those little like kicks in the butt of. Feeling FOMO, get you motivated to try again.

Leah Kaplan: I’ve just always been a person who’s I’m not gonna not try anything. I’ve been told many times in my life, and I’ve also been written on paper also that I will not succeed. I should like, fail after fail even testing fail after fail and yeah, there’s lots of tears and lots of feeling like I’m just going to give up on trying to learn something because. I just don’t get it. So there was a lot of like victim for sure and self shaming also. Gosh, ever since I’ve gotten older, it has just gotten so much better because I am just able to it’s like. sweeping it up, all my little things I’ve learned just sweeping it up, but I’m not throwing it away.

I’m savoring all of it. And they’re just all coming in together and becoming a bigger pile of just something beautiful

Alycia Anderson: Oh, I love that. That just gave me the chills. That’s so beautiful.

What advice would you give to the younger disabled person? Kid, young adult, whatever, that might be hesitant to fully lean in to their power or their dreams or their passion or whatever. Is there any advice that you could give?

Leah Kaplan: I would say just to show up, you’re showing up for yourself, but also don’t compare yourself to the people that are there because you don’t know where their star line is. And where you are when you’re meeting those people at events, for example, or a sporting event, they’re there for the same reason as you and you did the hard part.

You signed up you registered and you’re showing up there. And also, as a person with disability, I really want to emphasize the importance of, if you want to start an adaptive sport, do not feel the pressure to be a professional in that sport. Do not feel the pressure to just, this is going to become my dream in order to feel worthy. You don’t need to join the Paralympics. You don’t need to make it your whole life in order to be worthy.

Just do it because you love it.

Alycia Anderson: yeah. And I think that’s an important message to our community is You don’t have to be a Paralympian to go and enjoy like physical activity. And there’s for me, like it, I was never a Paralympian and I’ve played tennis my entire life, but I met my husband, I made friends, I found community, I got bit, I figured out how to make this body, this disabled body strong, and there’s so many things that you can gain from it.

It’s absolutely a really good message that we all need to remember.

Leah Kaplan: It’s a social media pressure, even for

Moms out there too. Don’t have to be super successful making all those recipes or you don’t have to Be competing, just to prove that you’re an awesome mom either.

Alycia Anderson: yeah.

just don’t forget the journey. Like really don’t, because the time goes by so much faster than you think.

And those failures may feel like it’s going to last forever, but pain is temporary.

Alycia Anderson: So we end with a pushing forward moment that feels like a pushing forward moment to me. But I’m going to ask it anyways.Do you have another pushing for a moment or is that it? Something that you can motivate our listeners with. That was pretty powerful.

Leah Kaplan: Oh yeah. Keep trying and keep failing because that means you’re trying right.

Yourself feel like, give yourself like 10 minutes. It’s okay to feel. Like a piece of crap. It is okay. That’s, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t deserve to be there either.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

Leah Kaplan: yourself feel those failures too.

Alycia Anderson: . Before we wrap up, tell us how to follow you and also how to work with you and what your goals are for the future.

Leah Kaplan: So I am more on Instagram a lot more, but I do have a TikTok, but it’s the same tag name. It’s Nubbin 2 see here. N U B I N number two, see here. If you don’t get it. Then I’m sorry.

Alycia Anderson: I get it.

Leah Kaplan: Nubbin to see here and so I want to use my platform basically all my platforms as just to build community and to educate I do believe in advocating as well, but I want to educate more because I don’t want to always feel like I’m fighting fighting. I want to also feel like I’m empowering and educating. my future goal is I would love to one day speak at TED talks or just speak about health as an athlete. But also I have more to bring to the table about I think emotional well being as an as a person who was adopted with a disability.

And as a female Asian, like I have so much and I’d love to be able to just share that because my story, my struggles could be someone’s a survival guide

Alycia Anderson: Absolutely.

Leah Kaplan: and I would love to be able to touch one person

Alycia Anderson: And to read the book, the survival guide.

Leah Kaplan: I’d like to write a book one day. Yes. I do want to write a book one day. The title would probably be like the one who didn’t make the Paralympics. And be an interesting one. And no shame in that either.

Alycia Anderson: No shame. No shame. I actually like that story. I can relate to it. So it’s good. Leah. Thank you.

Leah Kaplan: All those books. Everyone’s all apparently been through all those books. I’m like, what about the one who didn’t make

Alycia Anderson: Yes.

Leah Kaplan: in her?

Alycia Anderson: Thank you so much. Your story is amazing. Everybody follow Leah. We’re going to leave all of her information in the show notes. Thank you to our community for joining us again on another episode. This has been pushing forward with Alycia and Leah, and that is how we roll on this podcast. We will see you next time.

Leah Kaplan: Push push forward.