Ai Itahara

Due to congenital corneal dystrophy, her sight in both eyes is around 0.02, and she processes written information using Braille and screen-reading software on her computer. Born in Kishiwada City, Osaka Prefecture, in 1990, she moved to Tokyo at the same time as entering junior high school, and after attending the junior and senior high divisions of the Special Needs Education School for the Visually Impaired, University of Tsukuba, she went on to study in the Faculty of Law at Aoyama Gakuin University and then at Waseda Law School, before passing the bar exam in 2018.

She is currently employed at a law firm in Tokyo and, as well as handling litigation and negotiations for companies and individuals, she gives seminars and talks for schools, companies, and organizations. In addition, as a specially appointed member of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations’ Human Rights Protection Committee, she is active on a special sub-committee dealing with legislation banning discrimination on the grounds of disability, working to develop laws and systems to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities.    

Although I was able to read letters if they were enlarged, it was difficult for me to read many letters quickly, so I began learning Braille little by little when I was at elementary school, and from junior high onwards, I left my home in Kishiwada City, Osaka Prefecture, and entered the Special Needs Education School for the Visually Impaired, University of Tsukuba, which is in Tokyo.

 I was not particularly good at studying to begin with, but after entering junior high school, I felt defeated by maths, English, and most other subjects, and my grades hit rock bottom. I spent my lessons sleeping or doing other things on the side, while I devoted myself to my hobbies of manga and anime when I was at the dormitory, doing my best to escape from studying. At that time, I did not have any dreams for the future, and I avoided imagining myself as an adult, continually seeking fun; however, my days were uneasy and lonely. 

 In this situation, my only strong subject, social studies, and a book on the Japanese constitution which I read by chance prompted me to decide that I would become a lawyer. Being a lawyer seemed an attractive job because I could help people, and the lawyers shown in manga or TV dramas were cool – when I walked around with my heavy Compendium of Laws, bought with my pocket money, I could imagine how cool I would look working as a lawyer. 

However, I was still at the bottom of the class at this period; on top of that, I did not think about trying hard at something for the sake of this new dream. “I’m sure I’ll make an effort someday”, I thought, as though it were someone else’s business.

Things continued in this vein, so when the time came to move up to the senior high division, my teachers would not write me an internal recommendation, and so I had to nervously take the entrance exam together with external candidates. I just managed to scrape a pass. It was only in the moment when my progression to senior high was in danger that I felt “If I go on like this, I won’t be able to become a lawyer”, and so I studied furiously, as though someone had lit a fire under me.

I repeated the same process at senior high school, university, and then graduate school. I enjoyed my student life with recreation, hobbies, and love, studying only when the heat was on, over and over. Nevertheless, my parents believed that I would become a lawyer, and thought with me about what I needed to do in order to pass the bar exam.

These experiences have led me to a conclusion. In order for a person to have dreams and goals, they need to be able to imagine themselves having realized them; and in order to achieve these dreams and goals, they need to continue holding this image in their mind. However, in this country, in most cases, parents tell their children or teachers tell their students “That’s impossible” or “That’s absurd” for various reasons, such as having a disability or finding study hard. Even if they do not say it, they communicate to their children that they do not expect anything of them and think “That’s impossible.” When this happens, children internalize the evaluation of those around them, and come to create their own limits, thinking “It’s impossible because I have a disability.”

At Tokyo University’s entrance ceremony in April 2019, Chizuko Ueno, Professor Emerita of Tokyo University, referred to the words of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai’s father, “I have tried not to break my daughter’s wings,” stating “Most daughters have the wings which all children possess broken.” The object of this was to point out the sexism which exists within families as they raise children, whereby boys are expected to go on to further study and success in life, whereas these are not expected of girls from the outset.

Children with disabilities have their wings broken in the same way. The whispers saying that things are impossible because they have a disability are, in most cases, meant well. Words such as “It’s best for your own sake not to push yourself too hard” or “It’s more than enough if you just live a healthy life” seem kind at first sight, but snatch away dreams before children can even have them.

However, the fundamental nature of big dreams and goals is that no-one can know whether or not they are possible before trying, and if someone does try, they may be possible. And even if they do not come true right away, they may do so someday if someone continues to pursue them. By no means should they be abandoned before trying.

I have only been a lawyer for about a year and a half, so I am still a novice, but in my activities from now on, I intend to aim at eliminating all kinds of discrimination based on disability, one by one, and to create a society in which disability does not break children’s wings. This is one of my new goals.