Feature Issue on Employment and IDD

Helping People

Author

Tamara Corchado worked in retail clothing stores until the pandemic shutdown. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

as told to her mother, Maria Pacheco

A woman wearing a dark blue shirt and olive pants with an employee ID badge around her neck stands next to a set of retail store shelves stacked with jeans and other clothes.

I worked at Burlington Coat Factory and The Gap, sorting clothes by size and color and stocking shelves. My manager at The Gap taught me what to do and she told me I did a good job. That felt good and I’d like to work in retail again. I haven’t worked since the pandemic as I’ve had some health issues.

Recently, though, I earned a stipend for helping a speech accessibility team. They used my voice to help train devices like Alexa and Siri how to recognize speech patterns of people with disabilities. In the future, I’d like to do other projects that help with accessibility for people.

When I was in school, I volunteered as a transporter, bringing students in wheelchairs to classes and the lunchroom. It all comes back to helping people, that’s what I want to do.