When people think about mathematics, they usually think about numbers, equations, formulas, and calculations. For me, mathematics became something much more personal. It became one of the first places in my life where I learned to believe in myself.
I was born blind in Puerto Rico in the early 1970s. My story with mathematics really began long before multiplication tables or algebra. It began when I was old enough to start school.
I was five years old when my mother took me to enroll in the neighborhood elementary school a few streets from our home. I still remember hearing the adults talking in the principal’s office. The principal told my mother that I could not study there because I was blind. According to him, I needed to attend a specialized school for blind students.
At that time in Puerto Rico, there was only one school for blind children, and it was residential. That meant I would have to stay there during the week, away from my family.
My mother visited the school and gathered information, but something about the idea did not feel right to her. She did not want her young son separated from his family. She also did not like the idea of me growing up isolated in a segregated environment where I would only interact with other blind students. So she returned to the neighborhood school and told the principal that this was our community school and that I had the right to study there. He still said no.
He kept insisting that the school was not prepared for a blind student and repeated that there were no other blind students there. My mother then went to the central Department of Education offices and discovered that there were teachers specialized in working with blind students who could travel to schools and provide support services. Even after learning that, the principal continued resisting.
Looking back now, I realize how brave and persistent my mother was. She did not have a university degree. She was not an activist or politician. She was simply a mother who believed her son deserved a chance. Eventually, August arrived, and the principal agreed to accept me “provisionally.” But there was one condition: I had to take an IQ test because he suspected that, in addition to being blind, I also had an intellectual disability. I was a quiet child, and he interpreted my silence as inability.
My mother agreed to the test because she knew I learned quickly and understood things well. I still remember parts of that evaluation. A psychologist asked me different questions, and at one point she placed visual cards in front of me and asked, “What do you see here? Can you interpret it?”Of course, I could not see anything.
What I remember most clearly is that nobody stopped to question whether the test itself was accessible. They simply continued. Later, the results came back extremely low. In Puerto Rico, we sometimes joke about getting “punto bicicleta,” basically meaning almost no points at all. The principal called my mother into another meeting and told her the results proved he was right. According to him, I belonged in the specialized school. But my mother refused again.
She knew that a badly implemented test should not define my future. When I think about that moment now, I realize how easily my life could have gone in another direction. A single inaccessible evaluation could have permanently labeled me before I had even truly begun school. Instead, my mother kept fighting, and eventually the principal allowed me to stay.
That was the beginning of my life in mainstream education. It was also the beginning of a pattern that would repeat itself throughout my life: constantly having to prove that blindness did not mean inability.
With the support of special education teachers, I learned Braille and orientation and mobility. I learned to use a white cane and how to function in environments that were not designed for me. Somewhere along the way, I also began discovering mathematics.
One of the most important moments of my childhood happened in third grade during a multiplication tables test. My classmates were expected to know all the multiplication tables from 0 to 12. I had studied them too. My teacher for students with visual impairments had introduced me to Nemeth Braille math code, and I practiced constantly. I genuinely enjoyed learning the logic behind mathematics.
When test day arrived, my teacher approached me differently. He told me he would give me the exam orally. That itself was not the problem. The problem was what happened next. He only asked me the multiplication tables of 0 and 1. That was it.
I answered correctly, and he smiled warmly and congratulated me for earning an A. I remember feeling confused more than proud. I knew the other multiplication tables too. I had studied them. I had memorized them. I was ready. But nobody even asked.
At the time, I could not fully explain what I was feeling. I only knew something did not feel right. As I got older, I understood it better: the expectations had already been lowered before I even had the chance to try.
The strange thing is that I do not think my teacher intended to hurt me. I think he believed he was helping me. He probably thought he was protecting me from frustration or failure. But moments like that stay with you.
When people consistently lower expectations for you, you begin noticing it everywhere. You realize that many people are not evaluating your actual abilities. They are responding to assumptions about blindness.
Oddly enough, mathematics became one of the ways I pushed back against those assumptions. The more people told me mathematics was too visual or too difficult for blind students, the more determined I became to succeed at it. Math became personal.
I loved the logic of it. I loved that there was structure and reasoning behind problems. Through Braille mathematics, I could organize equations, follow steps, and solve problems independently. Every time I solved a difficult problem, I felt something important growing inside me: confidence.
That confidence mattered because living as a blind person often meant constantly hearing what I supposedly could not do. People told me what careers were unrealistic. They told me what subjects were too visual. They told me what limitations I should accept. Mathematics became one of the first areas where I started refusing to believe them.
Another defining moment came during high school when it was time to prepare for college entrance exams. My school counselor called me into her office to discuss my future. She explained that since I was blind, I should consider studying something “theoretical.” She suggested humanities or social sciences because careers involving mathematics, science, or highly visual content would supposedly be too difficult for someone like me.
I remember sitting there quietly thinking, “I am living the same story all over again.” Again, the expectations were already lowered before I even had the chance to choose for myself. I told her that I liked mathematics and did well in algebra. But she responded by reminding me that university was very different from high school. Something inside me reacted strongly during that conversation. I wanted to challenge the assumptions again.
At that time, in the mid-1980s, computer programming sounded futuristic and highly technical. I had heard people talking about computers on the radio, and I knew programming involved logic and mathematics. So I told her that I wanted to study computer programming. She looked shocked. Then she asked if I knew any blind computer programmers. I told her no.
The truth is that, because I had always studied in mainstream schools where I was usually the only blind student, I had barely met any other blind people at all. She kept reminding me that I was blind, almost as if blindness itself should automatically end the discussion.
Ironically, I barely knew what programming actually was. Like many seventeen-year-olds, I did not fully know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew I was tired of other people deciding my limits for me.
So I went to the University of Puerto Rico and studied computer programming through the School of Business Administration because it offered a minor in information systems. That meant taking courses like precalculus, differential calculus, and statistics, exactly the kinds of classes people had warned me against. It was not easy.
I was the only blind student in the program. I spent long days on campus, often arriving at seven in the morning and staying until ten at night studying. I used Braille mathematics constantly. I converted exercises into Braille so I could solve them independently. I faced professors who had never taught a blind student before and often had no idea how to adapt materials.
That was also when I first discovered computers with screen readers and Braille printers. I still remember writing computer code in Braille. At first, part of my motivation came from wanting to prove people wrong. But once I truly discovered programming, everything changed. I fell in love with it.
My professors often assigned programming projects related to banking systems or business applications. I completed those assignments because I had to, but what truly interested me was creating programs that could help blind people. So I started building my own projects.
One of my first programs displayed song lyrics on a computer screen while a screen reader spoke them aloud. Today people might compare it to karaoke, but for us it was a way for blind students to learn English songs independently.
I also developed games and educational tools. Many of them relied heavily on logic and mathematics behind the scenes. One of the first programs I installed in a library for blind users was an audible QWERTY keyboard tutor to help people learn typing. Programming gave me something powerful: the ability not only to succeed personally, but also to help others.
Eventually, I completed a master’s degree and later a doctorate in special education. I combined my background in programming with my understanding of how students with disabilities learn. Over the years, I created many accessible educational software programs, including math games for blind students.
One of the projects closest to my heart is Tiflo Baseball Math Version, a baseball-themed accessible game that helps blind students practice math skills through audio, Braille displays, and tactile tools.
I think part of why I care so deeply about these projects is because I remember exactly what it feels like when people underestimate you. I know what it feels like to sit in a classroom and realize adults have already decided what you are supposedly incapable of doing.
Today I work as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico and lead accessible STEM initiatives connected to the new phase of the Arecibo Observatory project. I work with emerging technologies like the Monarch, a multiline Braille device capable of displaying tactile graphics dynamically.
Some of the work we are doing would have sounded impossible when I was a child. We are exploring ways to represent microscope images tactilely for blind students. We are creating accessible STEM experiences that integrate Braille, tactile graphics, audio, and interactive technologies.
Sometimes I stop and think about how incredible that journey has been. The child who was once told he might not belong in a regular classroom is now helping design accessible STEM experiences for future generations of blind students.
And yet, despite all the technology and professional accomplishments, the emotional core of my story remains very simple. What changed my life was not pity. It was opportunity.
It was having at least a few people who believed I deserved the chance to try. It was discovering that mathematics was not something beyond my reach. I simply needed access to it in a different way.
Most importantly, mathematics helped me develop a sense of personal confidence that shaped the rest of my life. Every difficult equation I solved, every programming project I completed, and every inaccessible system I learned to navigate gave me evidence that I was capable. Not because someone lowered the standards for me. But because I was finally given the tools to meet them.
I still think often about my mother walking into that school office over and over again in the early 1970s refusing to accept “no” as an answer. She probably never imagined that decades later her blind son would become a professor, software developer, researcher, and advocate for accessible STEM education. But she believed in me before I fully believed in myself.
And perhaps that is the real lesson behind my story. Sometimes the most important thing we can give a child with a disability is not protection from difficulty. It is the opportunity to discover their own abilities.
For me, mathematics became one of the places where that discovery happened. And in many ways, it changed the direction of my life entirely.