My name is Cara Reedy.
I'm a writer and podcaster living in New York City.
I'm also one of an estimated 90,000 people with dwarfism in the US.
As a dwarf, or little person as it's sometimes called, my body is always on display.
I'm stared at, followed, had the word midget screamed at me
and been discriminated against at work.
From the way I've been treated and from the way the media still portrays us,
it still seems acceptable to treat us as something less than human.
I'm on a journey to understand why
and to find out what it means to be a little person in America today.
Little people are kind of like, the last acceptable blackface.
We believe the same, our hearts are the same,
we're just little, we're just short stature.
We need to be allowed to tell others
what it means to be a little person.
So that's what we're fighting for.
I've come back to my home of St Louis
to understand how the perception of my own dwarfism began.
I was born with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism.
The first thing that happened, you've just been delivered and I thought,
'oh what a gorgeous child'
and the aide said, 'oh my God, look at her, look what's wrong with her!'
'Look at that, look at that.'
Well, two other aides hustled him out of the room.
What did you guys feel like?
We looked at her and we were like, 'are you blind? this is a perfect child.'
She's gorgeous.
My first instinct was to protect you because I knew, you know,
that it wasn't gonna be easy.
Once I get to high school, it changed,
when I really started to feel it at like 14-15.
Do you remember and we went to the Natural History Museum, maybe, in Chicago?
There was a group of Cub Scouts …
One of the cubs saw you and pointed you out to the others.
Well, the display cases were large
and you were trying to kind of duck around the display case.
And that was just …
That used to be my tactic, was to hide behind things to like get away.
You don't want to be seen and, like, pointed at.
It was the first time I realised that
people don't even realise that they're prejudiced, they just do things
because they think it's, well, of course this is the way it is.
There's no one happier than a happier kid which I was often, but I also when there's
disappointment it's pretty low
and I had quite a few knocks.
It taught me very early to
fight and stand up for myself.
When you hit a certain point in your adult years it does wear you out.
I want to hear from others in the community so I'm headed to meet Rebecca Coakley,
a former Obama appointee who oversaw diversity efforts from the administration.
Two of her children also have dwarfism.
When I worked in the administration,
I had a meeting with the civil rights leader who told me that
he found it so inspirational that President Obama would hire a handi-capable person like me.
You know, it's a great example of charity that you're here and I remember
just being like, OK we just need to move on at this point because otherwise
there' s going to be an incident, I don't want it incident.
People don't believe the shit that averages say to us
until they actually witness it and then it's like,
they've been pulled out of the matrix and they're like, oh my God.
'This is a real thing.'
Why do you think that the prejudice still exists?
You can't erase vaudeville, you can't erase the fact that our people
were bought and sold across circuses as actual literal property.
The fact that our people were forcibly bred to create more entertainers.
The fact that we still have people perpetuating a lot of that doesn't help.
People in our own community. - People in our own community.
When you see shows that perpetuate the idea that we're clowns.
That doesn't make it easier for those of us out here
trying to change the world for the better
and get humanity to perceive us more as humans.
The fetishisation of dwarfs has long been part of American popular culture.
From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, the bodies of little people were objectified
as entertainment at sideshows and exhibits.
In the early 20th century, midget villages were built.
Miniature cities that average-height people could tour
and watch people with dwarfism live their daily lives.
I'm going to show you the seize of these little people,
by having them sit down one in each one of my hands.
And when you go in here, you're going to see 158 of them.
America's obsession with our size has left a lasting and damaging image
that has continued to this day.
To understand more, I've come to meet Marc Hartzman,
a sideshow enthusiast and author.
Hi! -Hi.
Come on in, nice to meet you! - Nice to meet you.
Did you get Tom Thumb. And his wife?
He also collects vintage images of dwarves.
I think she was the world's lightest woman.
I think ever.
These are the wild man of Borneo.
But their real names were Barney and Harem Davis of Long Island.
What was the attraction seeing little people in sideshows?
With anyone in sideshow, it was they were somebody different.
Right, so you had the tall people, you had the super-thin people,
the very heavy people …
Anything that was different and then you have of course
the little people and so this was something you didn't see very often.
Because they thought they were cute little people
and, 'look how adorable they are.'
They were unique and they were dressed up like a perfect little miniature adult.
I find it inspirational always that these people were able to take the situation they were in
and make the most of it and live a life …
They were in many ways really extraordinary.
To me it kind of dehumanises people that have differences.
For you, like, you're seeing this and like this has changed
but for us, we still see this.
Like, in our life.
Seeing midget villages that's something
that gets screamed at me a lot.
Like, just in the streets and stuff.
So when you see it written down and that people were ...
The term midget, you mean?
Oh yeah, like people just scream stuff at me.
People really do say that to you?
Every day.
That's amazing.
I would think people would look and try not to look.
It's just, I see these voyeuristic photos of these people's bodies
and that's me going on the subway.
Right.
I left feeling like Marc didn't quite understand how harmful sideshows were
and their effect on how dwarves continue to be seen.
There is violence and objectifying people and their bodies.
It's not inspirational that we had to trade on our appearance in order to make a living.
Remnants of the sideshow continue to exist.
In Indianapolis, I've come to meet a traveling group of dwarfed wrestlers, called the micro wrestlers.
Jack Hillegass runs the show, a full-scale WWE-type event with an entire cast under five-feet tall.
In the venue, there was an excitable, heavy-drinking crowd
that more than once mistook me for a wrestler.
Jacob Brooks is from Mississippi and has been wrestling since high school.
He earns $300 a night wrestling under the name Little Show the Redneck Brawler.
Was this always your dream to be a wrestler?
Yeah! Always my dream.
Like this was it?
Yeah, this is it.
You know, because I don't really know what else I can do.
I mean, I'm pretty good at it.
I gonna get up there and do stuff
that they'd never thought they'd see a little person do.
Because, my man, you know, we bleed the same, our hearts are the same we're just little.
We're just short stature.
What was it like growing up? The two of you?
As little people, you were the only ones ...
Yeah, like our dad he grew us up, he's like, look worrying, world's not gonna feel sorry for you
because you're short.
Whenever he found out that we wanna wrestle,
he's like, 'you sure that's what y'all want to do?'
I was like, 'yes, sir!'
He was like, 'if you go and do it, you're gonna be the best at it.'
This is the Redneck Brawler,
Little Show.
I was ready to hate what I saw but I was impressed by the athleticism and talent
of the wrestlers.
They fly through the air,
fling each other across the ring, jump from the top ropes …
But at the same time, there was lots of laughing from the crowd
more than once I heard people say how cute they thought they were
and I couldn't help but feel that our bodies were yet again being exploited
for the sake of entertainment.
Backstage, I spoke to the owner Jack Hillegass.
What's the attraction of micro wrestling?
It's not the wrestling,
People are here for the little people
and they leave intoxicated because they couldn't believe the athleticism that they saw.
Do you ever feel like you're exploiting little people?
You can't exploit someone if they're doing something they love
you know, these were kids that were born with a disadvantage in life
and they were told, you're not gonna be able to work
normal jobs like most people, now they're living their dreams as professional wrestlers.
This is like my third group of little people who have worked for me
and this by far is my most talented and most cohesive group of kids.
Here we go, one, two three, say 'micro'.
I left with sort of like a complicated perception.
In one hand, like, they're super athletic,
they're very talented at what they do, so I guess my problem is that when
you've got a marginalised group, like little people, like us …
Does it hurt the cause? And I don't know.
Do we tell them to stop doing it?
Just because some drunk people can't see past their height.
I don't know.
Los Angeles, where for generations the image of little people
has been defined.
Selena Luna is a Mexican-American actor,
who's trying to change that representation.
She's featured in Pixar's Coco,
starred in Margaret Cho's the Cho Show
and toured with Dita Von Teese's burlesque show.
Lately she's been focusing on her stand-up comedy career.
So over the holidays, I went to a Christmas party with a host,
took it upon himself to hire a bunch of little people to dress up as Christmas elves
and hand out appetisers.
All night, party guests kept coming up to me
it's like, 'oh well, where's your little uniform?'
What? Like a little bitch just can't be at a party?
What's your view of using your comedy to change the representation game for little people?
If I try to illustrate to people that we have regular experiences
like anyone else, I mean that's what I talk a lot about my marriage,
you know, I have a normal-sized husband and I talk about that and people are shocked
that I'm not married to like a Keebler elf.
You know …
I don't understand how little people
are kind of like, I don't know how to say this,
the last acceptable blackface in the world
portrayed in entertainment as a creature, a mystical monster …
Why is it not important for little people to be represented in a dignified manner?
I think everybody who has support for us has to kind of come out of that and work
through it and it can take a really long time.
When did you have that moment where you were like,
I'm going to figure this out?
When I was 35 years old, where I turned the corner
and I finally accepted this is my circumstance, I need to live with it
without anger, without resentment and create a life for myself
that I create, that I make work without depending on outside validation.
Like Selena, I had to push past my own anger to create a positive identity for myself.
Joseph Stramondo, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at San Diego State University
has written much about embracing that identity.
There is thousands of years of mainstream culture defining the meaning of what it is to be
a little person but to them that identity is the Oompa Loompas, a freak show.
The question is, do you think I understand that this has the potential
to be a positive identity?
That can originate from the community itself
and that isn't placed upon them.
In order for the community to succeed in defining itself,
we need to be given the cultural space to do that.
Right? We need to be allowed to tell others what it means to be a little person.
Right? So, that's what we're fighting for.
How do you see their future?
And do you have hope that the world's going to change so it's gonna be better for them?
I would like them to not really feel like their expectations have to be
perceived through like an abled gaze,
that they can have a career,
that they can have a family, the skills and knowledge
that they need to push back.
I've spent the last few months exploring dwarfism in a deeper way than I ever have before.
I've realised that the oppression of little people deeply rooted in American culture
is one of the last accepted forms of discrimination.
In many ways, it still defines our lives
but the people I've met during this journey have made me understand
that there is a thriving movement to reclaim our identity
based not in the way society sees us but by the way we see ourselves.