Garrett Boorojian and Washington Bureau Chief and Senior Washington Correspondent at The Independent, Columnist at MS NOW, Author of "We're Not Broken," former Assistant Editor at The Washington Post, former Associate Editor at The Hill, Eric Garcia

Garrett Boorojian and Eric Garcia discuss relationship building in a team environment.Source: The Independenthttps://www.the-independent.com/author/eric-garcia"Eric GarciaWashington Bureau Chief/Senior Washington CorrespondentEric Garcia is the Washington bureau chief and senior Washington Correspondent at the Independent. He joined the Independent in July 2021. He covers the White House, Congress, campaigns and money in politics. He co-authors the Inside Washington newsletter. He is also an MSNBC columnist who appears regularly on TV and radio. He is the author of the book We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation and is the recipient of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Harriet McBryde Johnson Prize for Nonfiction Writing."Source: Eric M. Garciahttp://www.ericmgarcia.net/about.html"About EricI am a Washington, D.C.-based reporter focused on politics, policy and campaigns. I am currently the senior Washington correspondent forThe Independent, where I cover Congress and the White House. In addition, I write regularly about the politics of disability. My first book We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation, which the Washington Post called "outstanding," was published in 2021. I previously worked as an editor at the Washington Post and the Hill and as a reporter at Roll Call, National Journal and MarketWatch. My work has also been featured in The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Salon.com and Spectrum."Source: Eric M. Garciahttp://www.ericmgarcia.net/were-not-broken.html"We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation“This book is a message from autistic people to their parents, friends, teachers, coworkers and doctors showing what life is like on the spectrum. It’s also my love letter to autistic people. For too long, we have been forced to navigate a world where all the road signs are written in another language.” With a reporter’s eye and an insider’s perspective, Eric Garcia shows what it’s like to be autistic across America. Garcia began writing about autism because he was frustrated by the media’s coverage of it; the myths that the disorder is caused by vaccines, the narrow portrayals of autistic people as white men working in Silicon Valley. His own life as an autistic person didn’t look anything like that. He is Latino, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and works as a journalist covering politics in Washington D.C. Garcia realized he needed to put into writing what so many autistic people have been saying for years; autism is a part of their identity, they don’t need to be fixed. In We’re Not Broken, Garcia uses his own life as a springboard to discuss the social and policy gaps that exist in supporting those on the spectrum. From education to healthcare, he explores how autistic people wrestle with systems that were not built with them in mind. At the same time, he shares the experiences of all types of autistic people, from those with higher support needs, to autistic people of color, to those in the LGBTQ community. In doing so, Garcia gives his community a platform to articulate their own needs, rather than having others speak for them, which has been the standard for far too long."