Living my life with a disabled brother has never been easy. It has been difficult throughout my life to watch him grow up and encounter more and more difficulties in life because of his disability. However, our biggest question over the years has been what our plan will be for him later in life. How will he live his adult life? Will he work? Where will he live? Will he have friends? How happy can he be? People with children with disabilities need to explain, “How do people with disabilities actually fit into American society”? It's not just families discussing this issue; experts also debate this unknown by examining the same questions I mentioned previously. Examining where people with disabilities live, whether they work, and the relationships they have with other people is one way to understand how people with disabilities fit into American society. This topic should not only concern loved ones of people with disabilities, but everyone. In one way or another, each of us is affected by this subject; we want everyone in our family to lead a “successful” life (have a job/place to live). The same goes for families with people with disabilities. I want to analyze how people with disabilities fit into American society, but this idea of ​​“society” is tricky no matter how you look at it. Then, when you wonder how someone fits in, the lines get even blurrier. Society is such a large idea that there are no step-by-step instructions on how to fit into it because it has many elements. Everyone fits in differently and has their own idea of ​​how to proceed. Although society is confusing, focusing on the main components of civil society in particular is most important. A sociology professor, Caroline Hodges Persell, wrote......in the middle of an article......lyi, Mihaly. “Happiness revisited”. Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1990. 20-22. Print. Kanner, Leo. “The era of institutional expansion.” A history of the care and study of the mentally retarded. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1964. 62-65. Print.McLaughlin, Phillip J. and Paul Wehman. Developmental Disorders: A Handbook of Best Practices. Boston: Andover Medical Publishers, 1992. Print. Persell, Caroline Hodges, Adam Green and Liena Gurevich. “Civil society, economic distress and social tolerance”. Sociological Forum 16.2 (2001): 203-230. Internet. December 3, 2013. Pitman, Andrea. “The Deinstitutionalization of Psychiatric Hospitals and the Shift to Wisconsin-Focused Community Mental Health Centers in the 1980s.” 2009. Print. “A history of disability: from 1050 to the present.” » English heritage. np, nd Web. December 4 2013