SAN ANTONIO – A successful San Antonio woman is turning her life of silence into an inspiring testimony for others with disabilities seeking to enter the workforce.
Yesenia Ballesteros has been working in the e-commerce department with Goodwill San Antonio since 2016.
Just by looking at her, you wouldn’t know she lives her life with an invisible disability of deafness.
“I was born hearing, but at 6, I got meningitis and lost my hearing,” she said. “It took a few months for my mom to realize I was deaf because I was responding to vibrations and not sounds.”
With that being her new reality, Ballesteros said she learn to communicate quickly with the resources she was given.
“I was first in my school to get a cochlear implant, so I have some hearing,” she said. “It is interesting because the school I went to was a special program called Sunshine Cottage. I had intensive speech therapy focusing on hearing, and at home, I was using speech to communicate with my family.”
She said she spoke really well until she entered the real world.
“That was a real challenge for me because I wasn’t familiar with everyone’s voice or sounds in the world,” she said. “I went to a mainstream school, and a lot of students who didn’t have disabilities really looked down on me at that time, and I rely on facial expressions to communicate. I didn’t learn sign language until I was a teen, and not being able to communicate made me feel disheartened.”
She said having her implant helped her make sense of her surroundings, and attending public school also helped her prepare for the real world.
Her mother wanted her to focus on education, so after graduating high school, she went on to The Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
“They had a program there specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, so I got the technical skills for real life and my curriculum.”
In her young life, Ballesteros held small jobs here and there but never had a permanent position.
Without that job experience, she found herself struggling to get hired after college.
“It was a lot of challenges for me,” she said. “I had filled out application after application and not getting any calls back.”
But then Goodwill San Antonio answered her prayers.
It is a ’Say Yes’ employer that empowers people of all abilities to find purpose and independence through work.
This is especially helpful, given a 2024 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report that found only 22.7% of people with disabilities ages 16 and older were employed.
That is a small number in comparison to the 65.5% of people who were employed without disabilities.
“I saw Goodwill posted this job for a photographer, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but they don’t have problems with hiring people with disabilities,” she said. “Then I got a call and was like, ‘OK.’ “I kind of had mixed feelings at first because it had been a long time of doing nothing. I felt like, ‘Am I ready to get into something daily? To start a stable life for myself and purpose for myself and my life.’”
Ballesteros said she is a totally different person than she was when she first started.
She went from being very reserved and in a shell to now being very social and outgoing, even participating in Muertos Fest as a model in front of crowds of people.
She said everything that she has been through has happened for a reason.
“I am more capable because of the life I have lived,” she said. I live a life thinking outside of the box. I had to be imaginative and proactive, and my challenges and struggles have really set me up.”
Because of her amazing skill set, Ballesteros has put Goodwill San Antonio on the map with her website and online auctioning work.
She loves every day of her work and prays that all employers think twice before rejecting a job application due to a listed disability.
Research shows that many employers still perceive cost, productivity, or accommodation needs as a significant hiring risk for people who are disabled.
“Give people with disabilities an opportunity,” she said. “Allow them to prove themselves no matter what. You have to allow them to prove themselves. Let them try.”
She also had these words of encouragement for those with any disability.
“Take your time and try to find that inner confidence,” she said. “You can show the world the skills you have. Don’t worry about other people and the negative things they think about you and the stereotypes. You just focus on what you are doing and do the work.”
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