We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Oscar Loreto, Jr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Oscar, appreciate you joining us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

As an adaptive skateboarder I do feel our art is misunderstood. Before the influx of adaptive skateboarders over the last 5 years it did feel that it was a “circus” sport. A lot of the time I would do “One man demos” promoting and raising awareness for the sport, but very often it felt more of a pity party than inclusion.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Oscar Loreto Jr and I am a Professional adaptive skateboarder and co-owner of the very first Adaptive owned and ran skateboard company, 1 Legacy Skateboards. My business partner, David Coons, and I felt that many decisions for the disabled community in skateboarding were made by able bodied individuals and they were not in our best interest. We can now sponsor and run adaptive events for adaptive skateboarders and do it correctly.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Learning skateboard tricks is very difficult and there is no grading curve. You either enjoy slamming on concrete or you don’t. Now, factor in missing a limb and having to learn those tricks and figuring out how to position your prosthetic foot so you can do a kickflip.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Spreading the stoke and joy that is skateboarding to the masses

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @oscarloretojr

Image Credits

Ian Ruhter, Chris Sanchez, Dave Swift