Midterm Reflections
When people look at me, they see a “white girl:” blonde, green-eyed, accent-free, well-dressed. They don’t see the food stamps nor the non-English-speaking parents nor the agonizing wait for a green card. They no longer hear the accent I eventually learned to manage. They don’t know that my high school diploma was the first my parents ever saw (neither graduated), nor that my college-application process was a solo endeavor fueled by my own desire and instincts, and by scholarships and loans that I’m still paying off. They never visited my family’s tiny rental apartment, where my brother and I shared a room until I left for college. Most of them don’t know what it’s like to grow up in two hemispheres, far away from familiarity and comfort, to watch their parents struggle every day and to slowly realize that their American Dream is, ultimately, you.
My brother and I often joke that we’re “undercover immigrants,” which is our way of finding the humor in what has actually been a challenging dichotomy for most of our lives. We’ve both had horrible things said about Hispanics and immigrants to us, under the assumption that we were “American” (whatever it is that actually means). I used to stay quiet, to avoid confrontation, but as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now if you’ve been reading my writing for some time, getting to shake people’s perspective and disrupt their prejudices has become increasingly satisfying – not to mention, necessary.
I earned my long-awaited right to vote in 2016, upon becoming a Naturalized U.S. Citizen, and have since vowed to make my voice and my vote count. Since proudly casting my first vote in that now infamous 2016 election, the U.S. has undergone a seismic shift toward bigotry, racism and antifeminism – disconcerting and terrifying in ways I never fathomed. What happens in today’s midterms will paint the landscape for the country’s stance on the environment, immigration, bodily autonomy, civil rights and beyond, further foreshadowing what will be at stake in the 2024 presidential election. So, no, I will not hide my conviction or disguise myself under strangers’ superficial perceptions of who or what I am.
Today and for as long as I am able, I vote as an immigrant, as a woman, as a Hispanic and a Latina, as a military/veteran wife, as a first-generation high school and college graduate, as a business owner, as a person with hopes for a better, more empathetic, more inclusive, more level-headed, more prosperous United States of America where the American Dream can be all of ours for the taking.
However you vote, vote like you mean it, and however the results pan out, act like you live in a country where democracy matters and thrives. ❤️✌️🇺🇸
