I went to bed last night crying my eyes out. I kept telling my mother that this meant that people were going to die. This was the first election I got to vote in and I was so fearful that would be the last if this is what the outcome was.
My dad has lived in the USA since 1984, when he came here for college. He speaks English with a thick accent but still more thoughtfully than many native speakers I know. He pays his taxes. He lives here legally. He may not be a citizen, but this is his country too. This is his home. And now I am afraid. I am afraid of what will happen in the coming months, now that the hatred of immigrants has been more than justified. I am afraid that he’ll face outright violence for being passionate and opinionated and unapologetically himself.
Yesterday, I was nervous, yes, and I didn’t expect a landslide. I expected the margin that was much of close for comfort but I still expected Hillary to win. We all did. The truth of it is, we all underestimated how utterly racist and sexist the country we live in is. A candidate in America ran on a platform steeped in racism and sexism, and we elected him over the most qualified woman to ever run. As CNN’s Danielle Moodie-Mills said: “This is white supremacy’s last stand.”
I recognize my privilege as someone who's Latino yet still very much white passing, but now I have to wake up everyday in a country who hates people like me because our culture is different, because we're not "from here", because we represent the other. I am the daughter of a Latino immigrant and to know that much of this country so afraid of us and so hateful for towards us, towards people like me and with families like mine, that this could happen is so unbelievably painful.
The fact that we could ever elect someone accused of ****** assault by dozens of women, someone who’s running-mate advocates conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth and overturn of Roe V Wade in 2016, someone who is so woefully unqualified and unfit because our nation couldn’t stand the idea of female president is unbelievably painful.
I’ve spent the six months working with local Democratic campaigns to reverse the absolutely irresponsible and disastrous direction that my home state of Kansas has been sprinting in for the last few years and now it feels like the whole country is following us on our way down. I’ve mades thousands and thousands of phone calls, knocked on doors every corner of my district, and spoken to countless numbers of other people who are fed up as I am. I woke yesterday at 4:15AM so I could be getting out the vote by 5 AM and I stayed up until they called the results last night and then a few hours after that unable to sleep.
There’s no way around how much it ***** when you get involved, when you canvass and you speak out, when you attempt to educate people, when you go out and vote, when you fight the good fight and you still lose to a faction of fearful people overwhelmed by hate.
It feels like my future and our country’s future has been stolen away by an older generation who will not even be there to see it, who are blinded by hatred and misogyny and racism.
In the last few weeks, I’ve sent off a number of college applications. In my essay I wrote about perhaps the most topical issue of this election and one that will always feel deeply personal to me: immigration and racism that bolsters those who are so staunchly against it, those who want to build a wall or start a registry for Muslims or bar Syrian refugees because they are so afraid of the changing face of America not being the same complexion as them. In my essay I wrote this:
“And yet as the Republican presidential nominee stands on a platform that is so staunchly anti-immigration and, frankly, racist that it might feel more at home in 1916 than 2016, I have hope. President Obama’s family tree, his American born mother and foreign born father, resembles mine in a way that no one’s before him has. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton bursts onto the Broadway stage, reminding us that America was, in its very best version of itself, born as country where even “orphan immigrants” could rise up and make a difference. An Olympic team comprised of refugees gets a standing ovation in the Opening Ceremonies in Rio. I am reminded of why my family, year after year, continues to run our booth. We don’t do it because it’s fun. We do it because we’re proud of where we’re from, we do it because we don’t ever want to forget that. We share our cultural in a fierce refusal to leave it behind. And that's important. Now more than ever.”
Yes, I feel completely disheartened by this election. As a woman and a Latina and queer kid, I feel completely failed by the American promise today. I feel failed by a political system where a candidate can win a large number of the vote but not the White House. I feel failed by the fact a major party in our country let racism and xenophobia swell in its base for years then had the audacity to act surprised when a man endorsed by the KKK became their nominee and president-elect. I feel like we’ve failed everyone I know who cannot vote and terrified over what this victory will means for them and those they love.
So yes, today is undeniably a dark day in our history. On the surface, my father is the one in my family who has the most to fear, but right now he is the most optimistic person in our house. So I cannot abide by being hopeless. And I know this is just another post, article, tweet, opinion, essay right now among a thousands of others. A drop in the bucket. But I remain committed to the belief that writing is powerful and important.
I know that it feels so incredibly hopeless right now, but it’ll only be more so if we let ourselves become apathetic. Stay committed to change and love and inclusiveness. Be loud, be angry, and fight a Trump presidency tooth and nail. Please, please do not become complacent. We cannot afford it.
my heart is so heavy. be loud, be angry, be proud, fight back. do not accept that we cannot fight this horror. the majority of our country still believes in a better future and they voted for it. and please be safe, friends.