There was something special about this Election Day. It wasn’t the crazy debates, ads, comments, videos, mailings, arguments, Facebook posts, and every other thing leading up to it. It was the morning of November 6th. I woke up and got ready to go to work, planning to stop at the polls on my way to face rush hour.
You see, my voting place in Glendale Towers, a senior housing development from the local Housing Authority. As I walked in, I was greeted by three smiling, 65+ year old white ladies waiting to give me my ballot. I told the one with the list my address and she asked if my name was Spanish. I said yes to save the long “It’s actually Hebrew from the old testament in 1 Chronicles meaning …”. She asked my why it wasn’t an “h” sound because she’s learning Spanish and was told that ‘J’ is ‘H’. After explaining that my parents chose ‘j’ rather than ‘h’, she smiled saying, “It’s a beautiful name!” The white-haired lady next to her gave me by ballot. In the voting cubicles, I could hear older folks being helped by people reading the ballots and guiding them through it. On my way out, an older gentleman placed the “I Voted” sticker on my lapel, and another set of elderly ladies confirmed I had voted by checking my name off the list.
There was something nostalgic about the entire episode. Here I come, relatively young or at least half younger than anyone there, to cast my hopes, dreams, my fears, my faith, my future, my convictions through a piece of paper that so many people fought for. I have lived in the US longer than I have I lived anywhere else. My native tongue keeps morphing and at times slipping away. My culture is a hybrid of two worlds that are seemingly opposed but converge within me, seamlessly. Here I am, this morning, exercising the right that just shy of 100 years ago I could not have been able to do because of my gender. Not to mention that as a woman of color it has been much more recent, at least in practice.
There was not one person of color at my assigned voting post. However, it didn’t really make a difference; I didn’t see color. I saw a generation of people excited what this means. People for whom this may be one of the few last elections they participate in. People whose country keeps changing and names becoming more complex. It was an “American” moment, I feel. It was a nostalgic but hopeful moment. It was a reminder that life changes, generations end and others emerge, and that what I choose for my future will affect the ones who eagerly come to cast a first vote as I, with gray hairs and a broad smile, may be welcoming them to experience of exercising their civic duty.
What a beautiful moment it was for me. I am glad I voted. I am glad it was surrounded by a bunch of smiley old folk. What a beautiful reminder of the legacy of many, and the responsibility that I carry as I build my own.