VivirLatino

I have strong feelings about voting, and those aren’t always easy feelings. Raised in a family that always votes (and always Democrat- my dad even had a failed run for Congress once), and politicized by a Young Lord who also ran voter registration campaigns, voting has always been a complex issue. As a New York born and Rican with family who can’t vote because of their current or past criminal record or by virtue of living in a U.S. colony, it’s not a decision I take lightly.

As I went to vote, I struck up conversations with the people in my hood who can’t vote. My community is an immigrant community. The parents of many of my daughter’s schoolmates, my neighbors, the shop owners, are undocumented and they all asked me if I was voting. As I waited online for my bagel after voting, I spoke with day laborers asking what the scene at the polls was like. My vote today was more than my individual vote, it was for My tios, tias, y Abuela Lila who are in Puerto Rico now and for those who work here, put money into the U.S. economy and don’t have a say in who makes the laws and carries out foreign policy.

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