Tell Him "Boy Bye" - a reflection on voting in 2016 vs. 2020

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Middle fingers up

Put them hands high

Wave it in his face

Tell him “boy bye”

Four years ago I voted in my first presidential election, and I was not hopeful. I wanted Hillary Clinton to win, but I knew it was going to be close. I snapped the picture on the left because I thought it was funny. I had no idea that the worst, and the best, was yet to come.

Because the thing is the morning after that election, I woke up and went to the Schreiner Diversity Committee meeting. We talked about how to handle a racist micro-aggression committed against a student. That student became a leader on campus and helped others who had been in her situation.

A few weeks after the election, I traveled to Montreat Youth Conference where I heard a Sikh activist named Valerie Kaur who opened my heart to community organizing as a possible career.

A few months after the election, I went and studied abroad in Scotland. I learned about self-determination, marched in anti-US Muslim ban rallies, built solidarity with Scottish activists, and took classes about stories, ethnography, and religion, violence, and peacebuilding.

I got home and I threw myself into intercultural communications, international studies and political theory so I could understand why people believed what they did and learn how to see others' perspectives and what it took to make people understand each other.

I graduated with my undergraduate degree in communication studies and I worked my ass off to double minor in global studies and political science as well.

I knew things had to change and we needed to do better listening to one another so I went to hear some congressman from El Paso who was running for senate at the Sherman courthouse, and I guess I liked what he had to say so I started volunteering and then working for him a few months later.

I put my blood, sweat, and tears (and a concussion) into an election that would make Texas politics more representative of the state that raised me to be who I am and we lost by 2% but did we really lose? How can you call it a loss when 300+ people (mostly young people) now had organizing experience and even more importantly had each other and thousands of volunteers weren’t afraid of contacting voters anymore and we increased youth turnout by 500%?

I knocked on doors, made phone calls, coordinated volunteers, and asked for donations for the second naturalized citizen to ever serve on the San Antonio City Council and we WON! Not only did we win, but we won with ⅔ of the vote, and not only did we win with ⅔ of the vote but that election led to a majority Latina SA city council. And I got to teach and learn from so many incredible people, both older and younger than me. I got to work with my heroes and find new ones.

And then I went to the Brussels forum and I met the movers and shakers from both sides of the Atlantic and built relationships with other young people that were interested in what I was interested in and cared about what I cared about and inspired me and still continue to every day.

And now I’m here in Denver, studying at a school named for a refugee who fled the Holocaust and the father of the first female Secretary of State. I’m learning about grassroots organizing and political theory and making friends that I’ll have for the rest of my life and sharing my knowledge and doing everything I can to prepare to fight in whatever the world looks like tomorrow, or next week, or forever.

And none of that would have happened if Donald Trump hadn’t won.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s a positive thing at all, and I condemn anyone that says “We’ve survived four years of Trump, and we’ll survive four more.” You’re wrong. Not all of us have survived.

But what I AM saying is I don’t know who’s going to win, but I’m much more hopeful than I was four years ago. Because I’ve seen us at our worst and I’ve seen us at our best. No matter who wins, we’re going to be fighting because our best can always be better. And in the past four years, I’ve met hundreds of people who are hoping, trying, working so hard to make us better.

Four years ago I voted against Trump, sure. And I’m doing that again this year. But it’s more complicated than that.

I’m also voting for my grandfather that fought Nazis during World War II.

I’m voting for my cousin’s 4-year-old daughter, so she can have a Vice President who looks like her.

I’m voting for the woman that hugged me on the steps and cried when I knocked on her door for Beto, because her husband had died because she couldn’t afford his medicine anymore.

I’m voting for my parents, who are educators.

I’m voting for my brother, who voted in his first presidential election this year because I want him to look back in four years like I am right now and feel the same way.

I’m voting for the people I’ve met and the people I’m going to meet who inspire me and pick me up and push me to do the work that needs to be done. The voting work and the advocacy work and the protesting work and the legislating work and all the work that had to be done to get us where we’re going.

I don’t know who’s going to win, but I’m confident that we will continue to fight. I voted, the most basic thing that can be done as a good citizen, because I know that no matter who wins, there will still be work to be done. And we will do it together.