um HELLO!!

so in honor of this momentous day i felt it important to record my feelings in some way so here i am. Every hour or so i find myself on the brink of tears.

My friend Adriana and I woke up really early and got to the polls at 7:30. I mean, i guess this wasn't that early but i willingly woke up before 9, which is HUGE for me. So i rolled into the polling station in my jammies, and 2 hours later i was the proud recipient of a sticker. I have never felt the need to wear these stickers but today I do. so you know how i have "moments"? Well today i have had like 8 billion moments.

Moments:
1. seeing the long line of people, bundled up on scarves and coats on this chilly fall day, all looking so pleasant at such an early hour. It was a true sense of community that i felt. A community of Americans united, perhaps on different sides, but honoring this one thing that we all have in common, our right to vote. what a beautiful thing!! I ran into people that i knew who had just voted and we hugged and it was this feeling of like...LET'S DO THIS!! " sense of control in a world full of chaos" if you will.

2. i walked into the booth, opened up my folder and had to stare for a second at the 2nd option on my presidential ballot. "Barack obama, Joe Biden." These are names that i have been hearing and seeing in print for so long now, yet here i was and i couldnt' believe that those names were put in front of me. It's kind of like when i see my profile on the psychology website and it says that my degree is from Stanford, and i know this but seeing it out there always makes me feel a bit shocked and incredulous. Like, did i really go there?? Anyways this was how i felt seeing Obama's name on that ballot. I mean look how far we have come! right now i'm getting emotional! but seriously, i almost shed a few tears in that voting booth because who would have thought that someone like me could be president, AND have a shitload of people in this country voting for them. This is a great day! Last week my professor told us that she would be cancelling class today. She is Black and was planning on voting very early and driving out to pittsburgh to be with her family. She said "do you guys even understand?! This is HUGE!! I have relative who didnt' get to vote and went to segregated schools and now they are voting for a Black man!" And i knwo peopel have seen that clip of that old man and, yes, i wept buckets. But this was a person right here in front of me, talking about what it meant to her, and that moved me. And it was like on the west wing when Jimmy Smits got added as teh fake potential first latino president. I dont' even really watch the show but i saw a few episodes and i felt so proud!! and this must feel like that times 100 to this woman because it's not a hollywood fantasy, it's real! anyways when i used to watch those episodes just a few years ago it seemed to far away, like that would never happen but we could keep dreaming about it and hoping. AND HERE WE ARE ON THIS DAY!! VOTING FOR A BLACK, MIXED, SON OF AN IMMIGRANT, HARVARD LAW GRADUATE!! this is unreal!!!

3. My dad called me and told me that he woke up this morning and thought "wow! i am voting in my first American election!! Can you believe it, Mija!??" I tell you, i cannot. My Father is not a democrat, but he is a big believer in America, and what he believes it stands for. he's very upset about what it has become. And he said "you know, i don't believe that American is perfect, but i believe in America. And we REALLY do need a change! i really believe that." Then he went on to talk about how not too long ago he was driving by Staples' center during a swearing in ceremony and he thought to himself "what am i waiting for!?" and here he is, almost a year later, voting on his first election, perhaps the most important election of his life, voting for the first black person to have the chance of winning the presidency. Even my dad, who is racist as fuck, realized what a great moment this was for him, an Indio. When i asked him what his stance on Prop 8 was he said "hell no! i say no to that! It is not my place to say that they cannot get married. And they've been getting married for a few months now and i don't see california burning in hell so i don't know why people are so scared." People, we have come a long way for my dad to say this. Not that he's a homophobe, but he definitely has elements of teh old school to him

3. This one is truly embarrassing. So in my education class that i TA we were showing the students "kindergarten cop" as a depiction of behaviorism and knowledge construction. anyways there is a scene toward the end when they have all the kindergartners at a festival reciting the gettysburg address. And the final kid says "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from earth." We here these words, and for so long they have been just words. Theories, ideals. And here we are today and the fruition of that speech is happening RIGHT NOW! and the moment was not lost on me. And i looked at my professor and my fellow TA and we both looked choked up and kind of laughed at each other cuz we were like, "why is this scene in kindergarten cop so much more meaningful now!!"

Anyways i dont' know when i will have a feeling of complete unity with my fellow brethren like this again. but while it lasts i shall savor it. I wish i could be at home with my family, watching the results, or wiht my college friends, in the atrium of Casa Italiana, or with Nick, in North Carolina, or with Annette, in our living room. le sigh. But no matter where i am or how i celebrate it i will be thinking of all of you