The Elementary Voting Perspective

"We had an election at school to see who we thought would win." - Fourth Grader "Oh, yeah? who did you vote for?" - Me "Obama." - shy smile from 4th grader "Why?" "Because my mom and dad really want to stay in this country, and my mom told me that where we are from in Mexico there is no work and people can get shot. She worries that if Obama doesn't win, we will be sent back there." "Can she vote?" "No. But she said one day I will and I can help change the world." "What would you change?" "The way we are treated sometimes. Some people are really mean." "Sometimes people are really afraid of things they don't know about, and people they don't know. That's why they're mean. But you shouldn't worry about them. You should just keep on working to change the world." "I know. I'm still nice to them." That was a conversation I had with one of my 4th grade Incredible Years girls last night. There was more- we spoke about Mexico, about how hard her parents are working, about the fear that they will be deported to a country with no money, a country where gang violence is the everyday norm, and where the government is corrupt and proud of it. We spoke about how proud her parents are of her, about how they think she will even go to college if she works hard. She even asked me if I had ever thought about being president. Then we talked about how much work it is to run a country, but how nice it would be to eat anytime you were hungry. I held it together, and smiled and laughed with her, and when I left told her I would see her again in a couple of weeks. Once I was in my car, I had to sit for a minute and process what she had said. I wanted to tell her how hard politics were for Americans too. How, right now, they are trying to take away my rights, just because I happened to be a woman. That many people did not think I could choose for myself what was best for me. And yet these same people would be the ones who would choose not to pay for education, who think that teaching should be a volunteer position, who think that we should use vouchers instead of having a public education system. It just makes me wonder how we could have traveled so far only to turn around and go backwards again. VOTE.