The Ballot Box of Being Heard

When I vote, I think of my mother.

This year, I dropped my ballot into a ballot box rather than vote in person, but still there was a similar feeling. I always expect there to be something more that happens after I’m done–someone clapping for me, a victory lap with other just-finished voters, a room with cake and champagne. Something to celebrate the act. Instead, I just leave. I move on with the day and wait for the evening, knowing I have had my say. This year, the evening will be long, and it will likely be many evenings.

The simple act of voting is much more monumental than in any other year, but similar to other elections, I have taken time to reflect. I have thought about the fact that I can vote. That I did vote. That I have a voice and that that voice matters.

I am quickly reminded of conversations I had with my mother growing up. I was shy. I was small. And sometimes I needed help finding my voice. She was my help. In different, motherly ways she taught me that who I am matters. She taught me that being loud and being heard are different. She taught me to lean into discomfort in order to self-advocate. She taught me to be able to hear my own voice in a cacophonous world.

My mother immigrated from El Salvador when she was a teenager. She and my abuelita, along with my tía and tío, came for a better life. They came for opportunity. They came for a set of choices that were not available back home. (And home it was, as often lost in the conversation about immigration is how hard that decision is to leave everything and everyone). They came for themselves and they came for the families they did not yet have. They came for the present moment at the time and for thereafter.

Every time I vote, I remember that I am the thereafter. I remember that my grandmother moved for herself, her family, and the grandchildren she had yet to have. She made one of the hardest decisions so that her children would have a better life. My mother, years later, kept the ethos of that alive by consistently reminding my brother and me to be grateful. Even the smallest privileges are gifts.

We have miles to go before rights and privileges afforded to some are afforded to all. Each election is a chance to make up that ground of equity. Today, I laced up my shoes and ran my leg of the race. I practiced using my voice the way I was taught to. Maybe it’s my mother that I felt clapping and celebrating when I left the ballot box.