Election Joy

I have no words to express my absolute happiness and joy that Barack Obama is the country’s 44th president.

I’ll be honest: the past eight years have done much to add a nice, new layer of cynicism to my already countless coats, but this helps to sand that down a tad or two.  As a daughter of Mexican immigrants, discriminated against just because of my skin color, just because I could speak another language, just because my vacations consisted of visiting a “dirty” country and not Disney World, I’ve never felt completely comfortable here.  Or there (in Mexico).  Neither embraces me and both are quick to reject me.  Here, though, when I learned as a child, I learned that nearly no one in the history books looked like me.  And if they did, even just a bit, they were never as important as the white people who made history.  If it was a particularly bad piece of history (Mexican-American War, for example), those were the couple of weeks of school where people could get nastier than usual.  Those who looked like me?  Were bad.  And by extension, so was I.

Should I have kids, I can flip open their books to Obama’s picture and point out: look, hon.  Here’s a guy who’s as diverse as you are; you don’t share the same ethnicity, but you do share that wonderful mix of being from everywhere like he is.  To a child who inherits my skin color and not IP’s, I can point out that yes, yes, yes we can, honey.  And I can remind this child that while it’s nice to see someone who looks like you or shares your kaleidoscope of a background, it’s ultimately about people and that’s what Barack Obama’s campaign stressed most to me: it’s about unity, about people, about working together for something better.  It’s not an us versus them mentality in his mind; it’s soley an “us” that looks towards a healthier planet, healthier people, a strong economy, a peaceful nation, a society that respects different beliefs and lives.  These are the values that I want to instill in any children I may have and I am so happy that IP and I can point to Barack Obama and say, see.  See, honey.  Here’s a man who wants a United States.  Not just a “real” America that didn’t take into account all people.

Many will disagree with me.  There are plenty of people disappointed today.  I am not one of them.  I am delighted that Barack Obama is our next president and I am enthusiastic about the directions in which he can take us.  I am enthusiastic about contributing towards that change; I know that President-elect Obama cannot wave a magic wand and all the bad stuff from the past eight years will go far away.  It requires work.

I can work.  If it means telling any future children that this was a point in history in which the country began to reunite for them to enter a better world, I can work hard.

Congratulations to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and, above all, the U.S.