This one’s for mamá
My final poll observation shift was from 4:00 until 8:00 on election night. Voters came in fits and spurts with things clearing out about an hour before closing.
Around 7:15, a large Hispanic gentleman – a bit younger than I – came in accompanying a much older woman. He was supporting her left elbow as they approached the sign-in station. Among the half dozen or so poll workers, one, adept with Spanish, helped the pair and accompanied them to the next station where they received their ballots and then to the booths where the staffer stood back as the man and the elderly woman marked their choices.
The gentleman was done well before the woman who was struggling with an aspect I couldn’t determine from my vantage point. Gently, the bi-lingual worker came over and, in concert with the gentleman, ensured that the woman had completed the process as she had wished to.
Then the three of them crossed the room. By this time, all the election workers ~ along with a couple of other voters and myself ~ couldn’t help but watch. Near the exit, a slotted, teal colored container served as the ballot box. The man slipped his in and looked at the woman.
She stood clutching her ballot.
“Aquí es donde pones tu boleta, mamá,” he said, pointing.
She continued to pause. It was clear that something deeply moving, deeply personal was coursing through her.
After a few moments, she slowly turned ~ scanning to meet each pair of eyes in the room ~ and haltingly said [in English]: “This is my first time that I vote.” Then she slid her ballot through the slot.
Mother and son left the polls accompanied by both our applause and our tears.
This November, as I slip my ballot into that sacrosanct box, my thoughts, in part, will be with ‘mamá.’
© 2024
Church of the Open Road Press
In 2020, l felt so hopeful helping my immigrant in-laws and my newly-18-year-old kid when we all took our places at the dining table with our ballots and pens. I loved reading your view of a similar feeling.
ReplyDeleteI remember voting for the first time at the nearby school alongside my mom and her naturalized-citizen mum when I was 18. Three booths, with privacy curtains, in a row.
At that moment, my future husband was a young communist conscript guarding the Bulgarian/Yugoslavian (now Serbian) border. While I was voting for a second term for Carter, Miro was beginning to hope to see the world beyond the iron curtain someday.
As it turned out, the wall was eventually torn down—in part by the diplomacy of the criminal, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan. Miro got to California USA just in time to see the the alleged criminal, Democratic US President Clinton, bomb Serbia (and part of Bulgaria by accident.)
We are going to have to keep doing this, generation after generation.
It's hard work, but it's good work. Thank you for volunteering at the polls and for sharing your story.