Tonight in the conversation partners program run in a church near the Port Authority where I volunteer in an ESOL program I asked a student, a native Ecuadorean, why she supports Hillary Clinton for president.
She explained that she supports Senator Clinton because her husband, Bill Clinton, gave amnesty to illegal immigrants in the U.S. Additionally, she allowed for immigrants to get humanitarian visas.
I don’t know whether this is true or what it means, but it’s the perception of what’s true and that’s what matters most in understanding the nation’s electorate.
When I asked her what she thought about Barack Obama she replied she didn’t know much about him. That’s not a perception, that’s the reality.
The student I was speaking with is a new American. Last Wednesday she took her citizenship test – which each tutor in the program helped her study for over the past six months – and was sworn in as a new American citizen in Federal Hall last Friday. She beamed when she told me about saying the Pledge of Allegiance during the ceremony for the first time. She teared up recalling how she teared up singing the Star Spangled Banner for the first time with her fellow new citizens from 20 other countries.
She knows a lot about America, more than most of us. Some of the questions on the test that we practiced from were an unwelcome reminder to me of how long it’s been since I studied civics for my NYS Regents diploma from high school when I actually knew these facts. I was happy for the brush up course but silently humiliated by my ignorance.
But this new citizen knows a lot about how our government and political system work from the Constitution to Congress to citizens’ responsibilities.
As Texas goes to vote in early March it will be interesting to see what her fellow recent immigrants and new citizens from Latin America say with their vote. How they vote and in the numbers they show up may project the future face and direction of the America they’re struggling to join.
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