By Marisol Santiago
In the last couple of weeks I witnessed an all-too familiar trend: the media lifting stories of only some candidates post-Iowa and New Hampshire, choosing to ignore our Senator, Elizabeth Warren. Overeager pundits discussed an already male-dominated field, driving conversations about how polls don’t mean anything but now suddenly they do. The result is that those who own stocks of corporate interests continue to be embedded in our airwaves, running rampant with their analytical nonsense.
I continued to wait to hear about her. After all, she is one of the most powerful and brilliant leaders of our times, who in fact has a lot of important things to say and has spread her message all across the country. However, what I saw instead was they talked about many things, but not this; everything but her message and her hard work. They decided to discuss data points and the feedback from voters exiting polls. With 48 states to go, it was so early, but of course, the pundits don’t understand organizing. Not in the way I do.
This is when I realized something more important: who will tell her story? Is it not the voters’ opinions and perspectives that matter? Should we not be speaking up for the candidate of our choice? If I don’t speak up now who will speak up for me? Who will speak up for my family? Who will speak up for Warren?
The mirror was there.
This is the power of our voice and a time when our most vulnerable are depending on it. This is how we resist and persist.
I am voting for Elizabeth Warren for President because while I’m only one voice, there are many who agree with me.
I get the embedded fears that have been replayed in our face. The screens and news cycles who try to overpower the softly spoken or the ones who feel unseen. The feelings that emerge when we dare speak. We know how they operate. However, we do not need to subscribe.
In four years, we have witnessed some of the most shameful and atrocious human rights violations and a dismantling of critical protections for the most vulnerable among us. Yet today, in our country, we have more than 5,000 children in detention centers, with some as young as seven months go to court separated from their mothers, in the hands of strangers. Customs and Border Patrol Agents are being dispersed on Sanctuary Cities. This administration that does not value Indigenous Lands and people or the very delicate needs of our ecosystems and Mother Earth. Do we not have the obligation to stand right now and say enough is enough?
I stand in a country where the occupant of the White House has pulled us out of the Paris Agreement on climate, further speeding up the deterioration of our climate and increasing the amount of natural disasters. I also stand on land with a people who gave this occupant a pass thinking none of these things would occur. What lessons will we admit to have learned?
The moment to organize for change is now. We need someone who understands what it means to be elected to serve and puts the trust of American people as a priority. Elizabeth Warren has these qualities. If we become passive observers, rather than active participants, what will we gain in this election? What stories will be told?
While I sat at home in Chelsea when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, when we lost all communication with family and loved ones, I picked up the phone and called one person: Elizabeth Warren. I needed someone who would listen and whom I could trust. Within 5 minutes, she called me back. Within a few days, she convened Latino leaders on a statewide call, which she followed up with an in-person meeting where we shared information and came together to figure out our priorities and how we would tackle them. Sen. Markey also attended this meeting, and both Senators partnered to lift our concerns and follow through on our suggestions. That has always been my experience with Sen. Warren. Accessible, knowledgeable and a swift hand to get straight to business, Lizzie, as my young cousins call her, is sharp!
Because of her swift action, we were able to temporarily suspend the Jones Act, and we talked about the debt crisis created by the vulture banks that made a natural disaster emergency worse by continuing to destroy Puerto Rico’s economy. She has always been our partner. Her plan for Puerto Rico is needed now, and we need a President already experienced on these issues, a President ready to turn things around.
Like Puerto Rico, Massachusetts and the rest of the country will continue to face the impact of climate change. We need to envision a world in which we are reciprocal, and inhabit a planet that could look differently if we do not act now.
Even when they told her it couldn’t be done, she showed them how it could. This is the Woman who in 2007 advocated for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has returned over $12B to the American people by standing up against corporate greed that seeks to exploit consumers.
Big banks and Wall Street know she is a force to be reckoned with, and so do sitting members of the U.S. House and Senate. I’m here to do what the pundits didn’t, to bring respect to her name.
I am voting for Elizabeth Warren because I dare to dream big and fight hard.
This is not only her call and duty. It is ours.
Make your voice heard and don’t let it be swayed by those who say we don’t deserve a President Warren, because we do. After all the immoral injustices of this administration, our daughters deserve a President Warren. To uplift our country and to rebuild now, we need a President Elizabeth Warren. Vote based on your truth not what the pundits would rather dish out.
#LFG
Marisol Santiago
Chelsea School
Committee
District 3