Keep Calm, Vote On
Keep Calm & Vote On
It’s easy to forget the wins of history. But we have overcome impossible odds before and can do it again.
A blog post by Maki Somosot
Hi! My name is Maki, and I’m in charge of communications and narrative for Stand Up for Ohio. We’re a statewide coalition of community organizers, policymakers, union members, faith leaders, child care advocates, and young people - all focused on building power for everyday Ohioans.
I began to understand my own power two years ago, when I became an American citizen in the Heart of Dixie: Montgomery, Alabama. I had been living and working in the U.S. for the last ten years, and as a first-generation immigrant born and raised in the Philippines, it felt bittersweet to take the Oath of Allegiance for the first time. But never have I once regretted it.
In March of 2018, I was lucky enough to naturalize in a historic courtroom presided over by Senior U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson - the second Black man to be appointed to the federal bench in Alabama. It was the very same courtroom where Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. successfully fought for the Montgomery buses to be desegregated -- the first in a series of significant legal wins for the civil rights movement.
A photo of Maki taken inside the courtroom during her oath-taking ceremony in Montgomery, Alabama when she was naturalized as an American citizen.
During my oath-taking ceremony, Judge Thompson invoked the collective power of America’s long-marginalized: the Native peoples whose lands and cultures were stripped away from them, the Africans forcibly brought to our shores and enslaved, the immigrants of all stripes, origins, and colors drawn to Lady Liberty’s perpetually burning flame. It was a fitting act of resistance, one that would reverberate in quiet defiance from the depths of the Deep South, less than two years after Donald Trump’s election into office.
There was no crappy, pre-recorded video from the current president welcoming us to this country. Just pure, masterful invocation about the bright new future we would all deliver as New Americans.
Fast-forward to 2020, where I’m now living in Ohio and voting in my first ever presidential election. Being a voter in a crucial battleground state is not lost on me. It is a duty.
No one could have expected that over 225,000 Americans would die this year from a devastating virus. Nor the sudden upswell of courageous Americans from all over the country - Black, white, and brown, of all ages and places - rising up together to fight brutal racism and inequality. No one could have expected the way in which the pandemic and the protests would so blatantly and searingly expose the deep rot at the heart of American society.
These rapid-fire changes - and the way certain politicians have repeatedly bungled and mishandled them - has often left us feeling powerless. But as Americans, we still have that simple and most important power of all: the power to vote.
Image courtesy of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative
In fact, many of us have already wielded this power - in staggering numbers across the country, voting in-person or by mail. So with an unprecedented number of voters voting early and mailing in their ballots this election season, it’s important to be thorough. This is why we need to support our local election officials as they verify each ballot and count every vote. It’s part of the democratic process.
This weekend, I dropped by our local Board of Elections here in Cincinnati. The energy was electric. Black, white and brown, young and old, from cities to suburbs, we were all there. Cheering each other on for our democracy. For change.
It’s easy to forget the wins of history. But we have overcome impossible odds before and can do it again. If Dr. King and Mrs. Parks pulled through for America, time and time again, then so can we.
Let's keep calm and vote on.
