Mini-Hiatus Announcement

I need some alone time. I need some time to process. I need…I don’t know. After a terrible night’s sleep, after I woke up realizing that last night’s election results were not in fact a nightmare, I feel so disheartened. I cannot wrap my brain around the fact that a man that talked so negatively about so many groups of people can then be embraced by such a large portion of this country. I’m going to get a little personal. My grandfather is in the hospital right now. He’s my last living grandparent and they don’t believe he’s going to make it. Last night my father, along with his five siblings, spent the evening saying goodbye. When my grandfather was sixteen years old, he and his siblings left Mexico to come to this country for a better life. None of them were criminals or rapists, they were just looking for a brighter future for their kids and eventually their grandkids (and greatgrandkids while we’re at it, my grandpa has several).

All throughout this election process, I’ve heard Trump talk about Mexicans as though they were undesirables, something this country could do without, but I could not do without my grandfather. I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t take a chance on this country. I could go further back in my family tree and point out that my grandmother’s mother also came here from Mexico, that my maternal grandparents are both Mexican-Americans, that their genealogy can be traced back to Mexico and parts of this country that used to belong to Mexico. I’m not going to lie, this year’s presidential election felt like a slap in the face. This felt like people were unwilling to stand up for those who may not look like them, who may not have their same background, who just needed a helping hand. I was so willing to believe that we were a better nation than this, that our greatness came from a willingness to embrace all people from all walks of life. This election’s results prove otherwise.

I am disheartened, disappointed, and I feel entirely disrespected. Not just by Trump, but by all those who voted for him, by all those who refused to vote at all, for all those who didn’t believe he could win and so voted for a third-party candidate.

I’m taking a little break. I need a few days to process, to come to terms with the state of our country. Not everyone understands why this election’s results sting so much and I don’t expect you to. Not everyone and their families were villainized during Trump’s campaigning, but mine was. This is just a small portion of what is so demoralizing about this election, there are other groups of marginalized people that woke up today not feeling like their country was looking out for them. All I ask is that you let them mourn, let them vent, let them feel everything they need to. Please do not go on Twitter and tell them to just move on, to accept the results like they’re something that can be brushed off, to be nice and kind through all of this. Have some semblance of empathy and if that’s something you can’t do, then you are part of the problem.

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