For Californians with immigrant parents, voting becomes a sacred privilege

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Ask most people why they’re voting, and you may hear this response: “I really believe this measure will be good for us,” or “This candidate has some good ideas and I think they would do a good job leading us.”

As a child of Indian immigrants, I’m no different. I’m voting because of my belief in certain candidates I want at the helm of our government and my faith in specific policies to drive us forward.

My passion for politics, a spark that I’ve carried since I was no more than 3 feet tall, was kindled by my parents. They considered voting an immense privilege and knew that one day, their two daughters would exercise that right. 

This belief stemmed from their own experiences as noncitizens in the 2000s. They watched American politics from the sidelines, yearning to be more involved and have a say in the decisions shaping their lives. After living in the United States for years, they learned about the responsibility that came with voting, seeing the potential for real change and the consequences of voters’ decisions.

They were the backbone of our politically savvy household. 

November was our favorite month, and it wasn’t just because of Thanksgiving. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, there wasn’t a dull moment in the house. We analyzed every debate word by word, often rewatching them multiple times. My dad would pause every few seconds during a rewatch to break down the political jargon to his confused 7-year-old, turning our living room into a civics classroom. 

Day after day, they reminded me that making my voice heard through the ballot was one of the most important actions I would perform as a citizen. My parents instilled in me a sense of duty and responsibility.

This year, my mom is particularly excited to have a say in health care policy due to the impact terminal illness has had in our family.

Everyone’s contribution counts when it comes to voting, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. To me, this is the ultimate group project where each of us have a role to play in deciding our future since the decisions that our elected leaders make affect us for years to come.

On the premed track in college, I see constantly how federal and local policy impacts community health. My awareness stems from a personal loss, that of my dad to cancer when I was 13 years old. I witnessed firsthand how treatment for such diseases is incomprehensibly expensive and inaccessible as a result.

This summer, while working with a mobile clinic in rural Oregon, I spent a lot of time talking to patients about their backgrounds, learning about where they came from and what barriers they faced to simply receive basic medical care. 

Their answers ranged from inability to take paid leave to unstable or limited knowledge of English. I came to understand that health care policy isn’t an isolated issue — it shares crossroads with education access and economic stability, among other things. After seeing patients struggle with physical and mental illness while facing unstable housing and financial hardships, it became clear that policy-rooted solutions are needed in every aspect of society. 

I also found that the groups who faced barriers accessing health care were often underrepresented in the voting electorate. According to the VOICE Project at UC San Francisco, these groups “experience a heavy burden of diseases rooted in policy-level decisions,” including people of color, communities with limited English proficiency, and our disabled populations.

What’s more, these hurdles to voting tend to disproportionately impact those on the margins of our society, like low-income individuals, people of color and non-English speakers. These obstacles have made voting harder one too many times, so I’m on the lookout for those candidates who are proposing expansion of voting rights, and pushing for policy-facilitated removal of these barriers.

Ultimately, I’m voting with the hope that the next generation of voters will experience fewer barriers to exercising that right. In high school, I volunteered with the Democratic National Committee during the 2020 and 2022 elections. My role primarily consisted of working with registered voters to make sure they had a voting plan ready to go before Election Day, but I soon learned about barriers I had never considered. 

I heard about the lack of reliable transportation that prevented rural college students from getting to a polling center 20 miles away, and the struggle of disabled voters in some states to obtain notarized affidavits to submit an absentee ballot.

Thankfully, in California, absentee voting is available to everyone.

Some may see voting as the tiniest drop in a vast ocean — insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Our system is by no means flawless, but our votes do have a collective voice, and an incredibly loud one at that. Change may not be immediate, but by voting and refusing to forfeit our right to influence change, we can steer our communities and our nation in a direction that works for everyone.