Nodia Mena and her son, Brayan Guevara, communicate above all, especially about race and politics.
Courtesy of Nodia Mena
This story is from “Every 30 Seconds,” a collaborative public media reporting task that tracks down the young Latino electorate for the 2020 presidential election and beyond.
It’s March 31, 1992.
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and California Gov. Jerry Brown Jr. are at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, debating schooling in urban areas of the United States and fighting over the affordability of tuition, and weapons, just before the Democratic presidential primary.
Related: This young Afro-Latin instructor and voter will be a role-playing style for his students
It’s an outdoor chaos of the school and all Nodia Mena can do is play it.
“I don’t know anything about American politics, but there’s so much enthusiasm,” he said. “Someone invited me in, we couldn’t even participate in the event. I mean, there were so many people, so many cars, and everything is new to me.
This delight in Mena’s first advent in American politics.
Mena is Afro-Honduran and moved to the United States about 30 years ago. He left Honduras at the age of 19, but was able to vote for the first time before leaving.
She said the lack of replacement in her country had led her to take the vote seriously.
“It is that whoever comes by force will do the same, perhaps they have relied on corruption and so on. My first vote was an insurgent vote. I voted for the one who most likely wins the game. I just felt like I hizo. no, that’s not what we count. As a garifuna, a black woman from Latin America, my vote didn’t matter.
“It’s the one who came to force who will do the same, maybe it’s based on corruption, etc. ,” Mena said. “My first vote was an insurgent vote. I voted for the one who least and most likely won the Solo I felt that it didn’t matter, that we didn’t count, as a garifuna, a black woman from Latin America, my vote didn’t matter.
Related: How a Honduras Shaped the Identity of a Young African-Latin American Voter
However, after seeing the enthusiasm for politics in 1992, Mena began taking it more seriously and studied politicians and the functioning of the United States government. The more studies I did, the more interested I was.
In 2008, this sentiment intensified.
Then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama presented his crusade with the slogan “A replacement we can” and the cry “Yes, we can. “
“It wasn’t until Obama that I started paying much more attention to what was going on,” he said. “The fact that he was there as a black man, but his message, the way he relates to people, the way he sometimes presented himself to people, gave me up personally.
Mena requested her crusade and made sure to do so with the other people she spoke to, to inspire the enthusiasm of the voters.
“I learned that we, as Afro-descendants, had to participate in the decisions that are made for us,” he said.
Her Afro-Latin identity puts her in an attractive dynamic when applicants visit to request her vote. Mena said applicants opted for the black vote or the Latino vote, but never the Afro-Latin vote. However, the fact that applicants do not touch African-Americans. Latinos is not a challenge for her.
Related: This Afro-Latin voter for the first time is undecided His problem?Education.
“I don’t think politicians keep thinking of other people as ‘he’s Indian,’ ‘he’s black,'” he said. “I think this is the moment when we try to be fair. “
“I don’t think politicians keep thinking about other people like ‘he’s Indian,’ ‘he’s black,'” he said. “I think this is the moment when we’ll have to try to be fair. “
As a Spanish professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mena is careful to tell his scholars about the history of Afro-Latinos.
“In Latin America, this solidarity is non-existent, with regard to non-black Latinos with black Latinos. In fact, when you say Latinos, he does come with me in this group. You have to say in particular “Afrolatinos. “
These questions about Afro-Latin solidarity with Latinos and African-Americans are questions she asks her son, Brayan Guevara, who, along with her siblings, communicate above all, but above all about race and politics.
“You’ll have MSNBC or something like that and that’s the kind of user who needs me to make a decision,” he says. “Actually, he never said to me, “Hey, Brayan, you have to be a Democrat. “You’ll see to ask me for my opinion on things so I can be informed. “
Guevara is a sophomore at Guilford Technical Community College, where he is reading to a teacher. He’s a first-time voter.
It took him a while to embrace his Afro-Latin identity, but now that he has, he sees the importance of having teachers of color in the classroom, just like his mother.
“The way that teachers treat black children, what I experienced in my day, is just the stigma they already have for those children,” Guevara said.
As Guevara and her mother go through this year’s election, she has no challenge in saying that Mena played a role in her political career.
“She’s the only influencer I’ve ever had, ” he said. ” I don’t appreciate anyone else. “
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