How Barack Obama Empowered a First-Generation Latina

All of the symptoms were there: the nostalgia, the search for coping mechanisms, the overwhelming fear of what comes next. The week leading up to President Barack Obama's farewell address, which I attended, felt like a breakup I couldn't get over.

Obama was commander-in-chief for the most transformative years of my adult life. I hit the polls for the first time while I was a 21-year-old senior at UCLA in 2008. I worked on his 2012 campaign, helping organizing the last rally in Hollywood, FL, before his election night with over 30,000 attendees.

As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, the first in my family to go to college, and product of Inglewood, CA, I went to Obama's farewell address carrying the weight of my family and community.

While I stood in a sea of supporters at the farewell address, I began to have flashbacks of my experience working for his campaign organizing in Broward County, FL. It was the first time I had moved away from Los Angeles, so finding a tight support system was critical. I remembered my neighborhood team leaders opening their home every weekend to strangers for phone banking and canvassing. I thought of the dozens of times volunteers walked into our Pompano Beach office to drop off food, medicine, and even a hug during our 18-hour-long never-ending work days.

I recalled the multiple times I cried listening to stories like that of my mother, who struggled to find employment as a bus driver while her daughter chased her first-generation goals. In many ways, Obama embodied the dreams of my mother, because the spirit of his campaign was about community-building, connecting with multigenerations, and hope. You could still feel that sentiment in Chicago during his final speech.

Two other emotions took over that night: fear and hope. I was fearful thinking of a Donald Trump presidency and what that means for families like the ones I work with at a bilingual K-8 school network in the Bay Area that services predominantly Latino students. I was, and still am, scared for my friends and family who are undocumented or at risk of losing health coverage, for my fellow activists who are preparing for an uphill battle.

Yet I was also hopeful. I, like many other fellow campaign alumni, have been inspired and motivated to roll up our sleeves and be the agents of change Obama called upon at the end of his farewell speech.

"And to all of you out there — every organizer who moved to an unfamiliar town, every kind family who welcomed them in, every volunteer who knocked on doors, every young person who cast a ballot for the first time, every American who lived and breathed the hard work of change — you are the best supporters and organizers anybody could ever hope for, and I will be forever grateful," said Obama. "Because you did change the world. You did. And that's why I leave this stage tonight even more optimistic about this country than when we started."

After the speech, I spoke with Isabel Sanchez, a fellow activist and community leader who works for Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). She summed up the call to action perfectly: "The silver lining for us is this: there has been a serious fire lit under us as Latinas, as homegrown leaders, as millennias, and as daughters of immigrants. This is our time to coalition-build, mobilize, and organize!"

She's right. At the Organizing for America festivities after the farewell address, staff were buzzing (and emotional) about what they took away from the speech. One thing was very clear — this was only the beginning. From founding organizations that prepare upcoming leaders to working to improve the future of the Democratic Party to managing political campaigns and running for local office, Organizing for America alumni from across the country were not going to waste any time preparing for the next four years. Obama had trained the fiercest organizers.

These leaders, as well as the new Trump era, has inspired me to launch my own campaign in 2018 and serve my home of Inglewood as an elected official. I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency as my city continues to evolve through rapid gentrification. The time for advocacy is now.

I also tapped into the same strategies from Obama's campaign when I cofounded the Coalition for Diverse Educators in 2016 to increase the number of teachers of color in urban school districts. Our approach mirrors the values of grassroots organizing: understanding the needs of our communities and creating a strategy to inspire young people to teach in neighborhoods like their own.

Trump should have much to fear as president. He will have to face the fuel of thousands of leaders in urban communities ready to educate and mobilize our youth. We are the ones this country has been waiting for.