| The Bronx Journal Online-Opinion
Editorial
|| Letters to the Editor || Commentary
Editorial
Your One Vote. It’s that time again. In a
scant six weeks we will be asked to exercise our right to vote. Do it!
Vote! Consider the enormity of it; for a few hours we’re the most
important people in the nation. Candidates spend millions of dollars
wooing us for our one vote. Our decisions are on TV and radio and in the
newspapers. Our one vote doesn’t only go to elect the people we want
to run our cities, states and nation, our one vote goes for new schools,
teachers, housing and garbage collection, law enforcement, hospitals,
clean water, roadwork, street cleaning, sewers, subways and buses and
plenty more.
18-year-olds facing your first time in the
voting booth, do it, just do it! Get in there and exercise your power,
vote! Honor those women who marched in the late 1800s to gain the vote
for women. And honor all those people of all races, of good heart, who
went willingly to the South, facing injury and death to make sure that
you have that one vote. And don’t forget, the men who have gone to war
to make sure you keep that one vote. Cherish it and keep it.
To keep that one vote, you’ll have to
take care of it. Remember, if you’ve moved to a new address, you have
to re-register to vote. Do that too. It is the most important thing you’ll
do this year and any other election year. There are those who give up
their right to vote, never entering a voting booth, but they’re the
ones who are always ready to tell you what’s wrong with the country,
not understanding that they are part of the problem. You don’t like
the way your school system works?! Vote in your own interest by all
means, but vote! Make the most precious thing that you can own. Your
vote is your life and your future.
Letters
to the Editor
On BronxTalk
Thank you for giving the National Forum for
the Applied Media, Arts, and Sciences airtime on Bronxnet. On your show
BronxTalk we were allowed time to talk about NFAMAS summer programs. Our
representatives, Chris Hill and Yomarie Ramos had an interesting
experience discussing our purpose and our plans.
Nicole Sowell
Summer Youth Administrative Asst.
NFAMAS
Invitation to Gary Axelbank
Please accept our thanks for agreeing to
serve as a panelist in the Affordable Housing Dialogue co-sponsored by
my office, VIP Community Services, Aquinas Housing Corporation, Park
Avenue Thorpe and the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, on
Saturday, September 23.
There has been much progress in the past
ten years in reviving The Bronx, due in large measure to government
partnerships with organizations such as yours. We must, however, find
ways to continue this successful affordable housing experience. Your
participation as a panelist in the Bronx Affordable Housing Dialogue
event on September 23rd will not only highlight your organization’s
contribution to The Bronx’ revival, but will also provide the insight
necessary for the development of a citywide affordable housing policy.
The conference audience will be comprised
primarily of the leadership of Bronx housing organizations, community
boards and tenant and homeowner association leaders.
Once again, thank you very much for
agreeing to serve as a panelist. Your contribution to the event is
deeply appreciated.
Fernando Ferrer
The Bronx Borough President
Megavisión and MLJ
Recently we finished the production of a
documentary featuring the Hispanic culture in the U.S. This show will
air throughout Mega-visión national network in the next few weeks.
I am writing to thank you for the generous
help your team provided our journalists Alejandra Mansilla and Marcelo
Arancibia during their stay in New York City.
The efficiency and professionalism of your
Media Coordinator, Orlando Lorca, and your Public Relations Director,
Yolanda Hernández were decisive in helping our correspondents carry out
their assignment. Please convey our most sincere thanks to them. Without
their assistance, our project would not have been completed.
The professionalism of the Multi-lingual
Journalism Program of Lehman College lead us to believe that our
institutions will be able to work together in future projects.
Patricia Guzmán News Director,
Pablo Vásquez, Editor
Red Televisiva Megavisión S.A.
Santiago, Chile
Commentary
A Single Vote, A Single Woman
J.J González is the Managing Editor of
Univisión. He also teaches for the MLJ
Program at Lehman
There was not much left of Doña Ignacia
when I first met her. She lay dying in a bed in an hospice, a hospital
for the dying. The late stages of cancer had wasted her to the point
where she seemed to exist only by the weight of her bones.
Despite her emaciation, Doña Ignacia
retained the look of a proud Kichua Indian from Peru. She still
possessed the aura of her Inca forefathers; a fierce fire burned in her
sunken eyes. Doña Ignacia was determined to live as long as she had to
in order to achieve the one goal she had set for herself throughout the
agony of the illness. She was defying death, holding it at bay. She was
saying: "Not just yet, there’s something I have left to do."
And those eyes belied any idea of her
leaving this earth without accomplishing this last act; Doña Ignacia
was determined to become a U.S. Citizen and cast the first and only vote
of her life.
So it was that celebrity came to her. A
local newspaper had written up the story on how Doña Ignacia couldn’t
make it to the swearing ceremony and it had come also to the attention
of the people at the TV station I worked for in 1973. My editor waved
the news clip in my face saying, "This is one for you, J.J., you’re
the only one who speaks Spanish. There’s this old lady in New Jersey
who’s dying and wants to become a citizen before she dies. It’s a
great human-interest story. She’s all yours."
We were not the only TV crew on the story.
The room was crowded. But, a Federal District Judge, reacting to the
newspaper story, came running, threw us all out, declared it a courtroom
and swore her in.
She did her interviews in broken English,
until I spoke with her in Spanish. Why is this citizenship so important
to you? I asked. "El Voto," she croaked, "The vote."
"Quiero votar! I want to vote."
"Why is this vote so important to
you?" "Because I don’t like the senator we have in our
district; I want him out. This man voted against spending the money to
collect the garbage in my area. The people in my area have to pay for
them to collect our garbage. We’re poor. It’s wrong. I know I am
going to die soon and I want my only vote to count for something."
Her answer exploded in my head. For the
first time in years of voting, I realized what my vote was all about. In
one short moment this Kichua Indian woman laid out for me the power of a
single vote.
Doña Ignacia did vote, by proxy. Her vote
was counted when the man she voted against lost the election. I spoke
with her by phone when the vote came in. She croaked her elation and
died four days later. I bless her every Election Day, because as I walk
into the booth I think I’m making sure they pick up my garbage and I
really can change things around. Gracias Doña
Ignacia!
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