Trump wins election: what are people feeling?
I was nine when Trump got elected for the first time. My parents told me in the kitchen, soft words against cool tile, and in my fourth-grade panic I whispered, “is he going to put us in a concentration camp?”
Which is the sentiment I hear echoed today, though free of the melodrama of childhood: fear.
Eight years later and America has moved backwards.
“It’s frightening,” junior Hazel Tracy expressed, “because it signifies the direction in which the country is heading…”
And it seems as though the issues up for debate are ones of basic rights.
“I saw a lot of Trump supporters citing the economy as their main concern,” Tracy continued, “and it was disheartening to see that they didn’t care about human rights.”
Along that same vein, Senior Andres Loor asserted, “I should not be living through this. I should not be afraid to wake up every single morning.”
This is the main concern. Not one of party platform discourse, but that this country was supposed to offer protections, that it was meant to be an asylum, and we have put someone in power who hasn’t shown a thread of empathy.
Junior Arelly Gutierez voiced this uncertainty. “Being a Hispanic American, I feel the same way I felt when I was a little girl because I don’t know what’s going to happen to my family.”
Then, there’s the question of reproductive rights.
“As a female I’m afraid, since I am now losing all my rights to my reproductive system,” junior Rah’Kiyah Boatright-Williams said.
In response to the growing apprehension, Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Ivory Tatum sent out an email restating the values of this district. She cited “champion[ing] equity for all” and continuing to show “kindness [and] support.”
Tatum went on to mention minority students and the district’s commitment to “…protecting public education for all of our students…”
Attached was another email that Principal Valete and Carolina Enrique of Yankee Ridge sent to the school’s families.
It outlined the rights families in Urbana have, from “remaining silent” to “not opening doors.” Below that they suggested “Creat[ing] a safety plan” including items such as having a place for your children to stay if you are detained, and “keeping important documents… in a safe place.”
The email ended with a list of local support groups.
The necessity of these messages is alarming.
In a country that prides itself on progress, we seem to have lost its meaning, and in doing so the identity of our democracy
My family immigrated to America because it was a place of promise and of possibility. Is that still true?
About The Author
