The following piece was written by Suzy Wang ’13, who took time off from Trinity in order to work as a field organizer in Colorado for President Obama’s reelection campaign.
I was frustrated. I was sweaty. I was over-caffeinated and under-rested.
Early Voting began one week ago in Colorado, and this was my third visit back to El Sol Luxury Apartments in pursuit of Lee and Mikey.
A few days ago, I was ordered to export my capacity to Aurora, Colorado – the part of Arapahoe County that is typically responsible for turning the county blue. To most, the name Aurora might ring a bell because it was home to a shaking tragedy in late July. As I stood in a trailer park trying to find lots that did not exist, it was hardly conceivable that this was the same community that had undergone such heartbreak four months ago.
I had ten more people to reach on my list. Around the corner was a run-down apartment building with the name “El Sol Luxury Apartments.” Under the name was a large “NO TRESPASSING” sign.
I tugged at the handle of the black iron gate enclosing the building. Locked. I stood back and assessed my obstacle. The gate was roughly six and a half feet tall.
There’s no way I can climb this, I decided. There must be another way around.
I walked around the building and discovered a parking lot leading to back entrances. Goldmine. I waltzed into the building and knocked on my first door.
“Who’s that?”
“Hi, my name is Suzy. I’m with President Obama’s grassroots team and I wanted to make sure you had all your voting information.”
Immediately the door swung open. It smelled like split pea soup. An older Caucasian man wearing a stained white t-shirt stood in the doorway.
“Are you Michael?”
He grinned. “No, I’m Lee. Mikey’s in there. What can I help you with?”
I took a minute to explain that Mikey had been marked off the voter rolls for a mail-in ballot so he should go to the polls during early voting to avoid lines. I followed up with Lee, asking if the same had happened to him.
“I think I got my ballot in the mail. Here, let me show you.”
A few minutes later, Lee came back holding a voter registration summary postcard addressed by the Arapahoe County Clerk.
“Is this it?”
Exasperated, I told him it was merely proof of his voter registration, and that he would still have to go into the polls to vote. I walked him through his options. When are you planning on going? I don’t know. Can you go during your lunch break, or before or after work? That’s going to be hard. What day do you think you’ll go? Tuesday or Thursday, I think.
“Well, miss, I really thank you for coming here,” Lee said. “Mikey and I don’t have a car, you see. And Mikey is on oxygen so we’ve been waiting for his Medicaid card to come through.”
Lee explained how he had been Mikey’s caretaker for the last five years, ever since Mikey’s job let him go. When Mikey started getting sick, no insurance companies would pick him up, and since he was not well enough to stay in a job long-term, Mikey had been uninsured for the last five years.
For the next ten minutes, Lee and I exchanged information and planned when I would drive him and Mikey to the polls. It took three different visits back to El Sol Luxury Apartments to track Lee and Mikey down, but on the third visit, the three of us drove to Centrepointe Plaza and I waited as they cast their ballots.
“I’m glad you care about my vote,” Mikey said as he got back in my car. “This election matters to me. It’s going to give me a chance again.”
Then, I finally understood. Organizing is hard. It’s mostly thankless. The hours are insane and the day-by-day work feels like a slog. Most everybody who does it complains about the endlessness and questions why they are so self-loathing as to go through the experience.
But progress is never easy. The people I met over the last eleven months are a testament to that. I think about the single mom working three jobs who was terrified of losing her Social Security because it meant she would no longer be able to feed her two kids. I recall the man in a mostly Latino neighborhood who was shocked to see this young Asian girl trying to communicate to him about the issues in this election in broken Spanish because he’d never been asked what was important to him. I think about the gay soldier on the L train on his way to visit his boyfriend during his brief time off. I think about the Republican I canvassed who insisted I accept some Gatorade on one of Denver’s many 100+ degree-days. Finally, I think about Mikey, for whom November 6th was not about politics or candidates, but rather about finally having a chance to succeed and to build a better future.
We do the work not for ourselves, nor for the glory of being a part of history and incredible pay. We do the work because we know that in this country our ideals are as fragile as they are bold. We know that when nobody stands up for progress, the opportunity this country provides is limited to the floor.
If the people I mentioned earlier are any indication, our work is not done. There are more people to employ, more rights to gain, more peace to make and more problems to tackle. But for now we can celebrate and be confident in the idea that we have done all we could to put ourselves in a position to move forward.