By Sarah Yáñez-Richards
EDINBURG, Texas.— Many Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, woke up this Wednesday to a bittersweet taste when they saw the election results, on the one hand they are happy
to have expressed their voice with their vote for the first time
, but on the other they are sad that the president, Donald Trump, has won the 38 electoral votes of the great state after having won 52.2% of the votes, according to the projection of Noticias Telemundo.
[Minute by minute: the presidential count is still very tight]
Despite the fact that the election night has already passed,
none of them uncross their fingers
, as they hope that the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, can take over the presidency of the United States once all the votes have been counted.
“I watch the results update every 10 minutes and they are very tight.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I think Biden has opportunities to become president, ”says Frida Avilés, a student at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Frida Áviles, a pro-Democrat young Latino voter from Texas.
Sarah Yáñez Richards / Telemundo News
“When Texas was blue for 15 minutes (at the beginning of the vote count) I was very excited, but it didn't last.
The state is red, as always, ”says the twenty-year-old Mexican-American who in these elections voted for the first time for a president and believed that this year Texas - where
the last time a Democrat won was in 1976 with President Jimmy Carter
- was going to give his electoral votes to Joe Biden.
"Most of the people I follow and know are on the left and I thought: Maybe now that more young people are voting, it will turn blue."
[Results of the presidential elections in the United States 2020]
Another communication student, who prefers to remain anonymous, reveals that she too voted Democrat.
“It was bittersweet because I was hopeful for another outcome, but I knew that although sometimes people try to change things, sometimes change does not happen, since not everyone is in the same boat.
Our country is very divided now, everyone wants different things, ”explains the Mexican American communication student sitting from a university terrace that, like the rest of the campus,
is empty due to the pandemic
.
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The young Latina notes behind a mask with yellow flowers that even her family can see the division, since her parents voted Democratic, but her grandparents and uncles gave their ballots to Donald Trump.
[Election Results for the 2020 US House of Representatives]
"I am happy that this area has voted blue, for all the demonstrations we have had," he says, referring to the pro-Trump caravans that have taken place every weekend in the city of McAllen, a city belonging to the county of Hidalgo. ,
where Democrats won with 57.9% of the vote
.
Jonathan Martinez, despite not having voted for either of the two candidates, notes that he was sure that the Rio Grande Valley would vote Democratic because its majority of inhabitants are Latino and they do not "like Trump."
Jonathan Martinez, another Latino youth who said he did not vote for either Biden or Trump.
Sarah Yáñez Richards / Telemundo News
“The Latino voice is very important and more since the majority in Texas is becoming - according to the last census, 39.7 of the population is Hispanic - I expected that we would have more Latino voters, but there are always different circumstances such as residence permits, that prevent Latinos from being heard ”, underlines the student Mariana García, who in these elections not only voted in her name but also in that of her father, who,
being a resident and not a US citizen, could not vote in the elections
.
[Results of the 2020 United States Senate Elections]
Under a black mask, a university student who prefers to remain anonymous defends for his part that people have both the right to vote and not to vote and points out that he chose not to exercise his right to vote, because he felt that he would vote in these elections it was like "choosing your poison."
"I have been investigating this entire campaign, but I did not want to vote only to choose among the least bad," emphasizes the young Latino.
