I am a 27-year-old Latina studying journalism and pursuing a career in Spanish and bilingual media. I know exactly where I stand politically. But what I can’t come to terms with are the people in my demographic who don’t give a shit about this election. And I’m annoyed as fuck about it.

First example. An assignment in my journalism class earlier this week was to go out on campus and find a “passionate” voter to interview within a 10 minute time frame and ask them who they were voting for, why they were voting for this candidate, and why it is important to vote. I introduced myself as a reporter for the student media and asked if they were a passionate voter for a candidate, and if so, would they tell me which one.

I approached four individual students who all answered the same: “No, I’m not voting.” One said, “There’s no candidate I like, so I don’t have a choice and I’m not voting at all.”

As a journalist, I have to remain unbiased and objective no matter what answers I get, but that does not mean I wasn’t screaming inside. How do these students not care about this election?

When I finally found two students who were taking a stance on voting for a certain candidate, they said they didn’t consider themselves passionate but knew who they wanted in office: Donald Trump. (By the way, these students are both ethnic minorities.)

Second example: While having a discussion with my journalism adviser about how concerned we are at the possibility that Trump could be the next president of the United States, another student in the newsroom chimed in that he is indifferent about Trump being in office because people make him out to be worse than he really is. He also asked what will happen if Clinton becomes president and is indicted? He went on to mumble something about there being facts that show she may be indicted. This, of course, is not true. In fact, the FBI just cleared Hillary Clinton on Sunday and stated that no criminal charges were warranted against her for using a private email server for government work. But that didn’t stop him from believing it.

After this journalism staffer, a male Latino, made his remarks, I asked in disbelief, how he could defend a candidate who has discriminated against his own ethnic group? I also asked if his parents were born here. He responded that he is fourth generation Latino. “Yeah, I’m basically white,” he said. His reaction reinforced my belief that many people, especially men who are not children of immigrants, are blind to the consequences of a Trump presidency. Or they just don’t care.

And it’s not just those few examples. It’s students across our campus who have been interviewed throughout this election who are either not voting or voting for a third party candidate, knowing that this puts someone as dangerous and incompetent as Donald Trump in the White House.

Being Latina in the Age of Trump

A presidential candidate, the man who would become our commander in chief if elected, was caught on audio saying that he sexually assaults women because he can. His exact words were, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” Anyone who excuses this kind of behavior is supporting a machista dominant mindset, an attitude, quality, or way of behaving that agrees with traditional ideas about men being very strong and aggressive. This allows men to get away with invading a woman’s right to choose who touches them, where they are touched, and when they want to be touched.

I know that women within my ethnic group are familiar with machismo. It baffles me that it is not sinking in with female non-voters, third party voters, and Trump supporters that they are supporting a man who fuels rape culture. To the four female students who responded that they aren’t voting for anyone, congratulations, ladies. Thanks to your indifference, our next president may be a groping advocate who thinks it’s cool for that dude at the party to to grab your ass because he can. But your vote means nothing, right? Because fuck Hillary, right? Or even worse, fuck voting.

When Trump’s comments about former Venezuelan Miss Universe Alicia Machado were brought to light, I was shattered and disgusted. He allegedly called Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” playing on the stereotype that Latinas have jobs as housekeepers. This offended and categorized me and all the Latina women and girls in my life, including my mother, my friends, my tias and my nieces, as stereotypes. Video footage shows that during her reign, she was being kept quiet by representatives in the organization regarding her weight gain.

Trump said on Fox & Friends on Sept. 26, “She was the winner and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem. We had a real problem.” Machado also said that in one incident, Trump ambushed her with reporters who filmed her while she exercised — an experience she said left her scarred with eating disorders.

And when Machado spoke up for herself and said her weight gain should never have been a problem in the first place, Trump ignored her. A man monitoring and scrutinizing a woman’s weight screams machismo.

The women and men who side with Trump do not have our future in mind. These people believe, and their children will grow up to believe, that women can be humiliated; that this kind of behavior is okay because the president of the United States does it.

It becomes more difficult each day for me to stand by and watch Latinos support Trump. I find that they are quick to overlook his discriminatory remarks toward people of color. I just do not understand how anyone of Latino descent, or Latinos who speak Spanish as a first language, or those who have parents who worked so hard to come to America, or the ones who hustle double time just to get by, are not offended by the things Donald Trump has said about Latinos.

This is the man who has said he wants to build a giant concrete wall to keep the Mexicans out. He has backed up his comments that “The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States.” His exact words speak volumes about his prejudice toward Mexicans.

Trump said on June 16, 2015 when he kicked off his campaign,“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

He was later fact checked by the Washington Post who reported that there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, first-generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans.

In August 2015, he retweeted a crude remark aimed at then-presidential candidate Jeb Bush, whose wife is Mexican-American and who is fluent in Spanish. “So true. Jeb Bush is crazy, who cares that he speaks Mexican, this is America, English !!”

And then there is his stand on undocumented Latinos who have been living and working in the United States, and their children who have been here since they were small children. Trump wants to create a “new special deportation task force” and get rid of amnesty. The Washington Post reports that if Trump deports undocumented immigrants, including those with overstay visas, the estimated number of deportations would be close to 5 million people, an outlandish plan that even has Republicans doubting him.

Do you understand that undocumented students, our peers and friends who we care about and sit in class with, will be deported? I know so many students on my own campus who are scared for their families and for themselves. These students, known as “Dreamers,” are dealing with extreme depression at the prospect of a Trump presidency. Univision reported this week that stress, depression and anxiety have ballooned among undocumented students at the University of California at Berkeley this election season.

This is heartbreaking. I will never understand how my fellow Latinos could support someone who is against our entire culture. Hillary Clinton does not want to ship your family members and friends back to their countries like cargo. Trump does.

Being a Woman in the Age of Trump

Trump has male voter support. These men have daughters, mothers, and sisters. Trump has uttered horrific comments about women which should shock these men, but it doesn’t. Even worse are the wives and women who defend this kind of behavior and scoff it off as “locker room talk.” As a woman born and raised in The United States where women are supposed to be seen as equals, it is difficult for me to understand how any woman can vote for a man who thinks that grabbing a woman by her vagina is mere “locker room talk” with no apologies and frankly, no fucks given.

Hearing this audio and seeing him in contact with a woman immediately after he made these foul statements should have set off alarm bells for every woman and man who supports Trump. Since that audio was released, 12 women have come forward and accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. And what was his reaction? He attacked them, on a national televised stage, calling them liars. At his Gettysburg address on Saturday, Oct. 22, he said, “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” This is unprecedented for a presidential candidate.

Seeing so much support for a man who has been proven to have said these comments goes against the safety and respect of women. And it scares me. This type of thinking — “Grab ’em by the pussy” — does not discriminate against a political party or ethnicity. It affects all of us. And if this did not sway people who believe that women should be respected and teated as equals, than there is a much bigger problem than just a Trump presidency.

His sexist tweets, alone, make him unfit to be president. Time and time again, Trump lashes out at women. If he isn’t calling them ugly or bimbos or fat, he’s insulting them in ways I’ve never witnessed from a presidential candidate. He even insinuated in a tweet that his running mate, Hillary Clinton, was at fault for her husband having an affair.

As a survivor of domestic violence, I am sickened that this kind of rape culture and sexism is tolerated, especially in someone running for president.

Trump even tweeted about women in the military, implying that putting women and men together results in men sexually assaulting women.

If Trump’s sexist behavior isn’t bad enough, he is completely out of touch with issues that affect women. He openly said in an interview in 2004 that women who become pregnant are an inconvenience for an employer. And if a woman finds herself pregnant and chooses to terminate the pregnancy, he believes the woman should be punished. And he wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

My maternal great-grandmother was one of 14 children and a devout Catholic. Her mother went through struggles to raise 14 kids and I would like to think she may have wanted the option of birth control. This was before Planned Parenthood existed. Whether you consider yourself Conservative or Liberal or neither, women in all groups must have access to birth control and free health care.

Trump wants to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides pap smears, mammograms, routine health care, and yes, birth control and abortions for women who want or need it. But if Trump becomes president, women will no longer have the option of free health care and safe abortions.

Trump wants to reverse Roe v Wade, the 1973 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision which recognized that the constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman’s right to make her own personal medical decisions — including the decision to have an abortion without interference from politicians.

Now over 40 years later, we have a presidential candidate who wants to take us back 4o years. He said, I’ll appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade…”

This will lead to births that women may not be financially ready for. It will lead to women resorting to unsafe back alley abortions. A decision to take birth control, or to have an abortion, should be a woman’s choice, or a choice made between a woman and her physician because a woman’s health is at risk. It is not a decision that should be made by the government.

Being a Millennial in the Age of Trump

Many of my peers who believed strongly in Bernie Sanders have abandoned his call to support Hillary Clinton after she became the Democratic nominee. Sanders said he would do everything he could to make certain she will be the next President of the United States because he knows if Trump becomes president, everything he’s fought for is over.

But even now, with a Trump presidency looming, millennials and “Bernie Bros” are refusing to back Hillary Clinton. Some are adamant about voting for a third party or not voting at all. Do they not realize that this kind of action, or non-action, is one step closer to a Trump presidency? Do they also understand that Bernie’s dreams of progress will end?

And many are Latinos with so much at stake.

As the largest minority group in the United States, we are the ones who can make a positive change in the years to come by voting for someone who will move us in the right direction of progress. It baffles me how people my age are fine with aiding in the election of a racist and sexist president in the White House. To defy Bernie Sanders is being stubborn. To refuse to vote for Clinton and instead choose Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, who have no chance of winning, or to write Bernie’s name in, or to not vote at all, is dangerous.

This is not just about the presidency. It is about all the rights we take for granted…women’s rights, immigration, Freedom of Speech, and LGBTQ rights.

Yes, LGBTQ rights. Do any of you have gay friends? I do. In fact, many of my best friends are gay men. Did you know that the LGBTQ community is in danger if Trump is elected? According to the Human Rights Campaign, Trump said he would “strongly consider” appointing judges to The Supreme Court to overturn the same-sex marriage decision.

Trump’s vice presidential candidate Mike Pence is the most anti-gay candidates to run on a national GOP ticket. He signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which allows businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers in the name of ‘religious freedom. In 2006, then-Rep. Pence told 100 of his fellow Republicans that he supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex weddings. He said that he supported “God’s plan” in the face of the destruction of civilization.

He also signed a bill to jail same-sex couples for applying for a marriage license. As a Congressional candidate in 2000, he combined two awful ideas into a single disgusting proposal. He wanted to ensure that “federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that “celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus.” He asked that resources be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” In other words, conversion therapy. Do you all know what this means?

Conversion therapy is psychological treatment or spiritual counseling designed to change a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual. The Human Rights campaign reports there is clear evidence that conversion therapy does not work, and some significant evidence that it is also harmful and dangerous to LGBTQ people.

I have a friend who was sent to conversion therapy where they tried to beat the gay out of him. He later tried to kill himself. Is this what you want in a vice president? Is that what millennials stand for?

Do you want your LGBTQ friends and family to be banned from certain establishments because of their sexual identity? Do you want to take their rights away to marry the person they love? Think about this and let it sink in. Voting for a third party or not voting at all is giving way to nation you may not want to live in.

Being a Journalism Student in the Age of Trump

I belong to many different circles. I am also a student journalist. If it were up to Donald Trump, he would never be questioned or challenged by the media. Look what happened to Univision reporter Jorge Ramos, who I share the same vocation and ethnicity with. CNN reported that Ramos had attempted to engage with Trump on his positions, though he had not been called upon, standing and lobbing concerns about Trump’s plan at the candidate.

“Go back to Univision,” Trump told Ramos. This resulted in a security officer ejecting Ramos from the event. Ramos returned and challenged, “Here’s the problem with your immigration plan. It’s full of empty promises.”

He told Trump that his agenda to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and to stop giving automatic citizenship to their children born on U.S. soil was unrealistic.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2015/08/26/donald-trump-jorge-ramos-argue-immigration-origwx-bw.cnn/video/playlists/donald-trump-immigration/

When another reporter asked Trump if the thought he handled the situation correctly, Trump lied and said that Ramos was “screaming and ranting.”

I was pissed. He might as well have told Ramos to go back to Mexico.

When Megyn Kelly moderated the Republican debate on Aug. 6, 2015 and questioned Trump about his about misogynistic, sexist comments he made in the past, such as calling some women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” Trump fired back the next day. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes,” Trump told CNN’s Don Lemon. “Blood coming out of her wherever.”

In Trump’s world, journalists have no right to question him and must bow down and agree with him. Trump does not understand the First Amendment right to free speech, nor does he support it.

At Trump events, he insists that all press are kept in a pen and he encourages his supporters to yell at them and call them disparaging names. A friend who is a former Mt. San Antonio journalism student and attends NYU’s documentary master’s program, recently posted a video that her friend produced for the New York Times. It is chilling.

Trump tells his crowd, pointing at the journalists, “Some of these dishonest people back there, and they are the most dishonest, they are disgusting.” This riles up his supporters who yell and boo at the journalists.

Violent outbursts are common at Trump rallies and supporters often wear shirts that call Hillary a cunt, a whore, and a liar. Supporters even chant, “Hang her, execute her.” The most recent case of violence happened in a Trump rally in Nevada. A Trump protestor was beaten for holding a ‘Republicans Against Trump’ sign. Someone yelled that the protestor had a gun which resulted in the Secret Service rushing Trump off the stage.

As a millennial and a student reporter, I am on social media constantly.
I communicate with friends, find ideas for stories, and I sometimes get angry at what I see. Like today when a friend posted a link on Facebook titled,“13 Quotes that Prove Hillary Clinton is a Bigot.”

The friend who posted it referred to Clinton as “Killary” and claimed that Clinton is with “getting rid of your Black, Muslim, and Gay asses.”

As a journalist, I check every source for anything suspicious that comes up on my feed. When I read all of the quotes, which I knew sounded crazy, I quickly realized the link was from College Humor. This was the final photo.

This shows the trolling genius of the content creators at College Humor, but it also shows the ugly reality of how millennials often believe anything they read. They often do not read anything below the catchy headline. They complain about mainstream media bias yet they do not go out of their way to seek reliable sources. I see how impressionable these self-proclaimed truth seekers are. And many of them are my Facebook friends.

But the real danger is that Trump fuels violence and anger toward real journalists by spreading lies. As president, Trump will make it more difficult for us to do our jobs. When I saw this photo of a Trump supporter yesterday, taken by a Reuters photographer at a Trump rally in Minnesota, I was shocked. This supporter’s T Shirt suggests lynching journalists.

This violent talk is disturbing. Trump supporters are blaming the media for their coverage of him when he provides endless controversial material to be reported on. This is not what America is about. We have the right to report the facts, to criticize, to comment, and to voice our opinion. If Trump becomes president, we will no longer live in a society that respects the press. And yes, I know we have a lot of work to do as journalists to gain back the respect of the public and I hope to be one of those people leading the way. But encouraging violence against people for doing their job is sickening.

Being an American Who Loves Her Country in the Age of Trump

I am saddened, confused, and pissed at the changes I’m seeing in my country. The fact that someone like Donald Trump, a man with zero experience to run a country, received the nomination for president is disturbing enough. Yet so many young Americans are apathetic.

We need to come together. Many of us share similar backgrounds. Some of us immigrated here from another country when we were young. Some of us have friends and family who came here for a better life. Many of us were born here. Some of our parents struggled and worked hard and many didn’t even know how to speak English. For some, it all started in their homelands when a voice inside said, “I want more. I want better. I want America.”

That’s how it was for my parents. My father came to the United States from Nicaragua not knowing a word of English and he loves this country that has given him opportunities.

But now people my age are willing to hand my parents’ — their parents’ — their grandparents’ — dreams and freedoms to Donald Trump, a racist, sexist, man who is completely unfit to run this great country of ours.

This is a call and a plea. Think about your family who are striving for more. Think of what we can do to make our parents’ emigration one that was worth going through. Think about the Dreamers who just want to graduate and live and work and be successful in the United States.

Please, do not let their struggle be in vain. Do not contribute to any action that will bring Donald Trump closer to the presidency. He is someone who does not care about us or anything that we stand for.

Please, vote for Hillary Clinton.

If you won’t listen to me, I will leave you with the wise words of comedian, writer, and half-Mexican Louis C.K.

“If you’re a Liberal who’s not gonna vote, you’re a piece if shit. If you vote for Hillary, you’re a grown up. If you vote for Trump, you’re a sucker. If you don’t vote for anyone, you’re an asshole.”