Why I Am So Passionate About This Election

I'm an emigrant woman of Arab and Muslim background and I've been a naturalized American citizen for thirty years. I was born in Morocco in a proud, beautiful Muslim family. My mother was married against her will at 13 to my father who was 20 years her senior. This was neither cruel nor unusual in those days. She was barely literate (and none of her three sisters could read or write) but she made sure that her four children - of whom I am the oldest - had an education. My parents divorced when I was 14 but my father also had the highest aspiration for me and predicted that I would earn a PhD when I was just 7 years old and starting school.

In America, I went on to earn a BA with High Honors at the University of Florida in Gainesville FL and a Masters degree and almost a PhD from New York University. I never missed an election and when my mother, with my sponsorship, became a US citizen, she felt she was in Heaven living in the greatest country on earth. She cried when she could finally vote for Bill Clinton in 1992. 

I've always been a liberal Democrat and a passionate feminist. The year she turned 18, my daughter and I voted for Hillary in the 2007 primaries before voting for Obama in 2008. I already felt then she was the more qualified candidate, and though it was not meant to be, I was proud of our first Black President. Then as now, America made history and I was proud of our vote. Sadly, my mother passed away in 2004, too soon to see that happen. In her memory, once again my daughter and I are voting on Tuesday for Hillary, for my mother and my aunts, and all the magnificent women who have never had a chance to witness history being made once again in this great nation. 

I have been frantically active this election on Facebook and Twitter. I volunteered and phone-banked and I am convinced Hillary is going to win in a landslide this time against an undeserving, narcissistic and incompetent bigot in an election that shed the spotlight on the deep seeded racism and misogyny still pervasive in our country.  Finally, I've turned 60 this summer and Hilary's election for POTUS will be undoubtedly one of the best gifts of my life so far. 

Maman, this one is for you!

My mother and I, two weeks before her death in 2004