¿Quién dijo que todo está perdido?
I am in Costa Rica, and on Sunday I am going to Concepción de Tres Ríos to vote (and eat some chiverre empanadas). I have had many privileges that have given me the opportunities and resources to travel from California to vote, including the quality public education (and scholarships) I received in my country.
I am grateful for these opportunities and know that for many it is impossible, but I also know that there are many who have an easier time physically getting to the polls and still won’t vote </3 :( Save the extra day at the beach for another time, it’s already expensive and overcrowded these days.
Life is not as we would like it. It is what it is, and we have to play within that framework. I don’t see how we will ever have a perfect candidate who will fix all the serious problems we are facing, or how we can trust that instead of corruption scandals they will remember those who we have invisibilized for so many years, or how they can give us a state the size we want and free us from bureaucracy. But the two candidates we have ARE WHAT WE HAVE. And yes, there is someone to vote for, there is a decision to be made, it’s not yet like Venezuela or Russia and as long as that’s true, it’s a duty and an honor to go out and vote. If it’s not clear, I’m asking you to please go out and vote.
I am here because I know that one of the most painful things is to feel excluded, rejected, and that’s how I’ve felt during this second round, I feel like my lifestyle is being attacked, criticized, questioned as if it were not normal and healthy. I’m tired of the idea that we’ve been sold that the only way to relate and grow as a person is in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship, with children, for life. Clearly, that’s not my case. It hurts me how women have been treated (no special population or anything), it hurts me the wave of femicides and that they want to close INAMU. It hurts me how they’ve played with rights, the rights of people I love, it hurts me how they’ve stigmatized the poorest, it hurts me how they want to play with Costa Rican institutions and those that uphold international law. It hurts me how they are painting people who don’t think exactly like them as “the others” and how they are trying to dehumanize us, and once they have dehumanized us, they can defend doing “whatever they want”. Because my rights and the rights of people I love are not negotiable, because I can’t stay silent and do nothing, because freedom is not defined as they want it to be, that’s why I’m in Costa Rica and that’s why on Sunday I’m going to vote for Carlos Alvarado Quesada
Here is a study on how rejection and exclusion cause physical pain.