This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated November 6, 2020
At the time I am writing this, the morning following Election Day, very little has been determined in the races that Southern Brooklyn voters participated in. Results in several battleground states still leave the presidential race unsettled, while local contests for state senate district 22 and assembly district 46 show the incumbents behind, with several thousand absentee ballots to be counted over the following few days.
I hope by the time you read this, there are resolutions to these races that many have been anxiously awaiting for years, but since I cannot write about any final results in this week’s column, I wanted to share some experiences that I had during the final days of this campaign season.
On the morning of Sunday, November 1, I was talking to voters about Senator Andrew Gounardes as they headed to their early polling site at St. Dominic’s. You forget just how chilly it is when you get to meet people like Juan of Bensonhurst, who emigrated here from Guatemala in 1997 at the age of 17 and has made a career in our community as a plumber.
Juan and I chatted for twenty minutes outside St. Dominic’s, my parish growing up. He told me about how he came to Brooklyn with absolutely nothing and how his two girls are excelling at P.S. 186 and Seth Low Junior High, both of which I graduated from. Juan works hard and does it all for his daughters.
We were not able to get his vote that day, but that was only because he is not yet a citizen. Juan is a legal resident, pays his taxes, has his work permit, and he hopes to become a naturalized in the next year or two. We made a plan to see each other out in front of St. Dominic’s in 2022, when he said he will definitely cast his vote for Andrew.
After Juan left, I thought about how the path he has taken in his life has been so different from mine — so much more challenging – all to give his daughters similar opportunities to those I had growing up in Bensonhurst, as they attend the same church and schools I went to. Juan came back to that chilly corner an hour later to introduce me to his daughters and I made sure they got to meet Senator Gounardes, who listened to the concerns they have about life in Southern Brooklyn.
Helping out a political campaign obviously helps the candidate you are supporting, but there are always these opportunities for you to take something valuable away from the interactions it allows you to have with fellow members of your community.
Sometimes, you even get to help people you encounter. On Election Day, I was talking to voters about Senator Gounardes at Il Centro, the Italian American center in Bath Beach. A woman was approaching, leaning on her shopping wagon to assist her in walking, when something seemed to dawn on her. She uttered an expletive to herself and said, “I forgot my mask.” She began to turn around, but I called to her and I told her I may have a mask. When I gave her one, she was so happy that she did not have to walk all the way back home.
A few blocks away at P.S. 163, later that day, I encountered a senior citizen who had come to her third polling site, since her usual site had changed this year. When I told her this did not seem to be her site, she threw her hands up and said she just wouldn’t vote, but after I looked up her location and explained it was a block from her home, she thanked me and headed there to vote.
“After Juan left, I thought about how the path he has taken in his life has been so different from mine — so much more challenging – all to give his daughters similar opportunities to those I had growing up in Bensonhurst, as they attend the same church and schools I went to.”
Shortly before polls closed, a mom with her two young daughters realized she had forgotten masks and was so appreciative when I gave her three, including two kid-sized face coverings I had for my sons.
The goal in giving your time to a campaign is obviously to help your candidate. The positive interactions you have with your neighbors while doing so, are the reward for that work.
