La Salle University issued the following announcement.
From individual civic activism to voter registration and awareness in their communities, La Salle students are ready for a “defining” presidential election.
In 2017, Christian Camacho was an accounting major at La Salle University who didn’t know the name of the councilman representing his Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia.
A lot has changed in only three years.
Now Camacho, a senior, is majoring in political science. The 21-year-old frequently checks with family and friends to make sure they have a voting plan for the presidential election.
“I had a couple of family members say, ‘I’m not doing a mail-in ballot,’” said Camacho, who serves as director of diversity, equity, and inclusion with the La Salle Students’ Government Association. “I said ‘OK, that’s fine. What are you doing instead?’ I broke things down and we had those difficult conversations where I explained that maybe a mail-in ballot was their best option.”
Camacho’s age made him ineligible to vote in the 2016 presidential election. He still made sure his father, a non-native English speaker from Puerto Rico, was registered. That simple act of helping his father to exercise his right to vote was something Camacho, a first-generation college student, said he never envisioned.
“Getting my father to register to vote was quite difficult because we didn’t really have a house that valued education,” said Camacho. “He always feared the unknown, like politics, so I always feared the unknown. That was a huge step for us.”
Camacho said his political awakening began in earnest with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which devastated his family’s native island in the fall of 2017.
“My grandparents had to migrate to Philadelphia because of (Hurricane Maria) and they haven’t been back to Puerto Rico since,” said Camacho. “Our family home there is decaying. It’s a consistent thought every day. I saw pictures of what the island looked like and how our government was handling it. I could not stand by and accept that.”
As for his own political aspirations, Camacho is thinking locally. He’d like to be of service to his hometown in some capacity, perhaps by following in the footsteps of Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, ’80, to become the next La Salle alumnus elected the city’s mayor.
“I have friends who I grew up with who said as soon as they graduate college, they’re leaving Philadelphia,” said Camacho. “I couldn’t live with myself going to another city and knowing how much this city needs fixing. I need to fix things at home, in my community. If I need to be the mayor to change that, so be it. If I need to be a councilman, I’m down with that, too.”
Get to know other La Salle students actively engaged in the 2020 election:
Shayna Ortiz, senior
Hometown: Bronx, N.Y.
Major: Political Science
Minor: Leadership and Global Understanding
Campus activity: Senator, La Salle Student Government Association; Fellow, Campus Engagement Election Project
Why this election is important to me: “Numerous reasons. I could talk about being a woman. I could talk about being a minority. But what was really a defining moment for me was COVID-19 because I watched so many people die. My mom is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who ran a COVID unit in New York City. I really did feel hopeless—thinking my mom could get COVID and die and my whole life would be upside down. It pushed me to apply for the fellowship with the Campus Engagement Election Project. It’s pushed me to encourage other people to vote. It’s a bigger problem than who the president is at this point.”
C.J. Petetti, junior
Hometown: Abington, Pa.
Major: Biology
Campus activity: President, La Salle Student Government Association; Vice President, La Salle College Republicans
Why this election is important to me: “This is my first presidential election (in which I’m eligible to vote). I voted in the primaries this year and in 2018. I think this election is important just because of how much is going on this year and how many things we’re going to have to overcome. Especially as college students who are going to be coming out of school into the working world, the decisions that are going to be made within the next two years are going to impact the rest of our lives.”
Caroline MacDonald, senior
Hometown: Boston
Program: B.S./M.S., Nutrition
Campus activity: La Salle Explorers Advocating Nutrition (LEAN); Student advisor, CampusWell; Early Learning Pathways at La Salle (ELPAL) Administrative Assistant; Fellow, Campus Engagement Election Project
Why this election is important to me: “It’s important that we get our generation to come out and vote, especially with the lower voter turnout among young people in the 2016 election. I’m going into the health care field, so I think it’s important to educate college students on health care and why it’s important in this upcoming election. It’s important for future health care workers like me to see what happens this election because it affects the whole population.”
James Levan, senior
Hometown: Levittown, Pa.
Major: History
Campus activity: President, La Salle History Club
Why this election is important to me: “We are at a watershed moment in American history. I think that whoever wins is going to define the atmosphere of American politics not just for the 2020s but the rest of the 21st century. This election is going to define how our democracy is going to be structured. It’s going to define how the Supreme Court is going to look. It’s going to define kitchen table issues. Are we going to have universal health care? What’s our immigration system going to look like? What’s our foreign policy going to look like? This is the most important election in my 26 years on this planet.”
Original source can be found here.
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