DON’T NOT VOTE!
Photo courtesy of The Springfield Republican
Only three months after arriving in America in 1949, my mother was already in civics class in order to prepare for her citizenship exam five years later. Her classes were offered at the Chestnut Street School, not too far from our apartment on Osgood Street, in the north end of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Subjects included English vocabulary and grammar, the political and governmental structure of the United States, and the basic tenets of the Constitution. In addition to working every day at a dress factory sewing ladies garments and raising a daughter on her own, she plugged away at her studies, applying herself to her homework and attending class several nights a week.
She was not the only one in our community attending night school to earn her American citizenship. Almost everyone in our enclave of newly arrived Holocaust survivors went along with her. Calling one another, di grine, or the greenhorns, they yearned to be citizens of a country where they would not need to be concerned about religious persecution or possible annihilation. They concentrated on their civics studies with zeal.
This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of my mother’s attainment of citizenship. So many of the members of my community became citizens in 1954 that a celebration party occurred in early 1955 to honor those who had finished their studies and earned their citizenship certificate. The Jewish Weekly News reported “a citizenship party on Saturday night, February 12, 1955 at the Jewish Community Center. The large number…who recently received American citizenship will be honored…”
The opportunity to elect who would govern them on the local and national levels was a right of freedom they did not possess in their homelands. They took note of all the candidates at election times, and took great care in voting for those who they felt would represent them best. Many of the issues they faced sixty years ago, like immigration, minimum wage, health care, and worker’s rights remain today.
Among the notes my mother took in her classes, which are still found in her textbooks, this simple admonition appears, “Don’t not vote.” Through this unintentional double negative, my mother expressed her emphasis on the importance of exercising the vote. Sometimes we may think it does not make any difference whether we do or don’t, but the power to use the vote can change a do-nothing congress or a corrupt state or local government. My mother never took her voting rights for granted, even in her old age.
Tomorrow is the day to use your power and ensure proper democratic representation. DON’T NOT VOTE!
