Good morning from Texas! The polls are just opening around the state, and my team and I have spent the last three days knocking on doors in Pflugerville, Texas from morning to night. Before we begin our day's work, giving people rides to the polls, let me steal this moment to tell you what it's been like here.
Pflugerville, Texas is a suburban sea north of Austin: an endless maze of cookie-cutter houses divided by wide country roads. Driving into our assigned neighborhoods, we passed the occassional Texas Music Hall and the typical strip mall with the Starbucks and Subways. Most of the voters here are Republican, and their progressive neighbors are too scared to put signs in the yard: "I don't want my car scratched."
My teammates Lutishia, Laura, George, and I spent hours each day, knocking on doors up and down the endless streets. We met many Ron Paul supporters, only the occassional Clinton supporter, and many undecideds. We met people leaning toward Obama but not enough to show up at the polls -- until we talked to them. We helped people who didn't know to caucus or even when or where to vote. We became advocates for democracy, thanking even the Ron Paul supporters for exercising their right to participate in the political process.
Each of us has our own stories. I will remember the kindness of people when I told them I flew all they way from California just to knock on their door and ask them to vote. I will remember the Texan who said he could never support the Clintons, because he lost friends in Waco: "It's personal for me." I will remember the Vietnamese woman who learned about the candidates for the first time when we talked, and the young black man who liked Obama but wasn't planning to vote until we gave him the address of his polling place.
And I will remember the undecided black mother who told me her son wants her to vote for Obama. He stood behind her, a shy smiling 10-year old. His school becomes a place where people vote and caucus today. "Do you know what that means?" I asked him. "Something historic is going to happen at your school tomorrow. The whole country will be watching what happens at your school, and your grandchildren will remember it too."
He grinned from ear to ear.
Most of all, I will remember the incredible resilience of my teammates, all who flew out here on their own dime to do something that scared them. George is an academic, Laura a lawyer, Lutishia a novelist, and I a filmmaker. We each have our own story, we we are all different colors -- black, latino, south asian -- and we all came here from different corners of the country to work together as one team and walk the streets for a movement greater than ourselves.
And this is why each of us decided to write our own story about why we're here in Texas, volunteering for Obama. We printed these stories on cards, personalized and signed them, and jogged through the streets last night delivering these notes on the doorsteps of 400 households in Pflugerville. Hundreds of people will wake up this morning with our stories on their doorstep. Our hope is that it will change the mind of just one undecided voter. (We had the idea after I first did this in my neighborhood in California, where we won our precinct.)
The movement is filled with stories like ours -- people taking the campaign into their own hands. In fact, our campaign headquarters in East Austin is a little house painted blue with two rooms filled with hand-made signs and people from all walks of life working away inside. It feels as grassroots as it can get.When I first arrived at the little blue house, a black man walked past me with a handful of Obama signs for his neighborhood. A Vietnamese American woman handed us a hot plate of egg rolls she had just made. And a 7-year old white girl walked by with a t-shirt of Obama that read "He is black and I am proud."
"There is no color in this house," one volunteer said to me. Her mother is a superdelegate in Idaho, a white woman who was one of the first to support Obama. "We're all different people coming together. That's what I love about this movement."
We have come far as a nation, and I see this in Texas. Walking the suburban streets of Pflugerville, I imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago, open fields where different peoples and cultures fought for their own survival. After 11,000 years of life on this land, native tribes were conquered by the Spanish, and Spain fought with the French to keep it. Texans joined people to the south to fight for their independence from Spain and won freedom as Mexico, only to then fight Mexico for their own independence. Texas was its own country for nine years before joining the union -- and then fought with the south in the civil war to keep its black slaves. It wasn't until 1944 that Texas allowed blacks to vote in the primaries.
Native tribes conquered by Spanish blood, Mexican heritage inherited by Anglo-American immigrants and black slaves. All different people battling out the right to live. A beautiful tapestry woven in blood. That is what we are. That is what Texas is. That is what America is.We caught a glimpse of Michelle Obama at the little blue house last night. I asked Lutishia what she would say to her if she had the chance. "I would express my absolute joy, amazement, and gratitude..." -- she paused for a moment -- "to have someone in the white house who looks like me."
I felt the tears well up in my eyes and realized that I'm used to it by now. This political campaign, now movement, has become a deeply emotional and spiritual journey, which is how I know it's real.
All eyes on us tonight, Texas. We have come far. Let's go farther.
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A deep thank you to our friends and family who donated so that Lutishia, George, Laura, and I could volunteer in Texas this week!
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