You don’t know me, but allow me to introduce myself. My name is Noemi, and I am a 20-year-old college student who wants to get some things off her chest. Have you ever visited South Africa? If you haven’t, don’t fret. Up until two weeks ago, my answer would have been no as well. Luckily for me, though, I am here for the summer. I want to share with you some of the things I have learned so far.
Firstly, the shot heard ‘round the world takes a different meaning here in Soweto, Johannesburg. 46 years ago today, on June 16, 1976, Soweto, short for South Western Township, became the site of a massive student demonstration protesting the racist and low-quality education available to black students during Apertheid. Powerful images tell the story of these students, the signs and fists they held up showcasing both their discontent and their conviction. If you get the chance, visit the Regina Mundi Church and the Hector Pieterson museum; here, you can practically taste the youth empowerment that today, Youth Day, commemorates in South Africa.
The youth. The narrative around us is conflicting back home; that is the second thing I have learned. One day we are lazy, social-media obsessed, and lacking traditional morals and the next we become the future, a nation’s last hope, change in the making. Which side of us gets portrayed, it seems, depends on which one of you needs the additional votes. During the 2020 elections, we young people mobilized. We waited in lines, we mailed in our ballots and we showed up with one of the highest voter turnout rates for the 18-24 age category in history. You portrayed us as the hope that would change a nation and we voted for your promises that our concerns on health equity, gun violence, student debt, and climate change would be addressed. Two years later, and, in this Texan’s eyes, those promises have gone to shit.
I will not claim to be an expert on public policy nor politics in general, but I do know this: since the fall of 2020, everytime I have returned to Dallas during school breaks, home has become increasingly dystopian. I am talking to you specifically now Senator Cruz and Governor Abbott. In the winter of 2021, you let Texas freeze over; in the fall of 2021, you decided to regulate women’s bodies more than you do guns; and in the spring of 2022, you paid for that decision with the lives of 19 children during the Uvalde school shooting. What does it take for a state, for a nation to realize that it needs to change? I am talking to all of you now. When will you decide that young lives are worth protecting? Was Columbine not enough, was Sandy hook not enough, was Parkland not enough, is Uvalde not enough? What will be enough?
If what you say is true then act like it. If we are truly your hope then protect us. If we are truly your future then invest in us. Because we cannot create change if we are not given the resources to do it. We cannot be your hope if we ourselves are not hopeful. We cannot be the future if you turn us into your martyr, and we cannot be your tomorrow unless you make us your today.
Sincerely,
A Fed-Up Young Person on Youth Day
