As a freshman in college, I came to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas this fall dreaming big and determined to work hard. Coming from Seattle – an adamantly liberal city – the culture shock at first was almost overwhelming. Every other person I had met had beliefs that were completely opposite from my own. In my hometown, there were an overflow of lifestyles, personalities, races, genders, religions, sexualities and truths that were different from my own. The diversity of Seattle was something I had always accepted and kept close to my heart. I grew up in a very loving liberal home; my mother being a prominent activist and creating more social change than I could ever dream of attempting and my dad being a union worker.
One of the biggest things I ever learned from my mom was to show love and humility towards all people.
That became increasingly difficult when I moved to a swing state for college and began to meet people who were intolerant of nuanced walks of lives (see: bigots, xenophobes, etc.). Of course, this was only amplified by the fact that 2016 will go down as one of the most prominent election years of my lifetime. There were tons of pros and cons to being away from home during the 2016 election.
1. Family
One of the biggest challenges that came with being away from home during the 2016 election was that I was away from my family during one of the hardest nights of our year. That night, I was sitting in a dorm, clad in my “Hillary 2016” pin, watching CNN anxiously with a few of my liberal friends, a girl who “didn’t like either of the candidates,” a couple of Domino's pizzas, and a stomach full of nerves. I couldn’t even count all of the times that night that I wanted to call my mom and siblings and see if they were okay. All of us at one point or another had called our parents, asking what was going to happen if the worst case scenario came true – what we were going to do if Trump actually won the presidency. At some point, my friend and I went home to watch the impending doom unfold in solitude. The final results came trickling in, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to be home with my family.
2.Culture Shock/Involvement
Growing up in Seattle, it was almost a given that people who surrounded me held similar values to my own. It was a bucket of cold water to the face when I moved to Nevada and started to see “Make America Great Again” hats around every corner. It was strange realizing that people who I was friends with in Nevada supported the racism, sexism and xenophobia that made up the stabilizing pillar of Trump’s campaign. Logging onto social media, I would see my friends back home re-posting articles that outlined Trump’s deplorable rhetoric, his hypocrisy, his unstable policies, and general lack of actual eligibility for the presidency. I found that in order to tolerate all of the negativity coming at me from the other side, I would have to get more involved with my side. I started campaigning with the Nevada Democrats in the fall, and helped to turn Nevada blue this election cycle. The most amazing thing about being in a prominent swing state (and going to school where the last presidential debate was held) was having the opportunity to meet Hillary and Bill Clinton. The redeeming thing, I’ve found about living in a swing state is that half of the people hold the same views that you do about politics. Those people who were there for me while I was out tirelessly campaigning for Hillary, who were there during election night and who were there for me afterwards, making sure that I was still doing my school work and offering distractions and productive discussions – those were the people who made college these last few weeks still doable.
3.Comfort
After election night, I just wanted to curl up in bed, put on my fuzziest pajamas, watch classic Christmas movies and eat my mom’s home cooked curry. The thing is, college beds aren’t the most comfortable, my fuzziest pajamas were still in Seattle (because you don’t need warm PJ’s in Vegas autumns), my Wi-Fi is notably slow and watching Netflix means dealing with the “buffering” icon for-EVER, and my mom’s home cooked curry is at home. 800 miles away. The best that my school’s dining hall does for “comfort food” is serve pizza, hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies constantly. Which, to be fair, does not sound horrible to the average teenager, but when you’ve had dining hall food for months, the need for a home cooked meal and a hug from your siblings amplifies during the hard times.
4.Social Media
Never have my social media friend’s lists been purged like they were on November 9th. If it wasn’t me removing people for posting blatantly racist or ignorant posts, it was them deleting me from their friends lists for posting factual articles. I would like to thank Twitter for all of the laughs that users provided me with on election night. Without everybody’s collective humor, I would not have gotten through it. When times are at their darkest, there are always people who will tell jokes to lighten things up. While that is certainly not a permanent fix, it did help me feel better while I was away from my family. The thing about social media, too, is that there are insightful articles, videos and posts that helped me to make sense of this insane election – posts that comforted me and helped me with coping in this trying time. It was also something that helped me feel closer to my family, as we spent days sending each other articles and posts that helped.
There have been times over the last few weeks when I have complained about being away from home, times that I’ve deeply regretted moving out of state for college, times that have tested my patience and tried my tolerance. There have also been moments that have changed my life and who I am as a person forever – instances that have made me stronger, smarter and braver. This election did not end the way I wanted it to, but positives did come out of this experience. Today I can say that I am the strongest version of myself thus far, I know who some of my life-long friends are, and if I can survive this during my first semester of college, then maybe the rest of my college career won’t be as hard as I thought.
