TEXT ON SCREEN:
Queens, New York
Five months before the 2024 election

SALMA BAKSH My name is Salma Baksh.

EMMANUEL MORENO: My name is Emmanuel Moreno.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: I’m Vilinez Estevez, but I go by Vili.

SALMA BAKSH: And we are in the Forest Hills Public Library.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: We have five days of school left. So the end is here.

SALMA BAKSH: Our event is titled “Can your Vote Fix America?”

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: Basically, it’s going to talk about how important your vote is, and how your vote impacts your community directly.

SALMA BAKSH: It’s meant to facilitate community and, you know, create a sense of belonging and encourage people to go out and vote, or just make their voice heard in a different way.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
Engage Your Community

EMMANUEL MORENO: We grew up with all these radical changes happening. We were 10 years old during the 2016 election. Most of us,are going to be able to vote – not me – but we really wanted to provide a tool to educate people of our age, especially because there’s so much political division.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ (SPEAKING TO A COMMUNITY MEMBER): What’s your email?

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: This is going to be my first time voting. We want to make sure that we get young people to vote, especially since I feel like our generation is so heavily involved in politics. I think it was in, like, March or late February we met, and we were just talking about how we want to make an event and we want it to be in person. Since we figured out the fact that it’s the 2024 election coming up, it’s all over the media. Maybe we can do a forum.

SALMA BAKSH: I always think that having a panel of experts is a really good way to learn about anything, because it gives you a variety of perspectives.

EMMANUEL MORENO: We’d meet up with our advisor, I’d say once every two-three weeks, we’d talk about, O.K., how are we going to do this? I think I can do the emailing to the panelists. I think I could do the poster design. And that’s kind of how we designated tasks. Second, we knew we had to find a location. The library made the most sense because it’s where our advisor held their previous meetings. We also talked to social studies teachers about possibly referring their students to the event or maybe offering something like extra credit, an incentive to come.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ (SPEAKING TO AN ATTENDEE): If you’d like to take an index card and a pen…

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: We’re going to be signing people in, then I’ll just be like in the crowd, maybe be a plant to get some questions rolling, um, for our panelists. And after that I will be helping people register to vote.

SALMA BAKSH: I’m really anxious and sweaty. I mean, there’s a bunch of things that need to be done, so I’m just going to do them and focus on that.

EMMANUEL MORENO: We’ve put in a lot of effort, so I definitely do want people to come.

SALMA BAKSH: I want to see people, like, curiously looking inside the door and wondering – hey, what’s going on?

SALMA BAKSH (SPEAKING TO AN ATTENDEE): And you can preregister to vote. Are you registered?

ATTENDEE: Uh, no.

SALMA BAKSH: O.K.

SALMA BAKSH: I do want to see that people are interacting with each other. Why did you come today? Do you vote, and if not, why don’t you? Or, just, strike up a conversation with someone.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: My ideal situation is finding someone who’s like in that like mid age range who at first didn’t want to vote, but then after speaking to us, after seeing the panel of people, after speaking to Emmanuel, Salma and everyone around them, to want to vote, ’cause I think that their vote is also really important.

SALMA BAKSH: So all the panelists agree that voting is really important, and that’s not a partisan opinion.

We’re promoting this event as nonpartisan. I am a bit nervous as a moderator because I know I’m going to have to navigate that.

EMMANUEL MORENO: I think the easiest way to have these conversations between all the, like – so much variety of people is having an open mind. It’s a dialogue, and it’s nice seeing people being able to communicate with one another.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: I think just coming from a place of not attacking and just trying to understand what the other person is saying and why they think that way is very important.

EMMANUEL MORENO: There’s definitely a lot of, um, stereotypes when it comes to speaking to people that are older than you. Maybe we came in with this ideology that sometimes seniors and elders can be out of touch. When you’re speaking to someone, you kind of have to shed these preconceived notions. Everybody wants the best for their communities.

VILINEZ ESTEVEZ: You’re just speaking about your experiences, but it does highlight a different side of an issue that you’ve just never seen before, even though you’re being affected by it – you’re not seeing like, the, the effects that it has on seniors, and it’s very interesting. So it helps me sympathize and empathize with the issue and also help me see how far we’ve come, but also how far we haven’t come at the same time.

SALMA BAKSH: I just hope that people are talking to each other, no matter what it is that they’re doing, because when you vote, you’re not just voting for yourself, you’re voting for your community and for other people. I think if we just step back for a moment to speak with each other, it won’t solve every issue, but it does help us become more informed and empathetic people.

(END)