By Anna Gustafson
After living for years under what Carlos Aguasaco calls an oppressive government that stifled voters’ rights in Colombia, the Forest Hills resident said he was ecstatic to cast his vote for a presidential candidate in the United States for the first time in his life Tuesday.
“I’m so glad I have the chance to raise my voice and make sure I let the system know what my ideas are through electing somebody,” said Aguasaco, who moved to New York in 1999 and became a citizen a couple years ago. “This election is really important. I am really worried about my children’s future. Making the right decision in this election will make the difference between my children having a good future and having no future at all.”
Aguasaco, 33, cast his ballot for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at PS 190 on Austin Street — a move he hopes ushers in the country’s first black president.
“Obama is the person who represents the working class,” said Aguasaco, a Spanish lecturer at the City University of New York. “He supports health care, which should be a human right, and he has the right ideas to fix the economy and the environment.”
Though Colombians elect their president, Aguasaco, who grew up in Bogota, said he never felt as though his opinion made a difference in his home country. Because immigrants often felt disenfranchised in their homelands, Aguasaco said it can be difficult to explain why they should go out and vote in their adopted countries.
But that is exactly what his wife has been doing as part of the effort of the nonprofit group Make the Road to register thousands of voters throughout the city.
“It’s especially hard for immigrants to believe in democracy because they didn’t believe in democracy in their native countries,” Aguasaco said. “It takes some explaining that in America your vote counts and electing officials is important.”
Aguasaco was one of several new voters who spoke to a crowd of cheering canvassers on a recent Sunday afternoon at Make the Road’s Queens headquarters in Woodside, before city residents hit borough streets to make sure registered voters would go to the polls Tuesday.
Woodside resident and fellow Colombian Yolanda Balacios, 62, spoke at the press conference and said she was “very excited” to vote for the first time.
“I am hoping there is immigration reform because families are being torn apart because of current immigration laws,” said Balacios, who moved to Woodside from Colombia 18 years ago. “People need to rejoin their families. Deportation should be stopped.”
