When the election is over, we will still be building: An election day letter from Movimiento Cosecha
As you know, today is election day. (I’m sure you’ve gotten many emails and texts about it.)
While we all feel much uncertainty around the outcome, I am writing to you to share what is grounding my undocumented community today.
This morning my mother reported to her job as an essential worker — as she has done every day since we moved to this country. The government will not hear from her because she is undocumented and can’t vote. Like my mother, many of my friends, and myself, millions of undocumented workers are not part of the electoral process, yet our work continues to put food on each of the candidates’ tables.
That is why I believe in Cosecha, and how I know that no matter what happens today, our people’s movement is the answer.
As important as the outcome of today’s vote may be, no politician will heed the needs of the undocumented community until we rise up and use our power to demand it. Since before Trump took office, undocumented immigrants have known that these politicians do not work for us. We have watched both parties fail our families for decades — promising but never delivering a pathway to citizenship, while terrorizing our community with detention and deportation.
While this country continues to use and exploit the labor our hands provide, we have learned that we must be the champions of our fight for permanent protection, dignity, and respect.
Here’s what I know: this election will not win us justice; it will be an indicator of who we will be pushing over the next few years to act on the demands of the undocumented community. Whether Biden or Trump win, we know they represent parties that have always put profit and political capital over the lives of undocumented immigrants. But this country depends on our labor and its transformation depends on our organizing.
What does that mean? It means Cosecha believes in the power and wisdom of each member of el pueblo, our people. It means at the end of the day, our job is to support millions of mothers, fathers, children, and workers waging a struggle for the dignity and respect of our community. We are our only solution.
Today, and in the coming days, I will be thinking in particular of the words of Beto, one of our Cosecha organizers in Georgia: “Yo no voto porque no puedo, pero me movilizo todo el año.” I don’t vote because I can’t, but I mobilize all year long. We have fought and organized under Obama’s presidency. Under Trump’s. Under COVID. And when the election is over, we will still be here, building the movement we need to win.
In solidarity,
Haydi Torres
Movimiento Cosecha
