Thanksgiving, Post-Election: Deep in the Heart of Texas

Dear Hillary Supporters,

I grew up in Texas, a state famous for gun-toting cowboys and crass, religious bumper stickers. A state where abstinence-only is the main form of sex education, if sex education even exists at all. As much as I love my home state, I’ll be the first to admit that Texas is flawed. Yet, surprisingly, no one I knew was planning on voting for Trump.

Granted, I lived in Houston, an isolated blue county in a sea of red. But even the most conservative of my friends, the ones who had been zealous Romney and Bush supporters, refused to vote for Trump. For once, my family, my friends, and even random Facebook acquaintances all seemed to come together to rally against a presidential campaign built on bigotry and fear-mongering. And because of this, a Trump presidency was never even a possibility in my mind.

Until it happened. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it—not until my mother sent me a frantic text a few nights after Election Day, telling me to be careful, that there’ve been hate crimes against Asian-Americans sprouting around New York, that I shouldn’t leave my apartment.

This Thanksgiving will be one of grieving. My parents, who are immigrants, will grapple with the fact that they live in a country where half of its population doesn’t want them there. My brother, a newly-minted doctor, will face an unknown future in a field that may soon be unrecognizable. And me—I’ll spend my Thanksgiving in New York, grieving by myself, but not grieving alone. I’ll be grieving with my family, with my friends, and with the millions of Americans who didn’t think it would ever come to this.

But if some of the most ardent Lone Star minds can be changed, there is still hope.

Carrie

Carrie Jiang is a first year MHA student in the department of Health Policy and Management. She is interested in health economics and cost effectiveness analysis and aims to apply her knowledge to future work in hospital administration.

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