Growing up in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for two decades, I watched every election with my father, midterms included. Dad believed and hoped, with a constancy I could never match, that the right members of Congress and the right president would change things for our family. He kept that belief and hope until he died in 2022, undocumented and uninsured. Two decades of election nights—and their subsequently disappointing Congressional classes—left me, for years, with bitterness and cynicism in place of the optimism I once had. This time, I feel different, and it’s not just because I’m now documented.
