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Hey John!
I’ve been volunteering for Alliance San Diego since its inception when I was around 3 years old. Maybe that was because it was founded by my mom Andrea Guerrero, but I like to believe it had more to do with an early onset passion for human rights.
Since then, the playing field has changed a little bit, but a lot of the major issues remain the same. I grew up going door-to-door and experiencing first-hand how San Diego understands itself and the relationship between the people and the government. In a city with great cultural and economic disparity, there’s not always a sense of faith in the people representing us. It’s easy to be discouraged when so many of us dance with unemployment or homelessness, but that discouragement remains the number one tool in keeping those systems in place. I’ve watched as Alliance has kept hope at the forefront of its work, and I am honored to be a part of that work now.
During my time with Alliance this summer, I’ve been able to help out on several projects, all to reach a younger audience of voters like myself. Voters in a generation that, in my experience, have been made to feel as though democracy has no genuine space for the representation of their interests. I’ve learned a lot about the power of the young vote throughout this summer. People between the ages of 18-24 make up about 10 percent of the electorate, which is enough to sway a majority of the decisions made as a result of any given election season.
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I’ve been present for many conversations amongst peers about who to vote for and which candidates actually care about what we want, but what I haven’t heard is people talking about the direct impact our votes can have on ballot measures like Prop 33, allowing for local rent control, or Prop 2 which puts a lot more funding into our school system. Ballot measures like these [[link removed]] and many more have the opportunity to make direct and meaningful change, the only problem is that voters, especially young voters, rarely pay attention to the bottom of the ballot. That’s why Alliance San Diego decided to create our video series called “Eating Up The Ballot,” highlighting young voices and getting deeper into how my generation can build a culture of knowledge in democracy.
The goal of “Eating Up The Ballot,” hosted by myself, is to interact with the city of San Diego in an intimate and informative way. Informative not in the sense of long detailed facts, but rather informing on the kind of mentality that so many young people like me have when it comes to elections, and what does understanding that mentality mean in a constructive way going forward. What path is there towards a San Diego where our presence holds more weight in the making of current change? Change while we are still young and full of the drive that can and should fuel our communities, not change eventually once we are old enough to try and overshadow the fights fought by generations to come.
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“Eating Up The Ballot” exists in the now, but also dives into the rich history of some of San Diego’s most culturally diverse neighborhoods, using food as our guide. Anyone with at least an interest in what to get for lunch the next time they go out, should have a reason to check it out. And anyone who thinks voting, dignity, and human rights should have a reason to support Alliance San Diego in creating a more inclusive, multiracial democracy. [[link removed]]
In Solidarity,
Django Guerrero Barnett
Youth Creative Advisor, Alliance San Diego
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Alliance San Diego
P.O. Box 12266
San Diego, CA 92112
United States
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