Trancita Ponce is the San Francisco Ambassador for Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition and is leading a team of members to educate voters this campaign season. We sat down with Trancita to discuss her experience and what’s at stake in this election. Election day is November 3rd! Register, get informed, and make a plan to vote before Election Day.
- How are you feeling about the upcoming election?
I’m feeling great about the election coming up. I am feeling empowered to be able to vote and to be able to get folks who are system-impacted and formerly incarcerated to have them be first-time voters and sharing the importance with them of using our right. That’s how we speak up. That’s how we empower. That’s how we use our voice. That’s how we stand up.
- How are the people you are talking to in your community feeling?
The people I have spoken to about voting has been mixed signals. People who have never voted… I had to break down to [my nephew] what voting is and why it’s important, and how we as Latinos were never able to vote. His mother has struggles because of the economy being so bad. The people that are put into office are placed there because of people like him that don’t stand up to injustice and don’t utilize their voice [at the ballot]…
Being able to educate my nephew was really empowering to me and so I’m hoping he will vote.
Other people I have spoken to about voting are people who have not voted and are really understanding the assignment now.
- Why is this election so important? What’s at stake for our communities?
In this election, everything is at stake for our communities.
Our economy is failing. We have people who are working two or three jobs for minimum wage who are struggling and having to live together because they can’t afford rent. Gas prices are up. There are things going on in our community that desperately need to be looked at.
We have folks who are returning from incarceration who have no resources, who don’t have stable housing, who are being placed in these transitional homes for six months, and then they’re left on their own. I think even as far as the smaller things, like driving down the road, and my tire blows out because there’s a freaking pothole, and then I have to cough up 100 and some dollars to place a new tire on my car, and the people we put in office affect the conditions of our everyday lives. So I think voting is so imperative.
Also, the Governor. We have to really understand what is at stake for us and our folks who are requesting pardons after decades of incarceration, and you know that this election is going to ultimately determine if they’re allowed to come home or if they stay in prison for however much longer till we get into another new governor.
It’s imperative for us to get out there and to educate folks in our community to vote.