This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UPR chapter.
It’s been about four days since I got word that Bernie Sander’s campaign would hit Puerto Rico. Two days after that my father was already talking about volunteering for the senator’s speaking arrangement at the university , and thirty minutes until the speaking arrangement starts. My day, though, started much earlier, when after a long shift at work and crashing at three in the morning, I woke up to see that I had missed my first class. Which just meant I had more time to get a sandwich and chill before the long wait to the beginning of what’ll probably be the most talked about event of the week.
So, a train trip and a sandwich later, I find myself at el ocho, drinking vodka shots with friends.
It was innocent enough, I met two friends by happenstance as I was walking in to campus, they wanted food, we went to get food, food turned into shots and then turned into frozen margaritas.
After lunch and a few goes at a punching machine, on which I lost amicably to my boxer friend twice, we found ourselves walking back to campus. A word about frozen margaritas before we move on: they suck, it’s basically a slushy made of the cheapest liquor that makes you wanna pee, which I guess is fine if you’re into that but, you know, I’d prefer my cheap liquor to not give me brain freeze.
The walk back is uneventful but as we near the front of the theater, the throngs are already out in full force.
The friends go in line and I go find my dad, joining the volunteer crowd.
The advance team lady talks to us, she already looks a bit weary and tired. A fellow volunteer asks if I can help bring in some bottles of water, “Look for a green van, they’ll be in the trunk” she says. Me and two other dudes look for a green van, find one, open the back and find nothing? Well two flags and a gallon of water, which I’m not sure will hydrate all the volunteers but we’re quickly told that this is not in fact the van, and there’s another green van. Water in tow, we go back down to the theater, where I reunite my dad and sister close to the entrance, just in time to see one of the head volunteers throw a hissy fit as he wasn’t being listened to.
The pins he was holding in his hand go down hard on to the floor as this man raves about the fact that no one is listening to him.
One of the Americans from the campaign almost holds him back as he angrily addresses the other advance team member.
Minutes later he is calmer, I see him later sitting inside, wanting to sit as close as he can to the stage.
A few minutes of waiting turn into a few more which turn into a few more and I see movement. Volunteers rush to the main entrance, my dad and sister in tow. I take the opportunity and go over too.
Now let me tell you a thing about myself that needs to be addressed before we move forward, and it concerns the inside of my bag. At this point it contained:
One sandwich
One bag with a leftover burger
One folder
One notebook
And the sketchiest thing which I thought would surely get me “special treatment” from the TSA and secret service at the door:
One book on the attempted assassination of President Truman.
The TSA, though, seems to have other ideas on what constitutes a threat to the senator and they make me get rid of the sandwich and burger. My dastardly plans to wreak havoc with bread based weapons foiled, I move inside the theater and join my family who are doing most of nothing-just waiting until they can get a seat.
Since I’m still a volunteer, though, I get shanghaied into the deceptively simple task of putting VIP signs behind a few of the chairs in the theater.
I complete the task, a winner in my own head and we find seats. Now we play the waiting game as theater fills, some kid behind me also lost a tripod and a girl lost a perfume to the TSA. I know how they feel. But they may have lost physical things, I lost a little bit of my innocence.
An hour later and preparations are done, the people are in the theater. A group of Bernie heads crowd the stage behind where the senator will speak, a moment that grows closer and closer.
It’s time for someone else to talk though, and then another person, and another one.
Finally, our own president of the student body, introduces the candidate. Changing his speechifying from Spanish to English in the process, of course.
One moment it’s a half pumped crowd, people have clapped, the odd person has chanted. Then the place goes church tent revival and people are screaming, people are clapping, people are taking pictures that they’ll post and never look at again as the senator makes his way down to the podium. And suddenly American politics seem real, a campaign that we’ve only seen through phones or televisions stares down our face.
Sanders is a man who knows how to speak, and he is a man who has genuine concerns; but as the speech begins and he speaks, the issues seem to broad. They seem too American. He makes allusions to the struggle of the puertorican people but doesn’t get to it. In a sense that’s the American problem when it comes to handling Puerto Rican policy and life. They equate it to themselves, maybe thinking that by doing so they’re seeing the problems through their own eyes and empathizing when Puerto Rico has never benefited from being seen through that lense, because it supersedes the idea that we are our own people, with our own problems and our own ways of solving them.
Then he says three magic words that endear him to many, I know they did to me: “I don’t know.” He is honest with his approach and tells the people who have packed this theater that he doesn’t know much about Puerto Rico but what he does know about the problems of this country of ours appalls him and makes him sick.
His “I don’t knows” aren’t met with anger by the crowd, they aren’t met with disdain, because he puts out a message of understanding. Even if he doesn’t know, he understands.
The next forty minutes or so are full of standing ovations and agreement from the audience. In the end, and after great fanfare, David Bowie sings out over the loudspeakers about a star man who waiting in the sky, and I can’t help but wonder if PR’s open armed welcome for a candidate that might not make it could be as far fetched in nature as the song’s premise. It’s a bittersweet thought, but this is a country that has been wronged many many times, hinging ourselves on one man, no matter how good or thoughtful he might be, might not be a good bet for making a difference in our daily lives and the future of the country.
My own discretions aside, people still cheer and feel themselves filled with hope.
The night ends much like the day began, with food in the heart of Rio Piedras, this time with family instead of friends.
It’s taco time, but I’m still missing that sandwich.