September 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Crossword
14
OPINION EDITORIAL
No endorsements, but a plea to vote We don’t do endorsements at Triad City races, because they determine who the Beat, a decision born from the realization candidates will be. of the demographics of our market that And in the primary, where 3.8 percent of took hold when we started this thing in eligible voters turned out last time around, 2014 and remains true today: The Triad is a a roomful of people can change history. political fault line, and the field of opinion You need to vote, but before you do, you — even among our select readership — is as need to do the reading; this week’s TCB is wide as the White Street Landfill. a fantastic place to start: Know your district Instead we bring you a primer on the or ward and the issues important to you candidates every election season, with and your neighbors. Seek out your district facts and quotes that serve rep, and mayoral and as a Rorschach of sorts. at-large candidates as Early voting for the When we say a candidate well — the candidates Oct. 10 primary runs favors charter schools and in these city elecopen-carry laws, or a living through Oct. 7. See the tions are wonderfully wage and a police review accessibly — to ask board with subpoena power, Guilford County Board them questions and it means different things to tell them how you of Elections website different people. feel. for locations. Facts, we feel, are more Guard your vote useful than our opinions jealously and don’t when it comes to elections give it away without in the Triad. careful consideration. Think about your We’re not going to use this space to conown self-interest; think about the issues in vince the people of Greensboro and High your neighborhood and think about the Point — the only elections in our coverage direction your city is heading. Think about area this go-round — to vote one way or party politics if you must, but we don’t adthe other. But we’re not above issuing anvocate that — these elections are nonparother call to action here in the editorial slot. tisan, and city governance transcends the You need to vote. Yes, you. And yes, red/blue paradigm. now. In the end, we get the government we Early voting in the primary starts today, deserve, and it’s too important to let 3.8 and primaries can be even more important percent of the population make the decithan the general election in city council sion for the rest of us.
CITIZEN GREEN
DACA recipient: My mother, hero Maria Cortez-Perez has known she was undocumented practically from the time her mother carried her by Jordan Green across the US-Mexico border at the age of 2 to join her future stepfather, who was working in the booming construction industry in High Point in the late 1990s. “My parents told me: ‘You are undocumented — that’s your ticket to a better life,’” Cortez-Perez told me last week as we sat on a patio facing the stately columns of Reynolda Hall on the campus of Wake Forest University. “Education was my sanctuary.” A sophomore with aspirations to study law who directs the Social Justice Incubator on campus and holds a seat on the Student Budget Advisory Committee, Cortez-Perez is also a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the program established by President Obama in 2012, then rescinded by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Sept. 5, 2017, and now batted around as a political bargaining chip by President Trump and the Democratic leadership in Congress. The stakes could not have been higher when Cortez-Perez’s mother reviewed the circumstances of a life in
Veracruz, on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, and decided she could not accept a future in which she couldn’t guarantee that she would be able to feed and clothe her daughter. As Cortez-Perez told about 60 people gathered at Manchester Plaza at Wake on Sept. 14, her mother’s first attempt to cross the border proved unsuccessful. “It was late at night, but I couldn’t stop crying, and people were getting angry at my mother, yelling, ‘Shut that girl up; you’re going to get us caught,’” said Cortez-Perez, recalling the end of the journey as they approached the border. “I didn’t want to be held by anyone in the group. My mother was exhausted, six months pregnant. And when things couldn’t get worse, I scraped my whole hand on a cactus. You can only imagine what happened. I started screaming at the top of my lungs, and I attracted the attention of ICE immigration patrol. At the sight of this everyone ran to the other side and left us behind. “My mother had to stop, kneel, put me down and raise her arms in the air, and she asked for help because she needed help because I was vomiting, sweating, cold and she was afraid that I might die,” Cortez-Perez continued. “The authorities later confirmed that I could have died of dehydration. The officers that night gave us food, gave me a glass of milk, and us a jail cell