We left campus headed for the El Rio to watch the election results. Somewhere along the way, Winona and I got separated from everyone and were cruising down San Jose when cars broke into wild horn chaos. People inside their homes were cheering, every window we looked into there was a television on with eyes glued. We assumed it was the pure joy of the coming success of ‘Obama as president,’ but we didn’t want to get our hopes up. As we approached Mission St., the cheering and festivities grew louder and much more certain. We too began yelling — we couldn’t help it. Every car on Mission had people cheering and smiling “Obama! Obama!” We approached El Rio and I turned to someone and asked, “Did Obama win?” Before getting my answer, I turned and saw Winona in the street with her bicycle in front of 2 cars stopped jumping and smiling! Obama won.
As we sat in the bar, we watched Obama give his speech and it was truly emotional for everyone around me. Look at us — eight, nine, who knows how many — students just out of class watching what what our future was going to be on a fuzzy 15″ screen at The Knockout. I’d look back at our little circle and see eyes filled with relief, hope, admiration, worry, success, and uncertainty. Every now and then, I’d make eye contact with someone and we’d immediately just start hugging. Wow.
We left the bar and made our way down Valencia. There was celebration in the streets. 19th and Valencia had practically shut down. Bicycles blocked off the intersection and people were just dancing, smiling, and yelling in the streets. The same over at 16th and Dolores. We felt it here in the city last night; that our country and lives had changed. It was…I’ll let one of my received text messages describe it:
“Amazing! Its going to be hard, but we will move to a better future. Yes!” from Ian Thomas
