A daughter of refugees restores her parents’ faith in voting

"No, you should vote. You are a citizen of the United States. Your taxpayer money goes into the system. We should have a say in how things work." This is what GURLEEN KAUR MANDER tells people. On 18 Aug 2020, US celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment which enshrined women’s constitutional right to vote in the country

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Gurleen Kaur Mander, student and voting rights advocate.
By Chloe Veltman | UNITED STATES |

Many parents, teachers and other caregivers take it upon themselves to teach children about the importance of voting. Gurleen Kaur Mander tells a different story.

Mander is from a small town near Fresno. When she’s not studying for her undergraduate degree, the 21-year-old student said she enjoys playing soccer and watching TV.

She’s also a big fan of politics.

Mander is majoring in political science. She served as a poll worker in her teens. As a volunteer for the League of Women Voters, she does a lot of voter registration and education on campus (and more recently, because of COVID-19 restrictions, in the virtual space).

“I explain to friends what the electoral college system is, what voting is and how the polling system works, because it can be a bit confusing if you’re not really familiar with the system and the structure of voting,” Mander said.

And in her household, she’s the one who’s been schooling her parents about the power of the vote.

“They were just like, ‘Oh, we don’t want to vote,’ ” Mander said. “But I would be like, ‘No, you should vote. You are a citizen of the United States. Your taxpayer money goes into the system. We should have a say in how things work.’ ”

When her parents came to the U.S. from India as refugees in the early 1990s, they found jobs as farmworkers. Mander said her mom and dad came of age during the previous decade when India was in a state of political turmoil.

Read the full story, ‘A Daughter of Refugees Restores Her Parents’ Faith in Voting’ (KQED, 28 Aug 2020), here.

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