New citizen casts her first ballot
Esmeralda Martinez became one America’s newest citizens on Sept. 12 and on Nov. 6 she cast a ballot in her first election as a citizen.
Her head was held high brimming with pride as she locked the doors to her shop and drove to the polling place at the Mesquite Senior Center to vote. She said as she approached the Senior Citizen Center she saw the display of 1,000 American flags covering the athletic field for Veterans Day and commented excitedly about the display in Spanish to her mother. It was a moment to be remembered and savored as was this entire day. She lingered at the doorway to the Senior Center then entered, signed in, then proceeded to the voting booth where she carefully fulfilled one of the most important duties of citizenship.
She prepared for this election by talking to customers and people in the street and on the Internet and when a friend suggested that she could vote early she rejected the idea saying, “I wanted to go to the polling place and cast my vote because that helped make it real for me and like I am actually participating in the process.”
Martinez was born in Mexico along the Texas border but she was raised in Guadalajara coming to the United States in 1994 with her husband Felix and family. They settled in West Wendover for 16 years until making the decision to relocate to Mesquite where they have lived for the past two years. She and her husband own the Gemini Jewelry Store at 400 Riverside Road.
Asked if the road to citizenship was difficult she emphatically replied, “No, it was so easy. Having lived on the border I knew about American customs,” she said, “and I was always interested in watching movies about American history.” Martinez has long wanted to become a citizen and took steps early on to assure continued progress toward that goal. “Young people can make simple mistakes that will cause them so many problems years later,” she lamented. “They don’t realize that bad credit or other little mistakes can jeopardize their chances for citizenship.”
She admitted to having a case of nerves when entering the courthouse for her final citizenship examination but was relieved to find the government workers all smiled and very friendly. This was unusual to her. As she put it, “Officials in Mexico do not smile, so when I saw this lady smiling I was relaxed and when I needed a question repeated she was very patient with me, so that helped me relax during the test.
“They made us all feel as though we were very important people,” Martinez added, “and that helped me appreciate the meaning of being an American. And in that moment I remembered all the years of waiting, some very good and some not so good. And after the ceremony I had tears in my eyes and truly felt ‘God Bless America,’ I am really here.”
When asked to comment on immigration reform, she is of the opinion that the borders should be sealed but that people who are currently here should be allowed to stay. “I would like to see the process made a little more comfortable for those who are already here.” She expanded that answer to exclude criminals from the chance of becoming citizens.
Esmeralda Martinez is a proud woman and an enthusiastic American who best summed up the spirit of the freedom to vote in this country. When it was suggested that no matter who wins he will have half the country opposed to him she responded, “Yes, that may be true but here in America after the election we will all together as a country.”