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Staff Editorial
Riverside City College students, give yourselves a round of applause.
Each of you, including many other young Americans, made your presence known on Election Day as a lot of you felt like you were a part of some powerful feeling of achieving something.
On election night we saw Barack Obama be re-elected as president of the United States, then in the early hours of Nov. 7, we saw a very important proposition succeed.
Between the presidential election and the proposition, young Americans in California really showed the difference they can make.
According to CNN’s exit polls, 60 percent of young adults from ages 18 to 24 voted for President Obama.
In California, voters younger than 30 had a ratio of two to one when it came to Proposition 30 passing, according to NBC Bay Area.
For the first time our generation, people born from 1988 to 1994, can say we were a part of something that changed the direction of our nation.
In prior elections the turnout by young adults fell below expectations but this year we really showed up and proved to our elders that we are here and we are here to stay.
A lot of credit needs to be given to those young adults who spent their time advocating and volunteering time to get the vote out.
From RCC students such as Doug Figueroa, Miguel Bagsit, Veronica Perez and the many others who contributed at the campus to let other students know about the importance of going out to vote; each of you deserve recognition.
From the very start of the semester, students all across the state, including at RCC, begun supporting Proposition 30, a proposition that many of us already know about, so there is no point in explaining it again . . . .
Anyway, many young adults took it upon themselves to back up this proposition because they knew it was going to affect their future in higher education if it did not pass.
At RCC, Associated Students of RCC, along with outside groups and Viewpoints, all rallied for one cause: advocating for Proposition 30.
Week after week after week, each group told RCC students about the proposition and how it would affect each of us. At times, dozens and dozens of RCC students were at Board of Trustees meetings! Who knew!
On a side note, Viewpoints wonders how much the groups annoyed the students, but the result of all that hard work looks like it paid off.
Although the battle seems to be over with young adults pulling the heavy load and getting the job done, we are not out of the woods yet!
There is plenty of work left and cuts to the Riverside Community College District can still go down. RCC students, each of you got a taste of how democracy works, so stick with it and do not disappear on us!
There is always another battle around the corner when it comes to politics.
It is only the beginning of a bright future for us and election night was only a tease of what is to come.
