Julia Alvarez

Because this moment in American politics calls for a centrist candidate

I’m voting for Harris not because she is my candidate with a platform that exactly matches my left of center, more progressive political leanings, but because I believe she can be our candidate. This moment in American politics calls for a centrist candidate who might stand a chance of uniting a seriously divided nation; someone willing to compromise on issues so that the majority of the electorate can feel seen and heard.

I write this in early September, when Harris is still riding a wave of euphoria over her sudden candidacy, when she has yet to fully define and fine-tune her own platform over key issues while navigating the tricky waters of still being Biden’s VP and having to support his policies and platform. Some of her pronouncements so far have disappointed the me that wants my candidate to represent my views. Take immigration (she’s waffled on this one, no longer speaking of decriminalizing the border, and more about enforcing the law), the environment (suddenly fracking, which she previously did not support, is back on the table), the Israel-Palestinian war (okay, we get it, peace and a two-state solution, but meanwhile, why do we keep supplying Israel with the weapons to continue what amounts to genocide?) Harris has been firm on pushing legislation to lower health care costs, providing stricter gun control laws, combating income inequality, collaborating with Republicans across party lines and internationally with our allies, and of course, “Make no mistake” (to quote one of her tropes), defending women’s reproductive rights and restoring Roe v. Wade. On this list of issues, there’s a lot of my candidate in our Harris.

Her platform might not be an exact match to my political leanings, but her story as a woman of color, born to immigrant parents, definitely represents my community. When I began as a young writer, there were no books in schools or libraries about people like me, never mind anyone holding a position of power and leadership. I wrote my first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, as the book I wished I’d been able to read as a young female immigrant who was trying to make sense of her new country, to fill a gap on the shelf of American literature. With Harris, there’s a candidate who represents a part of America, a large and growing part, that has traditionally been barred from the halls of power. She feels familiar to me: both of us were born into an immigrant family, both of us are stepmothers, both of us have chosen a running mate from Nebraska—my “mate”/husband is a Nebraskan. These synchronicities are not the reason to vote for anyone, but it sure feels reassuring to see ourselves reflected in our leaders.  And I believe that Harris will remember her immigrant and activist mother and father, her middle-class background, and her low-paying jobs as a student, and trust she will bring the concerns and values from those communities into the White House.

Julia Alvarez’s most recent novel is The Cemetery of Untold Stories. She lives in Vermont.