Christine Stoddard

The moon sauntered out from a curtain of clouds, whispering, “All things must end.”

Most of my friends are my age or slightly older and yet virtually none of them want children… ever. They argue that women deserve respect and autonomy over their bodies. I passionately agree. A few of these friends are, like me, engaged or married, but even they don’t want kids. One of my engaged friends says she and her fiancé may want to adopt children later in life, after they’ve had the chance to travel extensively.

In the weeks since Election Day, I’ve come to realize that while I’m entitled to my feelings, resenting the Latinx folks who voted for Trump is not a productive use of my time.

Immigrants are pushed out of their home countries due to social, political, or economic forces beyond their control — poverty, genocide, wartime.... I doubt many Salvadorans of my mother's generation fled El Salvador to go “find themselves.”