After a barrage of atrocious events these past eight years, many of our own doing, and after a period a great American uncertainty and loss of identity, we have elected Barack Obama. 148 years after IL. sent Abraham Lincoln to DC, it will send Barack Obama, our first black president,something that is beyond coincidence, and seemingly poetic. I am not alone when I say I can be proud to be an American again, an identity -as a first generation American with Ecuadorian and Jewish descent – that I have always struggled with. For the first time in my life, I feel like I am part of a new American generation, an international generation, an International Front, and, for the first time in my life, I see myself in my country. I see myself in my government. Tonight, I see myself differently.

I am also thinking of my Latino and Black students in Humboldt park. I am thinking of my abuelito who, in the small town Santa Fe in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, cried when JFK was elected. I am thinking of my good friend Matt Davis who passed away a few years back, the hard core singer of the band Ten Grand from Iowa City and the son of black man and a white woman. I am thinking of all the global shades of our American faces. I am thinking of Chicago, my city, the most American of cities, with fissures and divisions, but also a place that can fulfill our deepest needs, hopes, and dreams – this city, which blankets the world this night. And although I could not be in Grant Park, my heart is full of Chicago and full of my fellow citizens. And (regardless of what comes next) I can say that I am changed. Tonight, I can say that I am also you.

-Mike Zapata is the co-founder of MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine, a writer, and an educator from Chicago.