We live in an apathetic society in which we are bombarded with commercials, ads, flyers, Facebook posts, news articles and other information sources.

These sources spam us about the things they think we should care about, the things that we should spend our money on and even how we should spend our time. Alas!

There exists one place where no one can tell us how to think — the polls.
The choice is yours and that choice was not easy to get.

Even after passing the 15th Amendment, which prohibited the government from denying citizens equal rights to vote, many states suppressed the voting power of minorities.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made discriminatory voting practices illegal.

Throughout the course of U.S. history, Asian-Americans faced an uphill battle for equal rights.
Asian-Americans were not able to vote because laws prohibiting them from naturalizing as citizens.

Even after voter discrimination was deemed illegal, Asian-Americans still faced discrimination at the polls because of a lack of the required language assistance for limited English proficient populations or excessive demands for identification.

We hear these things constantly:

You should vote for the issues.
You should vote for the people who cannot.
You should vote because your future depends on it.

I am voting for two reasons: because I have the choice and because I care.
I may never be able to thank the people who have made my life so much easier by fighting for my rights.

Ultimately, I choose to thank them by caring about my future and the people that will come after me, simply by voting.

This Election Day, exercise your right to vote because you can and no one can stop you.

Norman Chen is the Southern Regional Coordinator for the Youth Vote Initiative at the National APIA Panhellenic Association.

He is a senior at the University of Illinois at Chicago studying English and Economics.

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