On Tuesday, November 3, 2020 Hostos will serve as one of nine CUNY campuses functioning as a poll site for the general election. The Savoy Manor Building Multipurpose Room is the vetted area of the College designated for election day. If this is your polling site, please refer to the Bronx Board of Elections for rules.
 
A heart felt call-to-action campaign called #OurVoteIsOurVoice was recently launched over the Hostos social media channels with participation of high school students from the Hostos Lincoln Academy who worked with Visual and Performing Arts Professor Rafael Mejía. He shared, “I am here as an educator, to make sure these young students get heard.” #OurVoteIsOurVoice is a series of short videos written and taped by the students, urging people who can vote to go vote.
 
The #OurVoteIsOurVoice effort speaks to the promise of the future and the Hostos family is so proud of these scholars in the making. #OurVoteIsOurVoice was released on Saturday, October 24 on the Instagram page of @HLA.earlycollege and on the first day of early voting in NYC. The HLA campaign will run for the rest of the week with two more short clips being released on Wednesday, November 4 and Thursday, November 5 with the “grand finale” that took place on Friday, November 30, 2020.
 
Another effort from a colleague in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department, Professor Sarah Hoiland recently reflected on the experience of hosting three Presidential Debate Watch Parties. Read about them in last week's El Semanario Hostosiano | The Hostos Weekly. Professor Hoiland worked during the Census2020 period to encourage participation and to promote the importance among our students and reported that despite the current challenging circumstances, the Census was successful.
 
There is a lot of news about early voting waiting lines in New York City, according to The New York Times, approximately 315,000 people in New York City voted early from October 24-26. We remain confident the Hostos and CUNY community are part of the City’s successful turnout. Let us continue urging each other and our loved ones from across the nation that we must exercise our right to vote.
 
“When the full power of the ballot is available to my people, it will not be exercised merely to advance our cause alone. We have learned in the course of our freedom struggle that the needs of twenty million Negroes are not truly separable from those of the nearly two hundred million whites and Negroes in America, all of whom will benefit from a color-blind land of opportunity that provides for the nourishment of each man’s body, mind and spirit. Our vote would place in Congress true representatives of the people who would legislate for the Medicare, housing, schools and jobs required by all men of any color.”
 
(New York Magazine (14 March 1965): 26-27 in A Testament of Hope, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., edited by James M. Washington.)
 
Help amplify #OurVoteIsOurVoice through your own networks.
#OurVoteIsOurVoice is reposted on Hostos’ main Instagram handle.
Use the hashtags #cunyvotes, #hostosvotes, #nycvotes or follow us on
Instagram @HostosCollege (Main Page) and @HLA.earlycollege.