When more than 300 enthusiastic East Aldine residents recently celebrated Constitution Day with a parade, concerts, poetry readings and speeches, there was also time for moving thoughts expressed by the next generation of American voters.

With the focus on the U.S. Constitution, MacArthur High School junior Norelva Banda provided her perspective at the red, white and blue event.

“I think American still needs to work to become the better country we want to be,” said Banda, who read a poem to the large crowd. “We are free, but only when we work together as a people.” 

Her classmate, Marry Castillo, who read a moving poem about a war widow, said she wanted to honor women who are still working to keep the Constitution “alive.”

“There are so many women in our lives who go through so much heartbreak, and we don’t always appreciate all the things that they do for us,” Castillo said. 

The students’ sentiments were reflected in the volunteer work taking place at the East Aldine Town Center event:  They registered people to vote, collected signatures on petitions or simply signed folks up for a public library card. (Watch a video summary here).

As the Cypress Symphonic Band played a variety of patriotic tunes, volunteers from the League of Women Voters of Houston helped with the registration process and distributed pamphlets with key information that voters can take to the polls during voting in the Nov. 8 general election.

Representatives of the Positive Women’s Network, a national organization which represents more than 3,000 women with HIV, distributed information aimed at ending the stigma of HIV and promoting health care. 

And volunteers from Bonding Against Adversity, which organized the event, were bedecked in red-white-and-blue sequins as they distributed copies of the Constitution. 

The organization, based in the Aldine area, has helped more than 15,000 immigrants become U.S. citizens. 

Those efforts were recognized at a luncheon featuring U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who presented Marianna Sanchez, president of the group, with a flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol. 

Garcia was tasked with speaking before a squirming group of students from the Orange Grove Elementary School Tiger Choir, who performed for the lunch crowd.

The speech was decidedly non-partisan and patriotic. 

“We are starting a new tradition. We are going to carry on a tradition of being good citizens of the United States and following the Constitution,” Garcia said.

She told the children that the first three words of the Constitution “are the most important of all.”

“There is a tradition in the country of ‘we the people.’ That means everything in our country starts with us,” she explained. “It’s about making sure the government is about us, and about us first.” 

The congresswoman suggested to the children that in a country where the people have no say, a dictator could “close Disneyland” or, worse, outlaw baseball. 

“Right now, we’ve got to fight hard to keep our democracy and to make sure that it is always about us,” Garcia said. “How would you like it if something happened in our country, and we had no say?”

— by Anne Marie Kilday