And change is probably the hardest thing to do. I just saw a story on Instagram about the new Mexican female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. As most of you know, Spanish, as the other Romance languages, has genders, female and male. For example, chair is feminine, while car is masculine. Most words that end in A are feminine, and those that end in O are masculine. There are some exemptions: for example, the word for president is “presidente.” In her forceful speech as new president of the United States of Mexico, Mrs. Sheinbaum advocated for a change in the Spanish language. She said that all occupations have both the feminine and the male nouns, such as “abogado” for men and “abogada” for women, but there is not a feminine word for PRESIDENT. 

Thus, she said that she wants to be addressed as “Presidenta,” coining a new word, in her effort to bring forth that change that Mexico, a wonderful country, desperately needs. Not only is she changing the language, but her message is quite clear and loaded. The fact that there is no noun for a female president is very telling of the culture, a culture that praises machismo. With the addition of this new word, the new president is also trying to change the mindset that teaches that only men can be leaders.

Another woman is also running for president, our beautiful Kamala Harris, and I hope with all my heart that she will win. I want her to win because she is a leader, she is strong, she is committed, she has a big heart, she is incredibly smart, she is opinionated, she is classy, she is the epitome of the American dream as the child of two immigrants from opposite sides of the world, and she knows how to bring people together. I DO hope that today I can finally say: we have elected the first American “Presidenta.” If Mexico did it, we can too.