It’s but a wink since the 2020 election and I’ve been thinking about the Latino vote. Depending on the media outlet it does not exist or delivered for Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

I’ve also been thinking about my mother.

This year the election coincided with Día de Muertos, and so naturally when Mom came to visit, I asked her thoughts on the pundits, the predictions, the candidates.

Día de Muertos is the time when Mexicans and Mexicans at heart celebrate and honor our ancestors and deceased loved ones. We decorate ofrendas with their photos and mementos, food and treats, to entice them back. We take time to retrieve memory by sharing it with each other. We try to make good on one wish: to be reunited with the people we loved and lost.

This year the election kept photo-bombing my memory making. So when my parent’s photo went on the ofrenda the first voice I heard was, natch – Mom’s.

Mom: “Turn off the TV. It’s Dia de Muertos. We’re here.”

Me: But Mom – it is the election.”

Mom: No importa.

Me: Not important!? Mom! The nation is having an existential crisis! Everyone thinks everybody else is lying. The only thing anybody agrees on is cat videos.

Mom: What’s for dinner?

Me: Remember in 1972 — you and Dad got ready to go vote?  Daddy was obsessed; voting was his everything. By the way, where’s Dad?

Mom: Reading in the bedroom where he always hides until dinner’s ready. I remember – Nixon against McGovern.

Me: And I remember Dad told you how to vote.

My mother nodded and in my memory she’s smiling, which was always her invitation to keep the conversation going.  So I told her about mainstream media exclusion of Latinos, and nobody knows anything about voting. I listed data about Millennial and Gen Z Latinx voters impacting the election, and how no one trusts polls, when she interrupted me.

Mom: Latinx? Y eso?

Me: It’s confusing. More confusing than keeping track of the national Latino vote. Which, by the way, is not a monolith. Daddy was SO emphatic that day.

Mom: Porque el Watergate y todo.

Me: That’s right! He was convinced it was a plot and only voting could save us.

Mom: Let’s not tell him about the Millennials. Y los otros.

Me: Gen Z. You’re right – no need to confuse him during Día de Muertos.

Mom: He should read his newspaper in peace.

I nodded, remembering when I was young, and Dad just didn’t understand us. I also remembered he didn’t try to change me. He had his way of thinking and I had mine. And it was ok. As long as I worked hard, “hit the books” and refrained from posting black light peace posters on my bedroom wall, he was cool. Dad was an autodidact who loved learning new things. Give him something to read and he was happy. Then I remembered I should have placed a volume of his beloved Encyclopedia Britannica on the ofrenda – M for millennial – when Mom interrupted.

Mom: You can do it next year. Give him volume Z. That should be very interesting.

Now I couldn’t resist asking.

Me: Mom, you never told me – did you vote the way Dad told you to? Or did you do your own thing?

The way she smiled at me, the way she winked, how she always did her own independent thing, even while Dad did his thing, that’s the way I remember her.  Oh, and her answer? If memory serves me right, she said, “M’ija. The Latino vote is not a monolith.”

Marcela Davison Aviles is a writer-producer and founder of The Chapultepec Group (tcginsights.com).