My Upcoming Run For Office in Illinois State District 24

Hello, my name is Angela Santana and I’m no one. I’m not saying that in any kind of demeaning way; I just mean that I am an average citizen of the State of Illinois. I was born and raised in the City of Chicago, we lived out our childhood years in extreme poverty.

I’m not just talking about households without a computer or cell phone. I’m talking about the hand-me-down clothing that was so big that we had to hold our pants down lest they fall to the floor in front of class. The “we had no idea where our next meal was going to come from” type of poverty. Yes, we have experienced some very cold winters without heat and electricity. Ours was a sad story, however, it was that past that drove us to grow up and work, work, work our way out of poverty.

This is the same story for many, many people we grew up with. However, we were taught to work, to earn everything from our next meal to earning respect from our peers. We refused to live our lives as victims of the system. We used those years of experience to make sure that no one of our children, and our children’s children, will ever to experience what we did in our youth.

We have been very successful in creating a better life for our children, our children have already accomplished so much more than we did during our lifetime. Yes, things can still get rough for us at times, but we work through it. Our parents have done very well to teach us that everything is earned and learned in life. We never, ever, thought that we were entitled to anything because we’re half Mexican and are victims of oppression at the hands of white people — particularly Republicans.

By all means, we were taught to hate Republicans. From our youngest years we were taught that by our families and teachers. “How can any of these highly-intelligent people be wrong?”, our child minds thought. We trusted adults, so we did adopt this mindset.

In Chicago, if you even mention the word, “Republican”, you will see the whole demeanor of the person you’re conversing with change from neutral to aggressive and harsh. Yes, that’s how we were taught and I challenge you to go to find a lifelong Chicago resident and mention Republicans. Also, If I were you, I wouldn’t even attempt to do this.

Now fast forward to the year 2008–2010. I became an “involuntary” teacher in a, now-shuttered, private school. I was supposed to serve a temporary role until another teacher could be found. That temporary position led a whole four years. I can go on with this story for hours, but I’ll stop here.

I was sent to classes and became certified to teach the material. I didn’t learn all of the material I would have to teach to the students. I actually took it upon myself to learn the material as I would be expected to know it.

While studying United States History and the United States Constitution I found anger start to well up in me. Either I was learning a new, fake, kind of history, or I never learned an accurate account of history. I was leaning towards the former, so I took to my computer and started looking for the original texts and accounts of history from The National Archives.

I already had trust issues at the time because I would fact-check every historical book that I read in my life, so I always went to the original source. As soon as I saw our real history unfold before my eyes my anger brewed to a boil because the latter part of my earlier statement was true.

I was deceived from childhood about the history of our country! I have to be honest, I once had 2 students address the issue of what’s called the “Trail Of Tears”. This trail of tears was what happened starting in 1830 when Andrew Jackson, A Democrat signed the Indian Removal Act into law. Feel free to look it up, the story is a horrible and sad.

Back to the girls’ question. They asked me if it was racist that Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, signed the Indian Removal Act. I’ve always been a blue-dog Democrat and I was able to rationalize this action because Democrats were always the good guys. What happened was that one of the girls ended up transferring out of the school and wrote me a scathing letter that I would carry around with me because I wanted to learn from it.

The letter did disappear, but I remember it very well. Yes, it was racist to drive the Native American Indians from their land in the South. And, yes, it was a Democrat named Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law. I sacrificed my professional credibility to a student because I refused to demean the Democrat Party.

Oh yeah, I learned so much more from verifying the information I found in the National Archives. I’ve been doing all the research on major legislation from the most important times in American history. It was at this time that I woke up. I was not going to put my reputation and good name on the line by defending my party.

Did I change parties right away? No. It took me years to change parties. However, If you were to look at my voting record, I still vote for Democrats in local races. Honestly, local elections have only Democrat candidates and I do vote for the best Democrat.

No, I don’t hold my nose and vote. The candidate’s that I support actually, physically came to my home where we conversed about where they stand on the issues. The two words that I look for in any candidate that I speak with are: transparency and accountability.

The transparency would be that our leaders disclose any conflicts of interest regarding state contracts. In times past, we did research to find out that many of our local contractors did donate to the local party. Accountability would be that we get a clear, straight answer from our leaders regarding our safety and security. A leader who takes personal responsibility to fix our issues, especially with taxation.

Okay, I know, this is getting long and boring. I will transition into my conclusion as well as the foundation of my whole campaign.

I’m seriously considering using the tagline, “Make The Constitution Great Again”, and “How will these laws add value to the lives of Illinoisans?” Yes, the government is going to be forced to give account for many of their actions over the years. Here’s a main question that I want the representatives of the most impoverished communities to account for: “Why are there more liquor stores per capita in marginalized communities than there are job training centers, community centers, or schools to teach basic vocational skills?”