A Letter to My Generation

John McCain conceded. Barack Obama claimed victory. It was finally over. I walked outside into an overcast, wet evening. Having decided to leave my apartment on a whim, I was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, but the weather did not seem too hot or too cold. It felt fresh.

My friends and I followed the masses to the White House. We watched the crowd surfers in amusement, marveled at the American flags everywhere, and pointed out the armed silhouetted figures standing atop the White House roof. Joy, restraint, freedom, and control all met in balance before a symbol of America, just as it should.

From there, we made the walk to the Lincoln Memorial. I reread the Gettysburg Address inscribed on the wall, sat down by a marble pillar, and stared at the spot from which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke only 45 years ago. It was there that he shared a dream and moved the crowd of 100,000 that I was now imagining around the Reflection Pool.

Unlike the White House, those at the memorial were silent. There were hardly any victorious grins in the thin crowd. Instead, sitting between the founder of our nation and the preserver of it, we looked like Lincoln’s statue gazing across the pool: determined, thoughtful, slightly wounded, and cautiously optimistic.

That was where I needed to be. I had not been able to shout at every honking car or revel with others in the streets. Unlike some of the friends that I watched Obama’s speech with (I, a Taiwanese American, was with a Korean exchange student, Indian American, Mexican American, Persian American, and two Caucasian girls. Where else in the world does this happen naturally?), I did not cry or scream in happiness. I had been thinking.

The Obama campaign galvanized my generation to take part in the political process. But now, after nearly two years, the race is over and the outcome is determined. What now? For so long the issue had been to get Mr. Obama elected. He stood for hope and change, but it worries me that some think John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” is the anthem for my generation. The song indicates a different kind of hope. It is a hope that one can stand aside as someone else does the work and makes the change for you. That is not what Obama stood for, and that is not what we need.

More inspiring to me than any other part of Mr. Obama’s victory speech was when he called on America to “summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.” When this is the American spirit, we not only demonstrate a belief in hope, but an ability to create it as well.

I can hope that others will understand this. But, as a supposedly apathetic member of Generation Y, I can also act and be the change that I seek, asking that others do the same in whichever area they find fitting. In this day, it is impossible to open a newspaper or a web browser and not be inundated by the disheartening news drifting in from all over the world. The issues seem too numerous, and so some cling to hope as exemplified by a man. But even Mr. Obama knows that the road ahead is difficult. To travel along it will require continued service and sacrifice long after this election is over. There is no time for waiting.

Mr. Obama made the point in his campaign, in words far more eloquent than mine will ever be that the timeless creed of America has been and will always be “Yes, we can.” But at no time in the last eight years have I questioned my generation’s potential. It has instead been a question of whether we would wait for the world to change or act to change it. The refrain need not be that “yes, we can,” for that is understood as long as we live in America. Rather, the words my generation must continually respond with now are “yes, we will.”

The wish for my generation to not retreat back into the shadows of apathy, but the knowledge that we could, is what gave me the look of cautious optimism as I sat at Lincoln’s feet last night. But I believe we are here now.

This morning I woke up and noticed that it was still overcast. The sun had not come out and our problems had not disappeared just because we chose a message of hope and change. The world keeps on turning, and there is certainly trouble ahead. But looking up at the clouds, it comforts me to know that just as spring always follows winter, the sun always comes out after the rain.