For youth, Obama signals new possibility

Washington, D.C., was crowded. I'd been there a few times before and this time there was definitely a huge difference in the number of people packing the streets and sidewalks downtown.

It seemed there was Obama merchandise vendors on every street corner, selling Obama buttons, T-shirts, gloves, hats - even Obama hot sauce.

"How much for the Obama salsa?"

"Five bucks."

On inaugural Tuesday, the streets teemed with people going to and from the Capitol. That night it was a nightmare trying to get to the American Indian Inaugural Ball in next-door Arlington, Va. It took about two hours to travel five miles because of all the roadblocks and detours.

But the enthusiasm of the crowds won out over disappointment in the traffic jams.

There was such a mix of people there: blacks, whites, Latinos, Indians (both kinds), and, of course, more than a few Navajos.

It was fitting that so many people of color should attend the historic election of the first black U.S. president.

I caught a cab the day after the inauguration and the streets were still full of out-of-towners, tour buses and city workers commuting home.

Zipping through the traffic without turn signals or any other warning to other drivers, my cab driver, an immigrant from Ghana, expounded on why Obama is better for the U.S. than Bush.

"Now it is about knowledge," he said in a singsong African accent. "With Obama it is about knowledge.

"Before, with Bush, it was, 'I take your money,'" he said, pointing his hand like a pistol. "Give me your money, yeehaw!

"They say that war is bad, that it is good for nothing, but they still do it," he added.

Then, as we swerved in front of a car whose driver began honking angrily at our Oldsmobile sedan, his accent becoming thicker, "Go on and honk your horn. You tink you are a bettah drivah dan me, bossman? No, you are not a bettah drivah dan me."

He did get me where I wanted to go pretty quick.

My impression was that the cab driver was expressing the feeling lots of people have right now, that it's about time for a new leader for America. And it is all the more impressive that that new leader is a black man, a first for the United States.

And for people who have not really cared about politics, who thought it meaningless or corrupt - and people of color are in this category, including many Navajos - this is a big deal. An historically big deal.

Sheila Thomas, of Ganado, Ariz., a 21-year-old engineering major at Stanford University, spent the entire night outside on the National Mall, along with about 50 other determined souls, in order to get a good position to watch Obama get sworn in.

"Everyone I talked to said, 'You're crazy,'" she said. "I did it so I could tell my kids that I stayed overnight on the National Mall for the first black president."

For Lena Moses, 19, the importance of the election could not be overstated. I spoke to her as we watched the swearing-in ceremony on a large screen TV in the National Museum of the American Indian.

Dressed in traditional Apache regalia, a buckskin dress adorned with blue beadwork and the beaded crown of her Miss Mount Turnbull title, Moses, of San Carlos, Ariz., confided that this was her first trip outside Arizona.

"It still hasn't hit me yet," she said quietly, keeping one eye on the TV and the jubilant crowds that flashed on the screen. "I feel like anything is possible. Maybe the next president will be Native."

Now that would be impressive. For a young Native person to be talking about a Native American president is awe-inspiring to me.

And she was not a talkative person, either, but your normal reservation youth who grows up shy and soft-spoken, not given to loud comments in front of strangers.

But the news is still unbelievable for a lot of people, even those who wanted Obama to be elected. Sometimes they even have to come up with their own reasons why he won. He didn't really do it on his own, did he?

A friend of mine, who is himself black, said as we were watching a clip of George Bush on TV the day after the inauguration, "God, how bad did he have to mess up for a black man to be elected president? I mean, he had to really mess things up for that to happen. Jeez."

So for people who don't understand the importance of Obama's election, you need only to look at the high school students from Window Rock and St. Michael who held Obama signs and cheered on a Window Rock intersection last fall - a first for Navajo youth.