My family and I are immigrants from Pakistan. We came to America in 1978, but didn’t become citizens until much, much later. If you’re born here, it’s easy for so many people to take for granted their right to vote.

As immigrants to this country, my family knew all too well what it was like to sit out each election while our neighbors and friends talked about presidential candidates, state elections, and even local school board races. We knew exactly how it felt not to have our voices heard.

But, most of all, we wanted the opportunity to exercise our civic duty in our adopted country. We came from a country where not everyone had the right, the voice, the opportunity to vote. We did not have fair and democratic elections. For many of us, voting seemed that it was reserved just for the elite. 

My father became an American citizen late in his life. He took his oath to serve and protect the United States on September 2002. Immediately after his ceremony, he walked down the hall of the courthouse and registered to vote.

Two months later, my dad put on his suit and tie and walked to the elementary school behind our house to go vote. He loved every aspect of having his voice heard and proudly wore his “I Voted” sticker all day. He was insistent that everyone in our family also voted—and called each and every one of us to make sure we had done our civic duty.

I had to tell him that I hadn’t voted. I had a newborn, we had just moved, I didn’t know where my polling place was, and it wasn’t a presidential election. Was it really that important? “Yes, yes it was,” he said. “Because you have the right to do so.” He promptly got in his car to watch the baby and I went to go vote. I haven’t missed an election since then. 

My father voted every year, every election, every time. Even as his body and mind were ravaged by Parkinson’s, on a sunny Tuesday morning in November 2012, I took my dad, by now in a wheelchair, to cast what would be his last vote. I think it was symbolic that it was a presidential election—specifically Obama’s re-election—and for one last time my father’s voice was heard. My father never got to see Obama sworn in for a second term, but he never lost hope in the process that got him there. 

This why I vote, and I hope you do to, every year, every election, every time.