"Change" Triumphs in the United States

Barack Obama won the Presidency of the United States with the theme of “change,” becoming the first African-American president of the country and the hope of many to overcome the severe crisis that has struck.

Since his candidacy, the Democratic candidate has had great power to summon and motivate small and large sectors of the American population. Ten percent of voters were of Hispanic heritage and two out of every three of this group voted for Obama, which is indicative of the hope they have in his presidential efforts.

In the same way, it must be remembered that 80% of the population of the United States is white and so it wasn’t blacks that defined this transcendental triumph, even though they offered much support and they saw in the candidate their own representation in the political system.

This historical victory is an example of how people are putting aside racial issues and that the many wounds this evil has left are going to heal, not only in the United States but also on an international scale. These elections are seen as an opportunity to change the exterior of American politics.

The new president has many hopes. However, the path that Obama must walk is full of trials due to George W. Bush’s two steps that took the United States into war-like conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fact that the nation has entered into an economic recession under his watch.

Latin America is very concerned that this new government be mindful of its needs, that it stops seeing it as a backyard and supports regional development. Hopefully this administration, which also has a Congress in its favor, will finally achieve immigration reform to regulate the millions of immigrants in the United States.

There are people who think that the flags of color and change were only a strategy by the Democrats to gain power, but the proposals of the Republican candidate, John McCain, did not convince the public, either. So they have assumed a hopeful risk that the United States will recover its international weight and that tranquility will return, in more ways than one.