CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Asia Green is used to using her voice.
She's the resident hype-woman and emcee extraordinaire at her school's pep rallies, which take place before football games every Friday night. But this election season, she wants her peers to be the ones who get comfortable speaking up.
Green is a senior at West Oso High School. Earlier this year, she and dozens of her classmates registered to vote for the first time.
Her teachers, Alicia Benn and Stephanie Rhodes, encouraged Asia and more than 60 other students to get registered for the election and educate themselves on how issues in the Coastal Bend will go on to impact them.
"I'm not really nervous, I'm kinda excited because I've never done something like that before," Green said of her plans to vote on Election Day.
The soon-to-be college student describes feeling on-the-fence about her choice in the upcoming presidential election, but her teachers, and Corpus Christi Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. leaders and those from the H. Boyd Hall Chapter of the NAACP, are determined to prepare her to be a confident voter in local and national elections.
"I think it was very helpful," she said. "If the sorority wouldn't have come in here, I wouldn't have known how."
Grassroots efforts at engaging voters
For the alumnae chapter's local president Nikela Pradier, she said it's crucial to help young voters understand that the politicians elected in this cycle will affect their lives, whether they know it or not.
"We want them to understand that they have a vested interest, and they have a right to have a say, have a voice in what they're going to have to follow, what they're going to have to live by and the types of programs -- efforts that are really going to impact their future and determine what they're going to be able to afford and what quality of life they'll have further down the road," she said. "There is a lot at stake."
Grassroots groups have been key in local get-out-the-vote efforts.
"I think Corpus Christi is fortunate that we do have people here who are activist in nature, and who are advocates and who do go out and make sure that they stay engaged in the political process," she said. "Going to city council meetings, attending school board meetings, attending county commissioners' meetings. When there are public hearings from state agencies about things that will affect our community, making sure that we turn up at those things at well. Because all of these policies are impacting neighborhoods that are historically Black."
Bridge of Life Church Pastor J.R. Miller also spoke firsthand about some of the historic local efforts to fight for and protect Black Corpus Christi residents' rights to vote.
"This is my home," she said. "I grew up here, and so exercising that right [to vote]" -- seeing those that labored before us to give us a voice in this community -- that's what we want to continue."
As an executive board member of Corpus Christi's NAACP chapter, he and second vice-president DeeAnna King believe want young people such as Green to understand just how much an engaged turnout among Black voters can make or break elections for certain races in Corpus Christi.
"Exercise your right, we have ancestors that died, walked -- you know -- in order for us to have the right to vote," she said. "Although we're only 4 percent of the population, we can make a change in local government. If we got everybody registered to vote, we can change the dynamics of city council."
Green is ready to do just that, and she wants other students to vote, too.
"I think a lot of people my age should," she said. "And know their voice does matter. Even though we are young."
Young voters are weighing heavy issues
So, what are some of the issues this young voter cares about?
As a future college student, she said she worries constantly about how inflation and minimum-wage job opportunities will impact her while she pursues an education.
"I'm kind of scared to live on my own," she said. I'm going to be a broke college student."
Pradier said its issues like that she wants young voters to be able to face feeling confident and well informed.
"I think it's important to acknowledge you can be small but mighty," she said. "That's what we like to say about our chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. We are smaller in numbers, but we see that we can have great impact."
"I do think even though Corpus Christi's Black population is small in number, it has made a difference in things that have happened in this community, and it can continue to do so, so long as we stay engaged in that process and make sure that the people who earn our votes and who we put into office make sure that they are hearing our concerns," Pradier said.
As for Green, she said she's ready to vote, no matter the outcome of the election -- she's just excited to be at the start of a long tenure making her voice heard and contributing to national and local elections.
"The next time I'm gonna be able to vote, I'm gonna be 22, so, looking back at my 18-year-old self, I'm gonna be proud of myself that I voted, and I had an impact on the last four years," said the first-time voter.
