GETTING THE JOB DONE:

My country of origin was torn apart by corruption, division and lack of leadership. We cannot let that happen -- let alone encourage it -- here. You could say I come from the future and know what pandering and misleading tactics can do to a prosperous, democratic nation, like Venezuela used to be.

We don't need a president who tosses paper towels and poses with a Bible, but one that provides precise information and solutions and promotes empathy. During my reporting trips, I've seen Trump be insensitive, like on his visit to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, but I've also seen him be comforting, as he did in going to the Florida Panhandle after Hurricane Michael.

Now more than ever, we need that comfort -- and a message of unity. That means not referring to COVID-19 as a "Chinese virus" or "kung flu," since that term could encourage hate crimes against Asian Americans; surreptitiously enacting rules that will hurt refugees and immigrants; and calling protesters "thugs," which literally means "ruffian" or "criminal" and is considered code for a racial slur.

Despite all of these actions and the crises this country is going through, I still decided to become an American because I know this nation is bigger than any of these ills. I am choosing to live under Trump, even though he's so disparaging of immigrants, because we are more than four or eight years of turmoil. America is still very young!

I have seen the hope the United States inspires in the eyes of all the immigrants I've met throughout the years who have come here in search of a better future and found it -- immigrants like Alison Jimena Valencia Madrid, the 6-year-old girl whose devastating cries from a detention center put a face to the family-separation crisis at the border. I later interviewed her as she was going to school and putting up her first Christmas tree, instead of hiding from the menace of gang violence in her home country.

In my case, I was born with the waters of the Caribbean Sea grazing my feet, just like a certain Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, who grew up to be a hero and scholar. Like him, I came to America on a scholarship to Columbia University. For me, this is the country of Hamilton, of the American promise -- not of Trump. I believe it will be immigrants and people from other historically marginalized groups who bring forth the new ideas and renewed optimism this nation needs to move forward.

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