Proud to be able to vote in new home

This November will be the first time that I cast a ballot in a U.S. election since becoming a Citizen on Aug. 22.

I have been a resident of the United States since 1999, after immigrating to Cedar Rapids with my three children - Sérgio, Ana Carina and Filipe Camarotti - from Brazil 15 years ago. In the time that my family and I have lived among you I have often wished for the opportunity to be more engaged in the political process of my adopted home.

In Brazil people are compelled to vote or else pay a fine. But here the right to vote, or to not vote is voluntary. To me this makes it all the more special.

To decide to be engaged, and have my voice be heard in a place that I have called home for so long will be a great honor to me, and is sure to be as emotional experience as when I was sworn in as a new citizen just a few months ago. As a dual citizen I have recently voted in Brazil's Presidential Election, and now I will have the rare privilege of voting in my first U.S. election as well. Few people have the opportunity to vote in not just one, but two national elections, and this is a responsibility that I am, of course, looking forward to, but that I also take very seriously.

Like so many citizens with two homes, the old and the new, being able to have your voice heard through the ballot box in your new country as well as the old is a powerful feeling. The decisions that you make while voting that could affect your loved ones are a great responsibility.

I will be proud to vote for the first time in the United States, not because I have to, not to avoid paying a fine. But because, as I have learned living here, voting and having your voice heard is the duty of any patriotic American. And I mean to have my voice heard.

' Maria Helena Camarotti is a resident of Cedar Rapids. Comments: mariahcamarotti@hotmail.com