Digital to In-District: My 48 Hour Trip to NH-01
by: Zoe Walker
I’ve heard it said that all politics is local. Before working on Capitol Hill, I assumed this piece of conventional wisdom was outdated: in the post-Trump era, weren’t all politics irreparably nationalized? On the contrary, six weeks of interning in the office of Representative Chris Pappas has affirmed that the communities and constituents of New Hampshire’s first district remain the Congressman’s top priority.
This unyielding focus on making material improvements in the lives of New Hampshire residents has made me intimately aware of the virtual nature of my internship and reminded me that one of the things COVID-19 has denied many of us over the last year and a half is a sense of tangibility. On multiple occasions, while describing in a letter how H.R. 4150 would provide economic relief to the New Hampshire minor league baseball team, the Fisher Cats, or why PFAS chemical regulation is particularly important to local communities like Merrimack, I have wished for a tangible connection to the district that I’m writing about.
So, last weekend, I packed my suitcase and drove the eight hours from Philadelphia to Manchester, New Hampshire, with the intention to experience the place I’ve been visualizing for almost two months. Never has traveling filled me with such a sense of investment. I knew these town names! I knew the names of people who lived here! I had typed these zip codes into IQ during constituent calls countless times before and here it all was, in front of me.
With only 48 hours in the state, I was determined to see as much as I could. I visited the Fisher Cats stadium, home to the locally beloved baseball team I had researched the week before. A trip to a renowned diner allowed me to try my first “mudslide,” a classic New Hampshire milkshake that our Chief of Staff had raved about in meetings. The natural beauty of the state, from its grey and rocky coastline to the lush green environment of the lakes, left a deep impression and helped me understand the passion for conservation voiced by many constituents. It was only by seeing New Hampshire in person that I started to grasp how living here shaped peoples’ politics.
Perhaps the highlight of the trip was running into the Congressman at his family’s restaurant. I nervously approached him and introduced myself as a Victory Intern. We had a brief conversation: he asked me questions about what my life held post-internship and I tried to find better words than “I don’t know.” After six weeks of being deeply invested in the Congressman’s success, for a few minutes he showed investment in mine. And then I got to do something previously unthinkable because of the pandemic: I got to shake the Congressman’s hand.
Vibe Check
by: Yesenia Ruano
Okay, let’s be honest. I came into this internship knowing little to nothing about the ins and outs of the governmental processes that keep this country going. For the first few days, constituents trusted me to provide them with answers to questions I didn’t quite know the answers to yet. I riddled my intern coordinators’ slack channels with numerous notifications on the daily. How do I take down a constituent’s opinion? What’s the child tax credit? A constituent hasn’t had her garbage picked up for weeks. Who does she call?
Yes, I convinced myself within the first 24 hours that maybe I wasn’t fit for Capitol Hill, but during the next six weeks, I spent my days rescinding that conclusion I had made prematurely. The thing about being 21 and having a tendency of making premature conclusions about yourself and your competence, is that you’re probably always wrong. The co-sponsorship recommendation you write is suddenly returned with no edits. The constituent calls start getting more manageable. You start feeling confident enough to connect with staff members. The self-doubt starts to fade.
Now, I’m not saying that the imposter syndrome goes away and never comes back. As a queer Afro-Latinx, first-generation, and low-income student, that battle will stick with me as I take on new job and/or educational opportunities. But at the end of the day, we don’t partake in these opportunities because we already know how to do the job. That would be boring. We say yes because it’s a new experience that is bound to excite you, frustrate you, and encourage you. My face lights up each time my Congresswoman joins a staff call. I take a deep breath each time a constituent opinion clashes with my own intersectional identity. I receive a “thank you for your help” message from my intern coordinator and feel energized enough to do it all again the next day.
I am simply a 21-year-old congressional intern who has no clue what the rest of their life looks like. That’s okay. At the end of the day, my intern peers and supervisors are willing to answer my questions, catch my mistakes, and celebrate my progress.
