Dalia Giancarlo has a few choice words for people who don’t vote.
“They better get up and go and vote if they want a better life,” Giancarlo said. “If not, their fault.”
Though Giancarlo was born in Cuba, she’s made her life in the United States. She moved to the states with her family when she was four years old. Her father worked in the cigar factories until he started his own cigar making company. When he died, Giancarlo and her mother took over the family business until they sold it about 20 years ago.
The 93-year-old Cuban American woman has voted in every election since she became a naturalized citizen at 21 years old. Nothing was going to stand in the way of her voting during the Primary Tuesday.
“I have 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren,” she said. “I want the best for them in their future.”
Giancarlo was in the hospital for a week for congestive heart failure. She got out on Saturday, and went straight to the polls on Tuesday – family and her oxygen tank in tow.
“And besides, I was feeling pretty good,” she said. “I was feeling strong and good so I had to vote, I just had to vote.”
Giancarlo brought one of her great-grandchildren with her to the polling location. Eight-year-old Caden Thompson-Beckwith was disappointed he couldn’t vote himself, but he still got to go inside with his great-grandmother and get an “I Voted” sticker.
“I wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders,” Thompson-Beckwith said. His great-grandmother reached over and pretended to wring his neck. A die-hard Hillary Clinton fan, Giancarlo voted for the former Secretary of State.
“We all have our differences,” Thompson-Beckwith said.“Right, that’s right darling,” Giancarlo said to her great-grandson. “That’s why we’re in the United States.”
Giancarlo said she looks forward to casting her vote again in November.