Salomée Levy has big goals, from becoming a senator in the state of Nevada to providing a platform for underrepresented communities through her nonprofit – but the 18-year-old still needs to graduate from high school.
The teen is a budding writer and youth activist from Las Vegas. She also served as a United Nations Youth delegate in 2018 and created a platform called “We The Immigrants,” which highlights the stories of immigrant youth and their experiences.
“We’ve seen a rise in deportations since 2016 and hate crimes towards immigrants,” she says. “I really wanted to create this project to shine a light on immigrant youth voices, [a place] where they can share their perspectives.”
“On the news, you don’t see stories from their point of view,” she adds. “You see statistics and numbers.”
Levy is somewhat of a rising local political star, receiving the Congressional Silver Medal from Senator Jacky Rosen and serving on the International Congress of Youth Voices. When she launched a nonprofit that worked towards saving art programs throughout the state, her efforts were featured in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper.
Still, in many ways Levy is a typical high school senior. She says her final semester has been “a lot more calm than past years” and adds that she works at a gym and does some part-time tutoring work after school to save for her future.
Having moved to the country as an infant, the French-Belizean teen is an American citizen and registered Democrat who tells The Independent in an interview that she voted for Elizabeth Warren in the Nevada Democratic caucuses last month (which was also the first time she ever voted). Levy likes the senator’s two-cent wealth tax plan, wants to see a woman serve as president, and is considering three key issues among her concerns surrounding the 2020 election: immigration, climate change and human rights. Warren checks off all of those boxes for Levy.
But as we spoke, the Warren campaign released a blog post on Medium titled “Next Steps,” which said the Massachusetts senator was “going to take time right now to think through the right way to continue this fight.”
Much like Levy, the campaign said it was “disappointed” by its results on Super Tuesday, in which the presidential hopeful – who at one point was seen as the potential Democratic frontrunner – failed to finish in the top two in any of the 14 states that voted on Tuesday.
On Thursday morning, the New York Times reported that Warren would be dropping out of the race, with an official announcement potentially arriving later in the day. Levy supports the decision, and thinks it’s time given the latest delegate counts. Moreover, if the senator wants to “continue this fight” for progressive reform in Washington as she has insisted, the Nevada voter has some advice for her: “I think she should drop out and endorse Bernie Sanders.”
“It’s great that she’s always persisting, and she says she’s going to run to the end, but to me I think it seems pretty clear that Biden and Sanders are the clear frontrunners,” Levy says. “Most of her voters would support Sanders because she’s a more progressive candidate, and I think her endorsement would help him to the end.”
“Bernie Sanders has really been appealing to me lately,” she adds. “He stands out to me a lot and really appeals to young voters… I think he has the potential to beat Donald Trump.”
Sanders has so far picked up 501 delegates in the race for the Democratic nomination, compared to former Vice President Joe Biden’s 566. Still, 1,991 delegates are required to secure the nomination, and both candidates appear ready to stay in the race for the long haul.
The Vermont senator sweeps the vote when it comes to the youth: he raked in 62 per cent of voters under 25 in North Carolina, 61 per cent of voters aged 18 to 29 in California, and similar percentages across the other states which have so far held primaries and caucuses. But he hasn’t been able to turn out young voters in droves, which appeared to contribute to his losses in several states on Super Tuesday.
Levy thinks members of her generation aren't coming out to the polls en masse right now because they don’t see the process as a “major turning point in the election”. There needs to be “more education on the primaries” available to the youth, she adds.
Ultimately, Levy says she would be supporting Warren right now if she “had a stronger showing and won more delegates” on Super Tuesday. But she notes how Warren placed third in her own home state of Massachusetts and adds: “I think some people are just not ready, and think that another woman isn’t ready to challenge Donald Trump.”
Levy says she will go on to vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, but she’s hoping for a progressive victory in the primaries. Trump’s election during her freshman year in high school “changed the way I viewed politics,” Levy says, adding that she became more aware of current events and learned how to speak her mind and debate with people who support the president.
“It really got me fired up and inspired to become a politician in the future,” she adds.
Levy seems to have a bright future ahead of her, regardless of what next steps she takes after high school. And even though she’s upset about Warren’s campaign and concerned about another potential four years of Trump, the teen says she’s excited and optimistic about what’s to come.
“I have hope,” she says. “I’m seeing young people – especially within my own community – becoming more involved. They’re coming out and voting for the more progressive candidates. There’s a lot of hope that we’ll one day have more women and minorities in politics, get equal pay, have equal rights … so yeah, I really have a lot of hope.”
Click here to read more of The Independent's series, Polarized: Voices From Across America
