When I became an American citizen, in college, my father called to ask whether I was planning to vote in the upcoming election. “If I have time,” I answered. My father then told me that perhaps I did not deserve to be a citizen. Any immigrant who comes to this country and becomes a citizen and doesn’t vote, according to him, should just go back.

“What about American citizens who are born here and don’t vote?” I asked, egging him on.

“They need to be sent for six months to a nondemocratic country. Then they’ll vote,” he replied.

I told my father that his “Ship ’Em Abroad” program didn’t sound too democratic to me, that perhaps included in the freedoms in this country is the freedom to be apathetic.

He hung up on me.

I voted.

But that wasn’t the end of it. After every election, my father called me to ask me whom I had voted for. After several such phone calls, we realized that our votes simply negate each other. We stand on opposite sides of all issues. I have since learned not to share any information with my father, instead reminding him that the voting process is confidential, which explains why there are booths instead of, say, people just raising their hands in a public voting hall so that someone like my father can tell them they’re wrong.

“Well,” he always huffs, “you always vote for the wrong people anyway. Thank God for your mother.”

My mother’s voting ritual is a whole other story. She, like most Americans, doesn’t fully comprehend the American political system. I’m convinced that the average American would have an easier time naming Elizabeth Taylor’s ex-husbands than, say, his or her congressional leaders. To complicate matters, my mother does not understand English well enough to learn more, which is where my father comes in.

As soon as my father receives his voting pamphlet in the mail, he sits on the sofa, pen in hand, and reads it cover to cover. He underlines, he circles, he writes in the margins. If he doesn’t know how to vote on an issue, he looks for an endorsement by firemen or police officers. In my father’s world, firemen and police officers wear white cowboy hats. If the local firefighters’ union thinks it’s a good idea to raise taxes to build more tap dance studios, then so does my father.

Once my father decides how to vote on all the issues, he then practices democracy with a dash of dictatorship thrown in for good measure. He tells my mother how she should vote. My mother rarely questions my father’s choices, and when she does, he answers her with one of his typical opinions: “Anybody with a brain can tell that’s a no vote.” (Chances are I voted yes.)