While New Hyde Park’s Samantha Aloysius is a pre-med student, she also has experience writing bills and running a government.
Aloysius, a Herricks graduate, is a pre-med junior at Hofstra University. While she has no interest in working in politics in the future, she has the experience.
Aloysius is among 31 American Legion Auxiliary volunteers who joined 100 female high school seniors from July 20 to 27 in Washington, D.C., for the 73rd American Legion Auxiliary Girls Nation.
As part of the program, two outstanding teenage girls, known as “senators,” are selected to represent each state at ALA Girls Nation after participating in one of 50 ALA Girls State sessions held across the country. Aloysius had served as a senator at SUNY Brockport during summer 2016. In 2018, she was asked to serve as a junior counselor and is now a staff member for this summer.
She compared the nation’s capital with New Hyde Park, saying, “I’m definitely more of a New Hyde Park girl.”
Aloysius said that the girls spend a lot of the week right outside of Washington at the National 4-H Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The participants create a 51st state. The Senate is broken up into two political parties, Nationalists and Federalists. A formative experience for her, she said, was drafting a bill for protecting sexual assault whistleblowers when she was a junior in high school.
“You really truly create a government,” Aloysius said.
A key component of the ALA Girls Nation program involves mock Senate sessions complete with caucuses and debating bills that range from personal to political interests. Other activities on the agenda include a planned visit to the White House, a meeting with senators on Capitol Hill, a community service project benefiting veterans, a visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony, and a tour of Washington monuments.
Aloysius said one political issue she’s interested in raising awareness about is researching maternal morbidity rates, saying that there’s a “public policy aspect” to the issue and it’s relevant to her clinical work.
This interest is a result of her work as a volunteer doula at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola. Doulas serve as nonmedical assistants to women giving birth. This involves taking care of nonmedical physical and emotional needs of the birthing mothers, Aloysius said. Aloysious said that researching maternal morbidity is a “niche” issue, but said that she has been successful raising awareness about it to her junior counselors and high schoolers. She is excited to work with the high schoolers and watch them grow saying, “You come out a great leader.”
While she has more experience in politics than the average college student, Aloysius said about working in politics, “I don’t think it’s for me at all.”
What has been lost, Aloysious said, is the ability to communicate. When it comes to talking politics Aloysious said, “It’s not ‘it’s my way or the highway.'” When she debates someone she said she is debating their points and not their humanity. She compared political debating to science, her field, saying that your argument is like a scientific thesis.
“No matter where you go, never back down from an opportunity. You only have a certain number of doors open, don’t let them close,” Aloysius said.
The American Legion Auxiliary is an organization that advances the mission of The American Legion. It has over 600,000 members.
