From left, Roxanne Freedman, Alice Garrard and Shelly Yong. (Contributed) Norwalk Public Library’s Greater Norwalk Literacy Volunteers (GNLV) Head Coor .
Chinese immigrants Baolin Ma and Renjiang Zhu exit a poll Nov. 5 in Wilton, after voting for the first time. (Courtesy photo)
Voting is a civic duty for most people, not a life-changing event. But 2020 marked a monumental event for Baolin Ma and Renjiang Zhu, grandparents who voted for the first time in their lives in the Presidential election. The couple, born and married in China, now live in Wilton and are students of the Greater Norwalk Literacy Volunteers (GNLV) program at Norwalk Public Library.
Ma and Zhu are retired schoolteachers who came to the U.S. in 2007 to be with their son and grandchildren in California. They moved to Wilton in 2015 to be near their daughter and her family, but something was missing. They felt like strangers in their adopted country.