What Power Looks Like When You’re Young

What Power Looks Like When You’re Young

By Yngeborth Saltos

Redefining Power Beyond Voting, Money, or Political Office

Being young is confusing. One minute you’re told you’re the future, and the next minute you’re reminded you don’t have “real” power yet. You can’t vote (or maybe you just started). You don’t run companies. You’re not sitting in Congress. So it’s easy to internalize the idea that power belongs to someone else—older, richer, more established.

But that definition of power feels incomplete.

We’ve been trained to think power only counts when it’s official: a ballot, a law degree, a political title. And yes, those things matter. But power doesn’t suddenly appear at 18. It doesn’t magically download into your brain the day you can vote.

It starts earlier. It starts with dreaming.

Dreaming is free. It doesn’t require money, status, or permission. It has no race, no gender, no immigration category. You can imagine a better system even if you don’t control it yet. And honestly, that’s something adults slowly lose. I’ve heard grown people talk about politics like it’s permanently broken, like corruption is just part of the design, like trying is naïve. Young people don’t fully accept that. And that refusal? That’s power.

Seeing Corruption and Feeling Small

Look at what happened in the case of Jeffrey Epstein. A wealthy, well-connected man exploited and abused children for years while moving in elite spaces. Powerful individuals were linked to him. Systems failed. “Accountability” never came.

Those were real events. Not just rumors. Not just “drama.” Real harm happened, and for a long time, power protected itself.

When you see that, it’s easy to feel small. If people at the top can operate like that for years, what chance does one teenager have at changing anything?

But here’s the key: if they can act boldly because they believe they’re untouchable, why do we act like we’re incapable? Why does corruption feel possible, but change feels unrealistic? Who convinced us of that?

Using Power to Demand Accountability

If power can be used to shield wrongdoing, it can also be used to demand accountability. The difference is who decides to engage.

Social sciences have always been the easiest subject for me, not because they’re simple, but because they feel honest. They ask the questions I’ve always been asking anyway: Why do we make the decisions we make? Who benefits? Who gets ignored? Why are certain systems treated as normal when they clearly don’t work for everyone?

When something feels uncomfortable, I question it. Not to be difficult or argumentative, but because discomfort usually means something needs attention.

And I know not everyone feels safe speaking up. It can feel awkward. You don’t want to sound “too political.” You don’t want to be labeled dramatic. But staying silent doesn’t make you neutral—it just keeps everything the same.

The First Amendment exists for a reason. Freedom of speech, assembly, and press aren’t decorative rights—they’re tools. They protect your ability to question and challenge without government punishment. That protection belongs to young people too. You don’t have to wait for adulthood to use your voice.

Identity and Civic Engagement

And please, stop believing you’re too dumb for these conversations. That’s one of the most effective ways people keep others out of civic spaces. Politics isn’t reserved for experts. Law isn’t only for lawyers. These systems shape your school, your safety, your future career, and your community. You’re allowed to understand the world you live in.

As a Hispanic girl, I don’t get to separate my identity from politics. Immigration policies, representation, and public safety aren’t abstract debates for me. They affect how secure I feel and how visible I feel. But instead of letting that reality silence me, it pushes me to learn more and speak more carefully—not louder, just clearer.

To me, dreaming and civic engagement go together. Dreaming creates the standard of what you believe society should look like. Civic engagement is what happens when you start aligning your actions with that standard, even in small ways: asking a question in class, correcting misinformation, starting a conversation, voting when you can, paying attention before you can.

The Quiet Power of Youth

Power, when you’re young, doesn’t always look dramatic. It’s not always protests or headlines. Sometimes it’s just refusing to accept helplessness as your personality.

You may not hold office. You may not control legislation. But you influence culture. You influence conversations. You influence what feels acceptable in your spaces.

And that matters more than we’ve been told.