Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Sparks, Nevada, October 29, 2015. Reuters/James Glover II

My family may be Democrats, but I have always been a Republican, and I officially registered for the party shortly after my 18th birthday. The first Donald Trump rally I went to was in Las Vegas last year. The crowd was joyful and happy, people were singing and cheering, and when Trump got up on stage all eyes were on him.

That rally energised me, and ensured I did everything possible to get Trump elected. My father and his family are from Nicaragua, and my mum is half Puerto Rican, so I joined “Latinos for Trump”. My whole senior year of high school, I volunteered countless hours for the Trump campaign: making phone calls, speaking to voters, knocking on doors. I researched issues America faces such as our debt, and policies I feel are failing us, including ObamaCare. Trump has promised to tackle these issues head on.

He wants to repeal ObamaCare, to achieve a cheaper service. A more free market in healthcare will increase competition for consumers among insurance companies, and ensure that our prices will get lower. He has also said he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and make sure TTIP is not put in place. He has be talking about our terrible trade deals since the 1980s, whereas Hillary Clinton has voted in favour of every one of these disastrous deals that have cost Americans jobs.

The media has tried to suggest Latinos are all against Trump, but a not-insignificant chunk of us cast votes for him – 29%, according to CNN exit polls. Many of the comments Trump has made about Mexicans, such as calling them “rapists”, have been taken completely out of context. He has only said a certain portion of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border are committing crimes, which is surely true.

In his book Crippled America, Trump talks about his certainty that many illegal immigrants in America are good, hard-working people, but with the US in its current state we have to put Americans first. There are more than 3 billion people in the world who live in poverty. The US can’t help every single one of them. We have to focus on feeding the 13 million starving American children, the single mothers who under Barack Obama have gone into poverty, and our veterans who have lost their benefits.

Donald Trump in New York on election night. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Trump cares about our wellbeing and our future. He wants to lower taxes to make it easier for working families to make money and start businesses, and he wants to help stimulate the economy and create more jobs which will tackle all these issues. That’s how he won over the middle and working classes. When he first announced he was running, he said he would be “the greatest jobs president god ever created”. I was walking in a local mall and spoke with another Latino my age who said she wasn’t necessarily against Trump but just unclear of his policies, and didn’t trust the negativity about him in the media.

I talked about his policies on trade and bringing jobs back, and she agreed with him that we need to get big money out of politics. She had supported Bernie Sanders, but said she would look more into Trump. Those are the policies that have appealed to people like me.

His desire to deport illegal immigrants doesn’t alarm me. It needs to be done. He wants to deport criminals, stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants by implementing an E-Verify system [an internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in America], and only then push those left towards a path of legalisation. Throughout his campaign Trump has said many times that he loves Latinos and that Latino-Americans are a major backbone of this country.

Trump represents Latino-American tenacity, the ability to be straightforward about life and to be passionate in everything we do. He will be great for my community by bringing jobs back, investing over $20bn in inner cities where a lot of minorities live by lowering taxes, and through improvements to education which is a major issue in our community. He wants to end Common Core – the educational standards initiative which dictates what students must be taught – and give the power back to parents and teachers to decide how children are educated.

Hillary Clinton at her concession speech in New York. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In contrast, Clinton has offended many Americans because she supported policies that have taken jobs away from the US, and risked national security with a vulnerable personal email server that could have been hacked. For 30 years Clinton has been part of the Washington establishment, putting money before citizens. No wonder so many Americans didn’t vote for her.

As an 18 year old from a middle-class family, living in a small town close to Las Vegas, Donald Trump gave me the chance to intern for his campaign. It has transformed me as a person. On the occasions I’ve met him he has treated me like an equal and listened to every word I have said. I want to become the first American Latino president of the United States, and the way Trump has stuck to his message no matter what has inspired me beyond words. All Americans can agree we want a leader who has our best interests at heart. Trump was elected on the basis he would put Americans first. I’m sure that people will unite behind his presidency when they see that he’s followed through on his promise.