La Presidente

by Jonathan Schwarz • “I’m just a normal teenager,” says 15-year-old Christy Snowden of Santa Monica, California, as she flops onto her pink-comforter covered bed. And indeed, her bedroom (on the second floor of her family’s home in a serene, affluent suburban development) would seem to indicate just that. The walls are covered with posters of her heroines and heartthrobs: Debbie Gibson, Sigorney Weaver, and Mary Lou Retton in the former category, Terence Trent D’Arby, Jon Bon Jovi (“He’s so cute”), and Bruce Springsteen in the latter. Her closets are filled with clothes perfectly attuned to the whims of adolescent fashion. A high school biology textbook lies open on her desk, and pictures of her two best friends, Terri and Cindy, are tucked into the corners of her mirror. Yes, Christy Snowden would seem to be the most normal of teenagers, except for one thing—on March 17th, Christy will be sworn in as the 56th President of the tiny, strife-torn Central American nation of Guatemala. “My parents have always told me that I could anything if I put my mind to it,” says Christ with her impish, infectious smile. “And as long as I can remember this has been all I’ve wanted to do.” The Snowden family is sitting together in their comfortable, tastefully decorated living room (at least Christy and her parents are—her six-year-old brother Billy is in and out, tearing around the house with a new model airplane), discussing Christy’s rise to power. Arthur Snowden is an optometrist, and Carol works as a paralegal in downtown Santa Monica; neither is surprised by what their daughter has accomplished.

“It all started the Christmas when she was five,” says her father. “That morning she came and woke us up at the crack of dawn. My first thought was that she had gotten impatient and wanted to start opening presents. Instead, she looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Daddy, I’m going to be President of Guatemala.’”

Christy laughs. “I don’t even remember that.”

“At the time, of course, Arthur and I just smiled,” says Carol Snowden. “We thought it was the cutest thing. But as she got older, we realized she was serious.”

“Who knows where she got the idea,” says Arthur. “Maybe from something she saw on television. But pretty soon there was just no stopping her. The big question now is where she got the talent for this—certainly not from my side of the family.”