NEW YORK: Rashida Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, and Ilhan Omar, who is of Somali origin, Tuesday made history as the first Muslim women elected to U.S. Congress after both Democrats won their congressional midterm 2018 races.
Ms. Omar, 37, will fill the seat of Congressman Keith Ellison, a Democrat, who was the first Muslim man elected to the body and left his seat to run for attorney general of the state of Minnesota.
On Tuesday, Ms. Omar, who became the first Somali-American Muslim to ever become a lawmaker when elected to the Minnesota’s House of Representatives in 2016, won the seat over Republican Jennifer Zielinski.
Ms. Tlaib, 42, also became the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress on Tuesday. The Detroit-born mother of two first made history in 2008 as the first Muslim woman in the Michigan legislature.
Overall, Democrats clinched the U.S. House of Representatives majority, halting Republicans’ eight-year reign as voters delivered a rebuke to President Donald Trump. Republicans have kept control of the Senate.
Members of the House are elected to two-year terms, meaning all 435 seats are decided. The 100-member Senate is a different story, where lawmakers are elected for six-year terms; about a third stand for re-election every two years.
“I want you to know that my mom, who is from a small village in the West Bank, they’re literally glued … to the TV”, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles in Palestine are sitting by and watching their granddaughter,” Ms. Tlaib said after her win, bursting into tears.
“I want them to know as I uplift the families of the 13th Congressional District, I’ll uplift them every single day being who I am as a proud Palestinian-American woman,” she added, noting that for “so many years,Palestinians have felt dehumanized.”
In her victory speech, Ms. Omar said, “I stand here before you tonight as your congresswoman-elect with many firsts behind my name. The first woman of colour to represent our state in Congress, the first woman to wear a hijab, the first refugee ever elected to Congress and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.”
“Here in Minnesota we don’t only welcome immigrants,” she added, “we send them to Washington.”
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Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar join other women of colour who together will shake up the makeup of the overwhelmingly white and male halls of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto Rican, became the youngest woman elected to Congress, and Ayanna Pressley in Massachusetts the first black congresswoman in her state.
“Alexandria, Ilhan, Ayanna. I love these names!” Ms. Tlaib said. “Yes, you’re going to have to learn how to say our names.”
The election of Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar to the US House of Representatives comes amid widespread negative feeling against American-Muslims by their compatriots.
A study released last week by the New America Foundation and the American Muslim Institution found around two in five Americans thought Islam was incompatible with American values, and that a similar number believed Muslims were not as patriotic as other citizens.
US Muslim civil rights groups say a lot of anti-Muslim rhetoric comes from the media, as well as the country’s political establishment.
Researchers found that people identifying as Republicans were most likely to hold negative ideas about Islam and Muslims.
Another recent report, published by Muslim Advocates, found more than 80 instances of political candidates using anti-Muslim rhetoric in 2017 and 2018.
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