“My world has always been on fire” Bushra Amiwala’s political reflections
Deputy Editor Samara Patel interviews the first Gen-Z and youngest Muslim elected official in American history on integrity in the face of challenge and the contemporary US political landscape.
By Samara Patel
Twenty-eight year old Bushra Amiwala is in the middle of a hectic Congressional campaign. She hopes to be one of the seventeen candidates to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, for which the primary is quickly approaching. In the midst of the chaos, she spared me fifteen minutes. The interview was a favour for taking photos at her campaign launch event, an excited affair buzzing with young volunteers who managed to be both jaded and idealistic about America’s future. Amiwala was among them, dressed in a black hijab and dark jeans. On the momentous afternoon, the politician navigated everything from campaign concerns, friends who showed up bearing signs, and a photographer to whom she excitedly described the TikToks she wanted to make with the volunteers in order to boost her campaign page.
Elected to her local Board of Education in 2019, still at university, Amiwala became both the first Gen Z and youngest Muslim elected official in American history. For all of her legislative successes, she says that her parents, first-generation Pakistani immigrants, never raised her to be political, “They were your typical immigrant parents that were grateful to be in this country… They had that subconscious element to not make noise, do what you’re supposed to, make money to get out of survival mode”. They always taught her to show gratitude – growing up, there were periods of time where she volunteered at five different non-profits the five days of the week. While this was rewarding, it was also difficult to watch these organizations survive without government support, “every single organization had a limit to what they could do from an impact standpoint And while they were doing incredible work, there almost was this bright line between, well, if the government increased funding for SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, that could solve the long-term problem of hunger and food insecurity”.
There’s that saying, you know, ‘if only women of colour had the confidence of a mediocre white man’
This mind that seemed split between appreciation and dissatisfaction led her down a path towards a political career – one that she never intended to have. She was invited to run for office after working on a U.S. Senate campaign in order to financially aid her parents. The hijab-wearing Amiwala was exposed to the stark Islamophobia of the voting American public, “… we were going door to door to various registered Republican voters, asking them a series of five questions. And the first question on that list was, ‘on a scale of one to ten, how fearful are you of an Islamic terror attack on US soil?’ And people would look at me and say, ‘10’”. She inhales sharply. “I thought that was it for someone like me. There’s no way I could ever be in government and politics.”
This was three months after Trump was inaugurated as president, a time when Amiwala couldn’t have imagined becoming a public figure. In fact, it was a coworker that initially encouraged her to do so, “they saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself at the time. And there’s that saying, you know, ‘if only women of colour had the confidence of a mediocre white man’. And [the coworker] was a white guy”.
She states her passion for standing up for those who were never told that they had options: “My intention has always been to make a tangible, positive difference and impact in the lives of everyday people. The people who might not even know that they have the power to advocate for themselves.” Amilwala highlights a situation where her campaign was offered $56,500 from an organization whose policies she didn’t agree with. The then-19-year-old declined the offer. “These aren’t just talking points,” the politician emphasises, “it’s a fabric of leadership and integrity.”
My world has always been on fire… We grew up with social media a little bit too early and a little too unmonitored in our hands
As a born-and-bred American myself, I asked her why Americans are so willing to change our homeland for the better – a question constantly weighing on my mind, especially after every new horror my country releases into the world. Amiwala is confident in her answer. It’s almost as if she asks herself this question as often as I do, “I think Americans from public education do have this belief instilled in us, which I think slightly in part comes from propaganda, that there’s the American dream… I do think that that still does exist. And it’s hard every day you learn another thing about the genesis of your country and realize that none of that was true.”
When asked for a message to those in the UK observing American politics from the outside, she sighs, “Our country is going through it right now… But things in America also aren’t as bad as they seem online.” At the same time, like many young people in the country, she expresses great frustration at the American government, “I have always seen our country and current administration bombing folks that look like me and other countries around the world. And I still see it in the present day.”
Not only is she irritated with the government, she’s frustrated with the people in it, and how her actions are often overlooked by those who simply expect it from her. She talks about posting the initial graphics about what to do in an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raid, “When I posted those, I was being told to go back to my country… Whereas when my white counterparts or white passing counterparts do it, they get rewarded and praised, and called an icon and this progressive champion when they benefit from it”. It doesn’t take long to find the source of her annoyance. A paltry look at her recent Instagram posts reveals both Islamaphobic and sexist comments – everything from talking about how her policies only benefit “outsiders” to comparing her to adult film star Mia Khalifa.
She says that cyberbullying and an understanding of it comes with being a Gen Z politician, “My world has always been on fire… We grew up with social media a little bit too early and a little too unmonitored in our hands. And that means that we saw the dangers of the internet. We understood what cyberbullying was before there was even a word to describe what that is”.
Amiwala is well aware of the stereotypes of our generation, “I’m proud to be that counter example of what people think Gen Z is when it comes to leadership – being described as that person who is poised and articulate and thoughtful. There’s nothing more I appreciate than that perception I’m able to represent for my generation.”
I’m proud to be that counter example of what people think Gen Z is when it comes to leadership
Between her youth and her religion, she agrees that she faces more systemic barriers than her other candidates – but also doesn’t seem inclined to dwell on the fact, “For [my campaign] to have been able to raise $1.2 million to have the largest volunteer pool than other candidates combined, that is something that took intention, grit, effort, energy, and emotional labour during times where maybe no one was watching.”
But now, Amiwala has got to the point in her political career where people are watching, and have started looking to her for advice, “… people from around the country who have personally reached out to me as a cold DM saying, ‘I’m thinking about running for something. Can you talk on the phone?’… I absolutely think that my candidacy has visually just normalized the idea of Muslim women being a part of the fabric of leadership in mainstream American government and politics.”
Amiwala holds a lot of pride in her political career, and those she is able to inspire despite the fears people harbour against her, despite the roadblocks she faces. “I think my faith teaches me that the two things I have control over are my intention and my effort… my effort was showing up every day in spite of some of the difficulty, opposition, unfair, dual standards that might have been in my way.”
It’s easy to come away from our conversation harbouring a new hope for an America that was led by the excited youth, but that is not the full truth. Bushra Amiwala is not inexperienced, nor is she naïve. She’s seen the indignities of this country and how it treats those it deems less than human – from across the ocean to how she’s been treated in her own town. She goes into this Congressional campaign with her eyes wide open, determined to shape America into the idealistic, free country that we were both taught to believe in.
Image credit: Bushra Amiwala, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
