A learning and growing me
My name is Isra Hirsi, I’m a 16 year old from Minneapolis, Minnesota and the eldest daughter of a United States Congresswoman.
My reality is a little different from other members’ kids because I’m involved in organizing and advocacy work where I’m creating my own platform, while also having a mom who has a massive platform. The crossover in both of our work makes it harder to navigate certain spaces.
At the beginning of my time in national organizing, January 2019, my mom was rising to fame which led to me feeling extremely conflicted because I wasn’t just Isra Hirsi the climate advocate, I was Isra Hirsi, Ilhan Omar’s daughter and climate advocate.
Throughout the beginning of my national organizing work, it didn’t occur to me that I have more access to spaces, people, and connections because of my mom and I didn’t really understand that privilege or know how to handle it. Most of the time, I didn’t mention it at all because I didn’t want it to be constantly tied to her in the work I do. However, sometimes acting like you don’t have a certain privilege is almost as bad as acting upon ignorance. For months, I was frustrated with her presence in my work because I felt like it caused me more harm than good. I didn’t want to be known as Ilhan Omar’s daughter, I wanted to be known as myself. The only problem with this was I still benefitted from her title while not acknowledging it. I was stuck in this middle ground where I was her daughter but I didn’t want to say it.
Because of my mother, so many people make assumptions about me. I live 2 lives- that of a climate justice organizer and that of a politician’s daughter. Throughout my attempts to keep my two realities separate, many conflicts arose — especially in activist spaces. I now know that I can’t create a middle ground and the 2 lives don’t need to be separate.
As a teen who yearns to learn and grow as a person, it’s been really frustrating to have people not feel that I’m approachable because of the prominence of my mom. I want to create a space where I am easy to talk to and not seen as surrounded by some elitist bubble. I want to find ways to recognize this new privilege as a net positive in the spaces that I exist in, while at the same time learning when it’s my time to step back and pass on the mic.
I will make mistakes along the way, after all I’m human, but I want to continue a dialogue about my new reality and grow as a person. I can’t wait to continue impacting the world in positive ways.
