Hope and fear: Refugees see a complicated America
A refugee joins a state legislature while others face racist intimidation.
The presidential election has left many Americans, particularly those who didn’t vote for Donald Trump, distraught that his anti-minority rhetoric was not a deal breaker for so many Americans. There were were also signs of hope, alongside signs that the United States is more divided than ever.
In Minnesota, Ilan Omar, a Somali-American who came to the United States as a refugee in 1994, won a seat in her state’s legislature. She’s the first Somali-American woman to do so. Omar lived for two years as a refugee in a camp in Kenya before coming to the United States.
“This really was a victory for that 8-year-old in that refugee camp,” Omar said after winning. “This was a victory for the young woman being forced into child marriage. This was a victory for every person that’s been told they have limits on their dreams.”
While her fight to win the democratic primary was remarkable — she beat out a longstanding incumbent — in the general election her republican opponent withdrew for personal reasons. Also, unsurprisingly, her campaign wasn’t without controversy reminiscent of the outrageous birth certificate claim that plagued President Barack Obama. NPR reported that “Allegations were raised during the campaign that she had illegally married her brother to commit immigration fraud.” Of course, Omar denied this, and her win cannot be taken lightly. There is a woman from Somalia who holds public office in the United States and wears a hijab that represents the plurality that has made America the country it is. In an era when the presidential candidates who vilified Muslim refugees won the general election, that is particularly noteworthy.
And on the theme of America’s bipolar reaction to refugees, The New York Times, which Trump likes to tweet at, a lot, published a recent article about an Iraqi refugee family that lives just outside Baltimore. They’ve received both welcome gifts from their neighbors and a note on their front door accusing them of being terrorists and that they should leave.
Of course, that’s absurd. They’ve suffered more deeply at the hands of terrorists than most of us. Ra’ad Lalqaraghuli, the father of the family, used to work for the American Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq. Three of his brothers were killed by ISIS.
