Loading ...Pathbreakers of Arab America—Ilhan Omar
By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
This is the seventy-fourth of Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, arts, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our seventy-fourth pathbreaker, Ilhan Omar, is a Somali-born Muslim woman serving as the U.S. Democratic representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district since 2019. Omar is the first Somali American and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota and one of the first two Muslim women, alongside Rashida Tlaib, to serve in Congress. A staunch human rights advocate, Ilhan has vigorously opposed strong Islamophobic currents directed against her and Muslims in general.
Growing up as an African Muslim woman and then as a refugee, Ilhan Omar came to the U.S. and became a crusader for human rights
While Ilhan is ethnically not an Arab by birth, her country of origin, Somalia, identifies as both African and Arab. Somalia, for example, is an active member of the League of Arab States, and Omar considers herself Arab. Arab influence in Somalia dates to the spread of Islam in the early 700s A.D. when a group of Muslim Arabs brought their religion into the region. By 1300 A.D., nearly all Somalis had converted to Islam, and several towns became centers of Islamic culture and learning. Mosques and theological schools were built to teach Muslims the Qur’an and the Arabic language. We have taken the liberty of considering Ilhan an Arab American Pathbreaker.
Ilhan Abdullahi Omar was born on October 4, 1982, in Mogadishu, Somalia, to her mother, Fadhuma Abukar Haji Hussein, and her father, Nur Omar Mohamed. Ilhan, the youngest of seven siblings, spent her early years in Baidoa, Somalia. When her mother died when Ilhan was two, she was raised by her father and grandfather. They were both, according to Wikipedia’s series on Arab Americans, “moderate Sunni Muslims opposed to the rigid Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.” Escaping the Somali civil war, Ilhan’s family fled to a refugee camp called Dadbaab in Garissa County, Kenya, near the Somali border.
Following four years spent in the Dadaab refugee camp, Ilhan and her family sought asylum in the U.S. and arrived in New York in 1995. They lived in Arlington, Virginia, briefly before moving to Minneapolis. There, her father worked as a taxi driver and later for the post office. Ilhan avers that growing up, she learned from her father and grandfather the importance of democracy. Even at the youthful age of 14, Ilhan recalls accompanying her grandfather to political caucus meetings in Minneapolis to serve as his interpreter.
Ilhan recalls her early years in the U.S. when she was bullied during her time in Virginia, triggered by her “distinctive Somali appearance and wearing of the hijab.” She experienced having gum stuck onto her hijab, being pushed down stairs, and physical taunts while she was changing for gym class.” Omar recalls her father’s reaction to these incidents, explaining, “They are doing something to you because they feel threatened in some way by your existence.” Ilhan became a U.S. citizen in 2000 at the age of 17.
Omar graduated from Thomas Edison High School and North Dakota State University in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies. Later, she became a Policy Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Ilhan began her professional career as a community nutrition educator at the University of Minnesota, working from 2006 to 2009 in the Greater Minneapolis–Saint Paul area. She then ran on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket for the Minnesota House of Representatives, winning the general election and becoming the first Somali American legislator in the U.S.
Ilhan has been married in two unofficial, faith-based Islamic marriages to men of Somali background. These were both followed by divorce. One of the marriages resulted in the birth of two children. In March 2020, Omar married Tim Mynett, a political consultant with the E Street Group.
On June 5, 2018, Omar filed to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district after six-term incumbent Keith Ellison announced he would not seek reelection. She won 78% of the vote, becoming the first Somali American elected to the U.S. Congress and the first woman of color to serve as a U.S. Representative from Minnesota. She was sworn in on her grandfather’s Quran. In 2020 and 2022, Omar won her seat again.
On her first election, the ban on head coverings in the U.S. House was modified and Omar became the first woman to wear a hijab on the House floor. She is a member of the informal group “The Squad,” whose members form a unified front to push for progressive changes such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. The other members of The Squad are Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Omar was vocal in her response to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. She said the experience “was very traumatizing and that the trauma would last a long time.” She said she began to fear for her life when the evacuation began, and as she was being escorted to a secure area, she made a phone call to the father of her children to “make sure he would continue to tell my children that I loved them if I didn’t make it out.” She said, “The face of the Capitol will forever be changed. They didn’t succeed in stopping the functions of democracy, but I do believe they succeeded in ending the openness of our democracy.” Four years later, this statement has a ring of prescience.
Given Ilhan’s principled human rights stance, she has become the object of revenge. She was attacked and wounded in 2014 by multiple attendees during an event as an aide to Minneapolis City Councilman Andrew Johnson. She sustained a concussion and was sent to the hospital. Omar has also received death threats from white nationalists. Some of the threats were precipitated by then-President Trump’s tweets against The Squad, most of whom were born and raised in the U.S., urging them to “go back to the places from which they came.”
Ilhan Omar—politically powerful African Muslim American woman threatens the “white establishment”
In 2023, the Republicans ousted Omar from her committee post on the House Foreign Affairs Committee over her past comments about Israel. They voted to remove her to send “a strong statement against antisemitism.” Ilhan and other Democrats said it was revenge after two Republicans were ousted from committees in 2020 when Democrats held a House majority. Omar suggested she was being removed because she is a Muslim woman who immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee. Just before the vote, Ilhan asked rhetorically, “Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy?” Since Republicans secured a majority in the House of Representatives following the midterm elections in November, the members voted along party lines to remove Omar.
Realizing she may have been a little outspoken about her anti-Israel government statements, Ilhan responded, “Antisemitism is real, and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of antisemitic tropes.” Her allies agreed that Omar “had taken appropriate steps to educate herself about antisemitism.” If anyone knows about anti-ethnic/anti-religious behavior, it is Ilhan Omar. The Muslim ban, Islamophobia, and racism in general are all stacked against her. Ilhan is a refugee, a survivor of war, the subject of abusive social, religious, and racial attacks, and a recipient of then-President Trump’s rants to “send her back.”
Ilhan Omar is our national treasure, disdained by many who are prejudiced and intolerant, under-appreciated by many because they have no understanding or appreciation of who she is, but revered by those who know about her work to relieve the oppressed.
Sources:
–”Ilhan Omar,” Wikipedia Series on Arab Americans, 2024
–“Republicans oust Ilhan Omar from powerful House committee,” BBC, 2/2/2023
John Mason, Ph.D., focuses on Arab culture, society, and history and is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. HJohn Mason, Ph.D., focuses on Arab culture, society, and history and is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.
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