# This Is What America Looks Like by Ilhan Omar - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? An inspiring tale of struggle, survival, and gritty perseverance.

When most people think about the US House of Representatives, they imagine white men over the age of 50.

Ilhan Omar is different.

Not only is she a woman, she’s a woman of color, and she wasn’t born in the United States.

As a teenager, she became a naturalized citizen, having sought refuge in America after fleeing war in her home country of Somalia.

On her journey from middle school in Virginia to representing Minnesota’s fifth congressional district in the US House of Representatives, Omar has learned a lot more than English.

As the blinks that follow demonstrate, she’s learned why faith matters, how her family and Somali-American community fit into her life as a modern woman, and how to advocate for people who have gone too long without someone speaking up for them.

In these blinks, you’ll learn  why a 12-year-old Ilhan was so startled to see trash on the streets of New York; how one reckless decision was maliciously used against her by her own community; and how Senator Bernie Sanders comforted her in one of her worst moments.

When Ilhan Omar was a child, she was physically tiny.

Ilhan Omar’s carefree childhood was interrupted by civil war.

However, she punched above her weight – literally.

In her hometown of Mogadishu, Somalia, she often got into fights at school.

Despite her size, she wouldn’t put up with bullies picking on her or other kids.

Ilhan wasn’t a typical Somali girl.

But her family wasn’t a typical Somali family, either.

For one thing, Ilhan and her siblings grew up without their mother, who died when Ilhan was two years old.

For another, her family was Benadiri, an ethnic minority in Mogadishu.

Her family had learned long ago that they didn’t fit in, so they might as well do and act as they liked.

That meant, among other things, raising the girls in the family with as many privileges and responsibilities as the boys.

Ilhan’s first few years were happy.

But that happiness wasn’t to last.

The key message here is: Ilhan Omar’s carefree childhood was interrupted by civil war.

When Ilhan was eight, war broke out in Somalia, seemingly overnight.

Her house was hit by bullets and mortar shells multiple times, and the war caused serious food shortages, leaving her family with only rice and beans to eat.

Still, they were the lucky ones: in 1992, the year the war broke out, around 350,000 Somalis died, many from starvation or disease.

When armed men tried to break into the house as the family cowered inside, Ilhan’s grandfather realized that they had to leave Mogadishu.

The next morning, the family split up and loaded themselves onto several different cattle trucks, which were crammed with people fleeing the violence.

Ilhan left with her pregnant aunt Fos, heading for southern Somalia.

But the violence was spreading throughout the country, and soon the family was forced to cross the border into northern Kenya.

Eventually, they ended up at a refugee camp outside the Kenyan city of Mombasa, joining the rest of her family from Mogadishu.

It was bleak, but at least people gave Ilhan food and water.

At the camp, she felt looked after.

However, while Ilhan and her aunt Fos had escaped the violence of Somalia, they weren’t totally out of danger.

Disease was rife in the camp, and soon, her beloved aunt contracted malaria.

After a few weeks, she died of the disease.

For the first time, Ilhan felt angry and scared for the future.

Ilhan adjusted to life as a refugee, but her father dreamed of something more.

As Ilhan settled into life in the refugee camp in Kenya, she had to adjust to a new reality: death.

Every week someone she knew died.

But she learned that being surrounded by death also made people band together.

When parents died, everyone in the community pitched in to look after their children.

Even eight-year-old Ilhan looked after a baby who was only a few months old.

Ilhan did find moments of joy in camp life; she would sneak out of the camp through tears in the chain-link fence, run to a nearby village, and watch Bollywood movies for hours with the village children.

But coping wasn’t easy for everyone.

Soon, Ilhan’s father began to dream of a better future elsewhere.

The key message here is: Ilhan adjusted to life as a refugee, but her father dreamed of something more.

When Ilhan’s family first arrived at the refugee camp, her father and grandfather walked around in a daze for a while.

It was hard for them to comprehend what had happened to the family.

One day, Ilhan overheard them discussing the future.

The dream was to settle the family in America.

where it was possible to eventually become a full citizen.

“Only in America can you ultimately become an American,” her father said.

“Everywhere else we will always feel like guests.

” The odds weren’t great, though; over one million Somali refugees fled Somalia between 1986 and 1996, but only 10,464 of them were admitted to the US.

Still, Ilhan’s family secured an interview at the nearby refugee office.

One year later, they had good news: they had been chosen to resettle in Arlington, Virginia.

At an orientation program, a video about life in America showed them images of wheat blowing in the wind, houses with white picket fences, and a family smiling at each other over the largest roasted chicken Ilhan had ever seen.

Only later did she realize it must have been a Thanksgiving turkey.

America, the video seemed to be saying, was a land of abundance.

On their way to Arlington, Ilhan’s family had an overnight layover in New York.

As a taxi drove them through the city to their hotel, Ilhan gazed out the window.

She couldn't believe how dirty America was, with huge piles of black trash bags lining the street.

It didn’t square at all with the country she’d seen in the orientation video.

“Don’t worry,” her father told her.

“We’ll find our America.

” It wasn’t the last time Ilhan’s expectations would differ from reality.

Ilhan quickly picked up the tools she needed to succeed, but independence brought more strife at home.

Once they arrived in Virginia, Ilhan’s family, all seven of them, moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Arlington.

Ilhan was just 12 years old and spoke only two phrases in English: “Hello” and “Shut up.

” Still, she was excited to start school again for the first time in four years.

But school life wasn’t so easy.

She got into fights constantly, mostly with bullies at her school.

Fighting didn’t feel like a choice – if people weren’t going to behave respectfully, Ilhan would demand their respect.

Naturally, she spent a lot of time in detention.

The long hours spent reading and writing helped her pick up English, and she was nearly fluent by the end of her first year.

The key message here is: Ilhan quickly picked up the tools she needed to succeed, but independence brought more strife at home.

As Ilhan became a willful teenager, her father decided to move the family to Minneapolis, Minnesota, home to the largest concentration of Somalis in America.

There, she attended Thomas Edison High School.

Things were easier there than they had been at school in Virginia.

To begin with, there were a few dozen other Somalis in her class.

And she no longer felt the need to fight when she felt disrespected – a few years in the US had taught her to communicate with her peers instead.

In high school, Ilhan made her first foray into leadership.

Edison was a very diverse school, and clashes between students from different communities were common.

To address the problem, Ilhan and some other students formed a coalition to improve relations among the many different communities.

Their work helped students get along better.

At home, things weren’t so easy, though.

Ilhan and her father were clashing.

He trusted her to make the right choices; after all, he had raised her with a clear code of morality.

But he was subject to pressure from others in the close-knit Somali community.

When people gossiped about Ilhan’s teenage behaviors – staying up late to watch TV, or dyeing her hair like Beyoncé – her father struggled with how to respond.

The problems intensified when Ilhan met Ahmed, an older Somali boy visiting his family in Minneapolis.

After a whirlwind courtship, he transferred to college in Minneapolis to be closer to her.

Falling in love was easy.

But staying together would turn out to be much harder.

In difficult times, Ilhan’s faith became an anchor.

Once Ilhan and Ahmed got to know each other, it was clear they felt strongly about each other.

Dating wasn’t an option in their community, however.

If Ilhan and Ahmed wanted to stay together, they would have to get married.

Luckily, their families approved and the two were married, moving into a one-bedroom apartment near Ilhan’s father soon after.

It seemed like an auspicious start.

But rough times were on the horizon.

The key message here is: In difficult times, Ilhan’s faith became an anchor.

Ilhan’s father approved of her marriage on one condition: that she continue her education.

However, while she had excellent grades and was a student leader, she had no guidance about what college to go to.

She ended up enrolling in a two-year Associate’s Degree program at Minneapolis’s Mall of America.

During her first week in college, tragedy suddenly struck in the form of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

After the attacks, Ilhan’s family went from shock to grief to fear of reprisal; the press and even their neighbors seemed to hold her community, as Muslims, responsible for the attacks.

Not long after, Ilhan learned she was pregnant.

Her daughter Isra was born in 2003, just as the US was preparing to invade Iraq.

It was a stressful time – it was clear to Ilhan and her family that the invasion was illegal and likely to bring suffering to the people of Iraq.

And things were tough at home, too.

Ilhan’s financial aid from the Mall of America program wasn’t enough to cover her family’s growing expenses.

The school urged her to take out loans to cover her tuition, even though, as it turned out, many of its classes weren’t even accredited.

Ilhan felt exploited but determined.

Soon, she was spending every waking moment either studying or taking care of her family.

She went days without eating and was soon severely underweight.

When she got pregnant again, she knew she needed a break.

So she took some time off to visit a more conservative branch of her family in Sweden.

Influenced by their particular version of Islam, she decided to resume wearing the hijab, a headscarf some Muslim women wear.

She hadn’t worn the hijab in years, as it had always felt like something she was expected to do for others.

But after her trip, she realized that it could be something just for her: a reminder of the religion that anchors her and helps her fight for what’s right.

Ilhan pulled herself out of a destructive spiral by recommitting to the important things in life.

The 2008 financial crisis set off a chain reaction for Ilhan.

First, she realized her two-year associate’s degree, which she’d sacrificed so much for, would be next to worthless in an economy where even elites were struggling.

Then, when she started getting bad headaches, she realized she was dealing with years of stored-up trauma from the loss of her mother, the terror of war-torn Somalia, and all the death she’d seen in the refugee camp.

Her relationship with her family changed, too.

Their devotion and attention began to feel more like an encumbrance than signs of love.

She felt the urge to break with everything that was familiar.

The next thing she knew, she and Ahmed were divorced, and she’d eloped with another man.

Unsurprisingly, her impulsive second marriage soon ended in divorce.

The key message here is: Ilhan pulled herself out of a destructive spiral by recommitting to the important things in life.

Following her divorce, Ilhan felt like she was descending into chaos.

But she knew she wanted to get better, and she thought she knew how: by pursuing an undergraduate degree.

To that end, she enrolled in North Dakota State University and moved her children across the Minnesota state line to Fargo.

College was the first time Ilhan could push away everything that was expected of her and focus on what she wanted.

She was highly engaged in school, involved with the Black student association, college Democrats, and the Muslim student association.

Every day, she woke up at 4:00 a.

m.

, wrapped herself up in a blanket against the freezing North Dakota winter, and did her homework before her children woke up.

Ilhan excelled in her classes.

To cap off her Bachelor’s degree, she traveled back to Somalia, to carry out a research project about voting practices in the north of the country.

Her father went with her, and it was a pivotal trip for them.

Now that she was an adult, she was better able to understand what he’d been through.

That helped her forgive him for being so strict when she was a teenager; in return, she asked him to forgive her for making his life difficult.

When she got back from Africa, she was overwhelmed with appreciation for her adopted country and city.

She was able to reconcile with her family, with a new understanding of what her older relatives had gone through to ensure her safe resettlement in the US.

She also reconciled with Ahmed, and they rebuilt their marriage on a new foundation.

Their third child was born in 2012.

When Ilhan’s family had just moved to the US, her grandfather first introduced her to American politics by bringing her to a local caucus.

Ilhan’s talent for community organizing surprised her.

These events, he told her, were a cornerstone of American democracy.

It was a chaotic event, but people’s passion for local politics and the democratic process was palpable.

It instilled in Ilhan an appreciation for voting.

Years later, Ilhan’s first foray into politics was in support of a fellow Somali-American’s campaign for the Minnesota Senate.

Ilhan was an effective organizer, encouraging community participation by explaining the issues and activating citizens to vote based on their own values.

By 2013, she was an increasingly influential behind-the-scenes organizer in Minneapolis.

The key message here is: Ilhan’s talent for community organizing surprised her.

On the strength of her reputation as an organizer, Ilhan was hired as campaign manager for city council candidate Andrew Johnson.

It was a great opportunity to highlight the issues she cared about, including disparities in infrastructure, education, and municipal investments in neighborhoods of color.

But it was also her first brush with negative media attention.

In an attempt to discredit him, newspapers dug up blog posts Johnson had made as a teen, discussing his use of pornography.

Undaunted, his team gritted their teeth, carried on with the campaign – and won.

After the election, Johnson appointed Ilhan as his political aide.

Unfortunately, things got more difficult from there.

It started with an anonymous message: if Ilhan showed up to caucus for Mohamud Noor, a Somali-American candidate she’d long supported, there would be consequences.

Dismissing the threat, she showed up anyway.

At the caucus, she was physically assaulted.

Because her assailant pulled her hijab down over her eyes, though, she couldn’t say who was responsible.

The attack landed Ilhan in the hospital, but before she got there, she tweeted a photo of her bloody face to drive the message home: I am stronger than hate.

Undaunted, Ilhan threw everything she had into volunteering for Noor’s campaign.

Sadly, Noor lost.

In the aftermath, Ilhan began speaking to people, trying to understand who might be a more inspiring candidate.

They kept asking the same question: “Ilhan, why don’t you run?

” There were a million excuses not to.

But ultimately, she realized that if she was the person her community wanted to represent them, she couldn’t say no.

Ilhan’s candidacy was a success, but it made her a target.

Ilhan’s community was asking her to represent them, but she wasn’t quite sure she was ready.

She got the final push she needed from talking to a friend’s mother, a middle-aged white woman.

As Ilhan told her life story, the woman started crying.

She said she’d never been so inspired by any candidate.

Others were just as enthusiastic.

When Ilhan announced her candidacy for the Minnesota House of Representatives, she raised an unprecedented $13,000 in one night.

It was a great success, but the rest of her campaign wouldn’t go as smoothly.

The key message here is: Ilhan’s candidacy was a success, but it made her a target.

Early on in the campaign, Ilhan began encountering resistance from a surprising quarter: her own Somali community.

Somali elders called her father into a meeting, telling him “it’s not appropriate for a woman to lead.

” They even released attack ads about her, joining a chorus of abuse from conservatives and right-wingers.

But instead of paying attention to these, she and her team spent eight hours talking to voters, learning how best to advocate for her community.

On primary election day, Ilhan woke up knowing that she would be content with any outcome because she’d given her all to the campaign.

But that evening, she was more than just content: she’d won the primary.

Given the 5th district’s history of electing Democratic candidates by a landslide, victory in the general election seemed like a sure thing.

A few days later, a Somali blog posted a story about Ilhan, which was picked up by right-wing news outlets.

The story brought up her two applications for marriage licenses in order to support a lie: that she’d married her own brother in 2009 to get him an American green card.

Instead of celebrating the first Black Muslim woman candidate for state legislature in the United States, some people in her community continued to work against it.

Worst of all, the story didn’t go away: three years after the scandal broke, the baseless claims were parroted by President Trump.

Trump targeted Ilhan when she spoke out against his travel ban, which blocked visitors, refugees, and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

In response, she held a press conference, inviting Trump to have tea so she could educate him on her people, whom he seemed to fear.

This had a big impact, presenting Ilhan, the 35-year-old state legislator, as a hopeful counter-narrative to Trump.

It came with a huge amount of attention – and responsibility.

Ilhan’s new fame brought both challenges and opportunities.

After Ilhan was elected, the media requests started pouring in.

Eventually, she was on the cover of TIME magazine.

But she was still subject to anti-Muslim rhetoric and harassment.

One of her worst moments came when Trump, at a 2019 rally, accused Ilhan of supporting Al-Qaeda.

“Send her back,” the crowd roared.

That night, she was attending a dinner with Senator Bernie Sanders.

He saved her a seat next to him, took her hand, and asked if she was OK.

She was.

But she was worried – not about herself, but about those who looked like her but didn’t have a voice or platform to defend themselves against harassment and discrimination.

The key message here is: Ilhan’s new fame brought both challenges and opportunities.

Despite her newfound fame, Ilhan still had a job to do: help create Minnesota state law.

But because she was a stridently outspoken freshman state legislator, her new colleagues regarded her with a little suspicion.

She faced them with confidence.

She made sure to work with Republican lawmakers to get legislation passed that reflected their communities’ shared values.

One piece of legislation she was especially proud of was increased financial support for parents trying to get a college education.

In 2018, Ilhan was presented with the chance to run for the US House of Representatives.

She jumped at it, and won the primary election by more than 20,000 votes.

She then won the general, and was sworn in on January 3, 2019.

She was a member of the 116th US Congress, which included a record 101 women legislators, 43 of whom were women of color.

There’s never been a Congressperson who looks or sounds like Ilhan.

Years ago, as Ilhan and her family rode through the trash-filled streets of New York, her father told her that one day they would find their America: the land of opportunity, equality, abundance, and prosperity.

These days, Ilhan is no longer just hoping to find that place; she’s working to create it.

Final summary

The key message in these blinks: Ilhan Omar, once a Somali refugee living in a camp in Kenya, has risen to represent the people of Minnesota in the US House of Representatives.

She became one of the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress through boldness, compassion, and grit – even in the face of discrimination and attack from the most powerful people in the country.

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What to read next: What the Eyes Don't See, by Mona Hanna-Attisha You’ve just learned how Ilhan Omar became a junior congresswomen who unapologetically advocates for her community.

Omar speaks up for her constituents, who are largely people of color, in a world where mainstream culture has too often dismissed those with different backgrounds.

In What the Eyes Don’t See, physician Mona Hanna-Attisha tells the story of how she learned the children of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead in their tap water.

Like Omar, Hanna-Attisha stands up for her community no matter what, even when faced with a brutal backlash from her own government.

Ultimately, she was able to tell the world what the people in power were only too happy to keep hidden.

Head over to the blinks to What the Eyes Don’t See to find out more.