The day that Trump got elected she cried all day long. Then she stopped crying and decided to do something about it. With her degree in hand from UC Berkeley, Nabeela Syed decided to run for political office. And she won.
The news of her win went viral, especially in the Muslim world. The video above is from NDTV, the Delhi-based broadcaster.
Source: NBC News
Nabeela Syed, 23, came of age during the Trump administration. An Indian Muslim American who wears a hijab, she remembers the former president’s 2016 Election Day with perfect clarity. She was a senior at her high school in Palatine, Illinois, and the racist, Islamophobic rhetoric being parroted around her sealed her first political memory.
“The day Trump got elected, I remember I cried in every single one of my classes,” she told NBC News. “I felt like this country was not for us. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I belong here.’ This is the only home I’ve ever known, and I was questioning whether or not I belonged here.”
Six years later, in November 2022, another election has come to mean something entirely different for Syed.
This year, her name was on the ballot to represent the Illinois General Assembly, and she won. In doing so, Syed flipped the Republican-held 51st District, in which she was born and raised. In January, she will become the youngest member of the assembly.
“It’s important for me — growing up in this community and knowing what it feels like to not belong — to make sure everyone feels like they do belong,” she said. “It’s a big moment for my family personally, and I hope it feels to other young people and to women of color that we can do this. We have space here.”
And how did she manage to win in a Republican-held district? Hard work, and lots of it.
Over the past year, she documented her campaign efforts on her Instagram page, which now has more than 6,000 followers. Many of her posts are selfies with people she talked to while campaigning door-to-door. Syed said many of her former classmates messaged her to say they were eager to vote for her and pushed their parents to do the same.
“I’m so grateful for all the young people that have been DMing me, that have posted on Instagram with their ‘I voted’ stickers and have tagged me, because some of these folks were my classmates from elementary school, from middle school, people I haven’t talked to in years, but they were so excited,” she said.
