American politician and lawyer (born 1976)
Rashida Harbi Tlaib (/təˈliːb/, tə-LEEB; born July 24, 1976) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the U.S. representative for Michigan's 13th congressional district since 2019. The district includes the western half of Detroit, along with several of its western suburbs and much of the Downriver area. A member of the Democratic Party, Tlaib represented the 6th and 12th districts of the Michigan House of Representatives before her election to Congress. In 2018, Tlaib won the Democratic nomination for the United States House of Representatives seat from Michigan's 13th congressional district. She ran unopposed in the general election and became the first woman of Palestinian descent in Congress, the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan legislature, and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, along with Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Tlaib is a member of The Squad, an informal group of six (four until the 2020 elections) U.S. representatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party.
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I want you to know my mom, who’s from a small village in the West Bank. They’re literally glued. It’s like 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. And now it’s more than that. They’re glued to the TV. My grandmother, my aunts, my uncles in Palestine are sitting by and watching their granddaughter [inaudible]. I want to tell them—I want to tell them—I want them to know, you know, as I uplift the families of the 13th Congressional District, I’ll uplift them, every single day, being who I am as a proud Palestinian American and woman and Muslim. I [inaudible] so much, because for so many years they’ve felt dehumanized. And I tell you, as a Palestinian, it means—you know, a lot of my strength comes from being Palestinian. But I can tell you, my mother’s—like the compassion this woman his, that is in me. She smiles every single time that she—this woman doesn’t even understand when people are being racist to her, because she believes that people can be better. And she is an inspiration to me in so many ways.