Meet Nabeela Syed, the Indian-American to develop into youngest lawmaker in Illinois

Indian American Nabeela Syed grabbed eyeballs on Wednesday after she received the US midterm election seat in Illinois’ decrease home, beating the Republican incumbent, Chris Bos. The current faculty graduate took to social media to share the information that has since gone viral. “My name is Nabeela Syed. I’m a 23-year-old Muslim, Indian-American woman. We just flipped a Republican-held suburban district,” she wrote on Twitter.

Nabeela is about to be one of many youngest members of the state’s House of Representatives, becoming a member of fellow ‘Gen Z’ Democrat Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who was elected to Florida’s decrease home within the lately concluded US midterm elections. She joins Democrats Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal and Aruna Miller, amongst others, within the listing of Indian Americans elected to workplace this 12 months.

She attributed her success to ‘relentlessly knocking on doors’ to interact with voters and reaching out to them by way of mailers and tv advert. “I’m feeling very, very grateful,” she informed the Illinois-based Daily Herald. “I think we laid it all out there. We communicated our message. We wanted to let constituents in this district know what exactly I would fight for in the state legislature, in our suburban district and the place that I’ve called home.”

Early days

There are a number of components that make Nabeela’s victory in Illinois’ 51st Congressional District noteworthy – she is younger, a first-generation Asian-American and a hijab-wearing Muslim girl in a district that’s overwhelmingly white. But her father Syed Moizuddin stated that he wasn’t stunned that Nabeela went into public service.

“We knew right from high school that she is gonna do something big,” he informed Lucia Barnum within the three-part Ground Game podcast that follows Nabeela’s political journey.

There shouldn’t be a lot details about her Indian roots, however Nabeela stated in an interview that her father immigrated to the US in 1989. “He worked his way up, was able to bring my mom here… his definition of success probably looks like building a life in a foreign country just so that he could give his future children as many opportunities as possible,” she informed Ayra Mudessir within the Grow Wealthy podcast.

Growing up in Palantine, an upper-middle-class neighbourhood in Illinois, Nabeela stated that she felt disconnected from politics as a baby initially. Though that regularly modified, the turning level was Donald Trump’s presidential election in 2016.

“Once Trump was elected, the whole campaigning beforehand and seeing the kind of dangerous rhetoric he was using… that kind of tipped me over the edge,” she informed Mudessir. “It was the Trump presidency that took me from not only do we have to be engaged with politics but we have to actually partake in it because if we don’t, other folks are going to write the narrative.”

Progressive platform

The political science graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, ran on a progressive platform, pledging to guard girls’s entry to healthcare and abortion, make prescribed drugs extra reasonably priced, enhance assist for public colleges, ban military-style assault weapons, and enact common sense gun security measures.

“I had to do active shooter drills. Future generations should not have to,” she informed The Trace, a US-based gun information web site, recounting feeling terrified whereas collaborating in a single such drill when she was within the third grade.

Prior to her foray into lively politics, she had served because the marketing campaign supervisor for the election to the college board, labored with a number of non-profits engaged on completely different elements of elections, together with elevating cash for feminine Democratic candidates. A champion debater, she additionally coached her highschool debate workforce for over two years.

Challenges galore

Her entry into politics was aided partly by the Covid-19 pandemic, which noticed the 23-year-old transfer again residence for on-line courses within the last 12 months of faculty. During this era, Nabeela and her highschool friend-turned-campaign supervisor Anusha Thotakura contemplated working for workplace, Barnum stated within the Ground Game podcast.

Met essentially the most attractive, proficient, clever, sort, unbelievable voter at Palatine’s early voting heart.

She additionally occurs to be my marketing campaign supervisor and wrote this tweet herself 💙 @Anusha625

Find out the place to vote! https://t.co/xthGcChkEj pic.twitter.com/zE3dPHdLdg

— Nabeela Syed (@NabeelaforIL) June 14, 2022

However, an surprising liver donation surgical procedure difficult the problem.

In a letter on organ donation printed on the Chicago Tribune web site on February 14, Nabeela wrote of her expertise.

“Last June, while scrolling through social media, I read a tweet from an old friend that made me stop. In the tweet, he shared that his brother had a severe liver condition. After months on the donor registry for a liver transplant, his family was looking for a living donor to help save his brother’s life. I, along with over 100 Twitter users, expressed interest through a form. I didn’t expect to be a match. But after doctors at Northwestern ran several tests, I was notified that I was a match — I could help save this person’s life by donating 70% of my liver,” she wrote.

She described the episode as extraordinarily difficult however stated that realizing that the individual she helped is now capable of begin his medical residency program has helped her cope.

Growing into the hijab

In the Ground Game podcast, Nabeela spoke of the choice to start out sporting a hijab in her freshman 12 months of faculty, prompting her household to fret if she will likely be bullied.

Nabeela has spoken of the choice to start out sporting a hijab in her freshman 12 months of faculty. (by way of official web site)

“No one in my family really did [wear a hijab],” she stated. “I was feeling very close to my religion. I was drawn to wearing a hijab and I feel like that was one of the defining moments of me doing what I wanted to do because I truly believed in it… in me making a decision for myself.”

She stated that although her pals have been supportive within the early days, the Trump-era America proved troublesome. “People made it clear how they felt,” she stated of her time as a Muslim-American senior in a predominantly white highschool, with classmates who typically overtly supported Trump.