Working in American Politics as an Immigrant Woman: Power, Purpose, and the Cost of Showing Up

I arrived in the United States carrying more than a suitcase. I carried three continents of lived experience, the weight of displacement, a deep belief in public service, and the quiet determination of a single mother who knew survival alone was not enough, I wanted purpose.

Working in American politics was not an accident for me. It was inevitable.

I come from a country where peace is fragile and diversity is often treated as a threat rather than a strength. I grew up watching how global power, foreign interests, and political interference shape the daily lives of ordinary people. Politics was never abstract to me, it determined who lived safely, who was silenced, and who was forgotten.

So when I stepped into American democracy, I did so with reverence, and with questions.

What Politics Looks Like From the Margins

In the U.S., politics is often framed as ambition, power, proximity to decision-makers. From the margins, it looks different.

It looks like being the only Black Muslim immigrant woman in rooms where decisions are made about communities that look like you, but without you. It looks like translating policy into human language for people who are constantly left out of the process. It looks like absorbing microaggressions, condescension, and doubt while being expected to perform excellence without error.

It is exhausting.

There is a term for what many immigrants experience in professional spaces: brain waste, the underutilization of highly skilled people because of accent, race, unfamiliar credentials, or perceived “fit.” I have lived this reality even while holding positions of responsibility, even while delivering results.

Mistakes that signal growth for others are labeled incompetence for people like me. Kindness is mistaken for weakness. Silence is interpreted as consent. Speaking up is seen as disruption.

And yet, we persist.

Campaigns, Power, and Becoming Visible

One of the most defining moments of my political journey came during the 2020 presidential election, when I served as a field organizer on Amy Klobuchar’s campaign.

One Saturday morning, I received an unexpected call: the Senator was in Minneapolis for a fundraiser, and I was needed immediately. I had just finished class, rushed to pick up my daughters, and drove straight to headquarters, blazer and scarf ready, as always.

What I didn’t know was that I would be asked to step on stage.

Backstage stood the Senator, her husband, Jacob Frey, and community leaders. I was told I would introduce them. For an introvert who thrives in relationship-building rather than public speaking, this was terrifying.

And transformative.

That moment forced me into visibility. It taught me that leadership sometimes requires stepping forward before you feel ready, and that representation is not symbolic. It is earned, often under pressure.

The Moral Cost of Political Work

Working in politics demands constant self-interrogation. Every day, I ask myself:Who did I help today? What did I advance? Who benefits from this decision, and who is harmed?

These questions have no easy answers.

Over the years, I have wrestled with the tension between institutional loyalty and personal integrity. There are moments when staying silent is safer, but silence has a cost. Coming from a region shaped by war and displacement, I cannot detach policy from human consequence.

I cannot support violence dressed up as strategy.
I cannot ignore suffering for political convenience.
And I cannot betray the values that brought me into public service in the first place.

Remaining true to myself has sometimes meant standing alone. But integrity, I have learned, is not negotiable.

Womanhood, Motherhood, and Survival in Political Spaces

I am a single mother raising twin daughters while navigating political systems that were not designed with women like me in mind. There are days when dignity must be negotiated against survival, when walking away is not an option because children depend on stability.

This is the quiet truth of many women in public service: we carry institutions on our backs while managing grief, burnout, and responsibility at home. We do not have the luxury of collapse.

And yet, something in me refuses to harden.

I still believe in public service.
I still believe in diplomacy.
I still believe in building systems that center humanity.

Why I Stay

I stay because representation matters, but not the kind that stops at optics.

I stay because I believe in diplomacy as a tool for peace, not domination.
Because communities deserve policies shaped with them, not for them.
Because my story, immigrant, Muslim, Black, woman, mother, belongs in rooms where power is negotiated.

Politics has tested me. It has humbled me. It has broken parts of me that needed rebuilding.

But it has also clarified who I am.

This work is not about proximity to power. It is about responsibility to people.

And as long as that remains true, I will continue to show up, critically, ethically, and unapologetically.