TEHRAN-The Persian translation of the book “This Is What America Looks Like” by Ilhan Omar and Rebecca Paley has been released in the bookstores across Iran.

Sepideh Ashrafi has translated the book and Maaref Publication has brought it out in 184 pages, ILNA reported.

The book is the origin story of Ilhan Omar, a leader who, finding no set path that would take a person like her to the places she wanted to go, was forced, and free, to chart her own. It is an intimate and rousing memoir by progressive trailblazer Ilhan Omar, the first African refugee, the first Somali-American, and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

Ilhan Omar, 42, is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district since 2019. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before her election to Congress, Omar served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2017 to 2019, representing part of Minneapolis. Her congressional district includes all of Minneapolis and some of its first-ring suburbs.

A frequent critic of Israel, Omar supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and has denounced Israel's settlement policies and military campaigns in the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as the influence of pro-Israel lobbies in American politics. 

Omar has been the target of derogatory comments from political opponents, including U.S. President Donald Trump, and has received several death threats.

She was only eight years old when war broke out in Somalia. The youngest of seven children, her mother had died while Ilhan was still a little girl. She was being raised by her father and grandfather when armed gunmen attacked their compound. The house took direct hits, food became scarce, and 350,000 died in the first year of the conflict. The family decided to flee Mogadishu.

They fled to Kenya, where they faced malaria, dysentery, and near starvation. The family survived in a refugee camp for 334,000 people. Her father discovered that they could apply through the United Nations to go to Norway, Canada, Sweden, or the US.

Miraculously, a year after their first interview, they were allowed to apply for America. Four years later, after a painstaking vetting process, her family achieved refugee status and arrived in Arlington, Virginia, where the combative Ilhan spent most of her time in detention. But then she decided, she writes, “that my education was the one element of my life I had full control over, and given the long hours of studying in detention”, by the time they moved on to Minnesota, she “had become a very good student”.

Aged 12, penniless, speaking only Somali and having missed out on years of schooling, Ilhan rolled up her sleeves, determined to find her American dream. Faced with the many challenges of being an immigrant and a refugee, she questioned stereotypes and built bridges with her classmates and in her community. 

Her next stop was North Dakota State University, after a friend told her it was searching for students, offering scholarships and a “very low cost of living”. Back in Minneapolis after graduation, she immersed herself in the Democratic Farmer-Labor party, first working to defeat ballot initiatives to require photo IDs for voters and to outlaw gay marriage. 

She figured out a winning narrative: both were threats to freedom and civil liberties, a message that worked with communities of color and white rural Minnesotans. No anti-marriage equality initiative had ever been beaten until then – the same year Barack Obama was elected president.

Omar was elected to the state legislature in 2016, then to the US Congress in 2018, as one of the first two Muslim women in the House. She feared she would be banned from the House floor by an ancient rule barring hat, which would have prevented her wearing her hijab. Nancy Pelosi fixed the rule.

A beacon of positivity in dark times, Congresswoman Omar has weathered many political storms and yet maintained her signature grace, wit, and love of country, all the while speaking up for her beliefs. Similarly, in chronicling her remarkable personal journey, Ilhan is both lyrical and unsentimental, and her irrepressible spirit, patriotism, friendship, and faith are visible on every page. 

SS/SAB