Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-refugee-turned-Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, said in an interview that living in the U.S. under President Trump’s administration is “an everyday assault.”
The 37-year-old recently stirred up enmity after she made allegations that American lawmakers supportive of Israel had been bought off.
In a Vogue Arabia interview, Omar lamented of her difficulties with living in America during the Trump era.
“It’s an everyday assault. Every day, a part of your identity is threatened, demonized, and vilified. Trump is tapping into an ugly part of our society and freeing its ugliness. It’s been a challenge to try to figure out how to continue the inclusion; how to show up every day and make sure that people who identify with all the marginalized identities I carry, feel represented,” Omar said.
“It’s transitioning from the idea of constantly resisting to insisting in upholding the values we share — that this is a society that was built on the idea that you could start anew. And what that celebrates is immigrant heritage,” she added.
Omar and her family immigrated to the U.S. in 1995 from the Dadaab camp as refugees and settled in Arlington, Virginia.
Her comments haven’t gone very well with a section of the American online community and this is what some of them had to say.
