American politician Rashida Tlaib has been serving as the U.S. Representative for Michigan's 13th congressional district since 2019.
Born in 1976 in Detroit, Michigan, she is the oldest of 14 children born to proud Palestinian immigrant parents. She attended Detroit public schools and Wayne State University, becoming her family's first high school and college graduate. She then earned her law degree from Western Michigan University, before working for ACCESS, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services.
In 2004, she started interning for a Michigan state representative and joined the legislator's staff in 2007. The following year she was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives and made history by becoming the first Muslim woman to ever serve in the Michigan Legislature and only the second Muslim woman ever elected to a state legislature anywhere in the U.S.
She served three terms before facing term limits. She then worked as a legal advocate for the non-profit Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice in Detroit, where she took care of matters ranging from opposing tax breaks for wealthy corporations to anti-Muslim bigotry initiatives and stopping the dumping of toxic chemicals into the Detroit River.
Over the years, she has fought injustice and inequality in the community, in the legislature and in the courts. She marches against police brutality and defends priorities such as immigration reform, tuition-free college, and universal healthcare.
“I really am focused on making sure we're doing everything we can so every single person in our country... has the right to thrive... and live in a just and equitable society,” she once explained.
Despite her humble origins, she has never given up and has fought for her own rights and those of others. When she joined Congress in 2018, the first Palestinian American woman to do so, she said “My mother raised 14 kids, with little means, from our humble house in Southwest Detroit, and now her daughter, who started school not speaking English, is going to be a congresswoman. It was so important for her to know her strength got me here, and that I'm going to fight every day with her spirit inside me.”