According to Vox:
Former Michigan state Rep. Rashida Tlaib has become one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, after winning her race for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District on Tuesday.
Michigan’s 13th District, which includes part of Detroit and suburbs near the city, was previously held by former Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat who resigned earlier this year in the wake of sexual harassment allegations. Since there were no Republican candidates vying for the seat, Tlaib ran unopposed and easily won the general election in the heavily Democratic district.
Tlaib’s election to the House is a groundbreaking milestone for Congress, which currently has just two lawmakers who identify as Muslim, according to a Pew Research Center report. According to Pew, the proportion of Congress that identifies as Christian (more than 90 percent) hasn’t changed much since the 1960s, although there is more religious diversity on the Democratic side. As a point of comparison, only 0.4 percent of Congress is Muslim, while 1.1 percent of Americans are.
Tlaib, who was the first Muslim woman to be elected to the Michigan state legislature, is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants and a Detroit native, according to her campaign website. She’s part of a wave of about 100 Muslim Americans who filed to run for Congress this year, a surge that one study has tied to pushback against rising Islamophobia during the Trump administration.
“It’s not about just being out there and flaunting your faith,” Tlaib said in a CNN interview. “I always tell people that I’m exposing Islam in such a pivotal way, an impactful way, through public service.”
