Ruwa Romman remembers the sadness she felt as an 8-year-old girl sat in the back of a school bus and watched her classmates point to her house and burst into wild laughter.
“Bomb lab over there,” they taunted in yet another attempt to brand her family as terrorists.
On Tuesday, the same girl – now a 29-year-old community organizer – made history as the first known Muslim woman elected to the Georgia House of Representatives and the first Palestinian American elected to any state office.
After 10 months of relentless campaigning, the Democrat said she is ready to begin representing the people of District 97, which includes Lake Berkeley, and parts of Duluth, Norcross and Pittery Corners in Gwinnett County.
As an immigrant, the granddaughter of Palestinian refugees and a Muslim woman who wears a hijab, or Islamic headscarf, the path to political office has not been easy, especially in the heavily Christian and conservative South.
“I could write chapters about what I’ve been through,” Roman told CNN, citing the many ways she’s dealt with bigotry or discrimination.
“All the times I was ‘randomly’ picked by TSA, teachers put me in a position where I had to defend Islam and Muslims in the classroom and was taught the wrong things about me and my identity…it colored my whole life” .
But those hardships only fueled her passion for civic engagement, especially among marginalized communities, Roman said.
“Who I really am has taught me to seek out the most marginalized because they are the ones who don’t have the resources or the time to go into the halls of political institutions to ask for the help they need,” he stressed.
Romman began working with the Georgia Muslim Voter Project in 2015 to increase voter turnout among local Muslim Americans. He also helped create the state chapter for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
Soon after, Roman began working with the wider community. Her website boasts: “Ruwa has volunteered every election cycle since 2014 to help Georgia turn blue.”
She emphasized that her main focus is “bringing public service back into politics,” which she plans to do by helping to expand access to health care, bridging the economic opportunity gap, protecting the right to vote, and making sure people have access to lifesaving care such as abortion.
“I think a lot of people overlook state legislators because they think they’re local and don’t have a lot of impact, not realizing that state legislatures have the most direct impact on them,” Romman observed. “Every law that made us mad or happy started in the state legislature somewhere.”
Roman explained that she always wanted to influence the political process, but never thought she would be a politician.
The decision to run for office came after attending an educational program for women from historically marginalized communities in Georgia, where a reporter covering the event asked if she wanted to run.
“I told her no, I don’t think so, and she ended up writing a beautiful piece about Muslim women in Georgia, but she started it with, ‘Ruwa Romman is considering running,’ and I didn’t.” Roman remembered. “But when it came out, the community saw it and the response was so overwhelmingly positive and everyone was telling me to do it.”
Two weeks later, Roman and a group of volunteers started a campaign.
She was surrounded by family, friends and community members who were striving to succeed. Together, they knocked on 15,000 doors, sent 75,000 texts and made 8,000 phone calls.
Her Republican opponent John Chan didn’t compete fairly, she said.
“My opponent had used anti-Muslim rhetoric against me, saying I had links to terrorism, and at one point he flatly supported an ad calling me a terrorist factory,” he explained.
Flyers supporting Chan’s candidacy implied that she was linked to terrorist organizations.
Chan did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
It was the same type of bullying Roman faced as a student, she noted. Except this time she wasn’t alone. Thousands of people had her back.
“What was incredible is that people in my area messaged me and said, ‘This is unacceptable. How can we help? How can we get involved? How can we support you?’ and that was an incredible moment for me,” he acknowledged.
It was also ironic, Roman added, because her passion for her community and social justice is rooted in her faith: “Justice is the central tenant of Islam,” she said. “It inspires me to be good to others, to care for my neighbors and to protect the marginalized.”
It is also rooted in her family’s experience as Palestinian refugees, who she noted were driven from their homeland by Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
“My Palestinian identity has instilled in me a focus on justice and caring for others,” Roman pointed out. “Everyone deserves to live with dignity. I hope Palestinians everywhere see this as proof that constant showing up and hard work can be history.”
“I may not have much power in foreign policy, but I sincerely hope that I can at least remind the Palestinians that the Palestinians are not the nuisance, or the terrorists, or any other terrible stupidity that society has done to us,” he added. “We are real people with real dreams.”
Roman joins three other Muslim Americans elected to state and local office in Georgia this election cycle, according to the Georgia Muslim Muslim Voter Project, but her victory is particularly groundbreaking.
“We had Muslim representation at the state level in Georgia, but these victories make Georgia’s Muslim representation more than ever because now we have more gender and ethnicity representation for Muslims,” the group’s executive director Shafina Khabani told CNN. “Not only will we have representation that looks like us and aligns with our values, but we will have the opportunity to advocate for and influence policies that directly affect our communities.”
“Having diversity in political representation means better laws, more leadership acceptance and welcoming policies for all of Georgia,” he stressed.
More than anything, Roman hopes her election points to a future free of hate and bigotry.
“I think this shows that people have learned that Muslims are part of this community and that the tide of Islamophobia is hopefully starting to recede,” Roman added.
Looking back on her childhood, Roman wishes she could tell her younger self that things would get better with time and one day she would not only make history, but hopefully make a real difference in this world.
title: “Ruwa Romman The First Muslim And Palestinian Woman To Be Elected In The State Of Georgia "
ShowToc: true
date: “2022-11-05”
author: “Virgil Evans”
Ruwa Romman remembers the sadness she felt as an 8-year-old girl sat in the back of a school bus and watched her classmates point to her house and burst into wild laughter.
“Bomb lab over there,” they taunted in yet another attempt to brand her family as terrorists.
On Tuesday, the same girl – now a 29-year-old community organizer – made history as the first known Muslim woman elected to the Georgia House of Representatives and the first Palestinian American elected to any state office.
After 10 months of relentless campaigning, the Democrat said she is ready to begin representing the people of District 97, which includes Lake Berkeley, and parts of Duluth, Norcross and Pittery Corners in Gwinnett County.
As an immigrant, the granddaughter of Palestinian refugees and a Muslim woman who wears a hijab, or Islamic headscarf, the path to political office has not been easy, especially in the heavily Christian and conservative South.
“I could write chapters about what I’ve been through,” Roman told CNN, citing the many ways she’s dealt with bigotry or discrimination.
“All the times I was ‘randomly’ picked by TSA, teachers put me in a position where I had to defend Islam and Muslims in the classroom and was taught the wrong things about me and my identity…it colored my whole life” .
But those hardships only fueled her passion for civic engagement, especially among marginalized communities, Roman said.
“Who I am has really taught me to seek out the most marginalized because they are the ones who don’t have the resources or the time to go through the halls of political institutions to ask for the help they need,” she said.
Romman began working with the Georgia Muslim Voter Project in 2015 to increase voter turnout among local Muslim Americans. He also helped create the state chapter for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
Soon after, Roman began working with the wider community. Her website boasts: “Ruwa has volunteered every election cycle since 2014 to help Georgia turn blue.”
She said her main focus is “bringing public service back into politics,” which she plans to do by helping expand access to health care, bridging the economic opportunity gap, protecting the right to vote and making sure people have access to lifesaving care such as abortion.
“I think a lot of people overlook state legislators because they think they’re local and don’t have a lot of impact, not realizing that state legislatures have the most direct impact on them,” Romman said. “Every law that made us mad or happy started in the state legislature somewhere.”
Roman said she always wanted to influence the political process, but never thought she would be a politician.
The decision to run for office came after attending an educational program for women from historically marginalized communities in Georgia, where a reporter covering the event asked if she wanted to run.
“I told her no, I don’t think so, and she ended up writing a beautiful piece about Muslim women in Georgia, but she started it with, ‘Ruwa Romman is considering running,’ and I didn’t.” Roman said. “But when it came out, the community saw it and the response was so overwhelmingly positive and everyone was telling me to do it.”
Two weeks later, Roman and a group of volunteers started a campaign.
She was surrounded by family, friends and community members who were striving to succeed. Together, they knocked on 15,000 doors, sent 75,000 texts and made 8,000 phone calls.
Her Republican opponent John Chan didn’t compete fairly, she said.
“My opponent had used anti-Muslim rhetoric against me, saying I had links to terrorism, at one point he flatly supported an ad calling me a terrorist factory,” he said.
Flyers supporting Chan’s candidacy implied that she was linked to terrorist organizations.
Chan did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
It was the same type of bullying Roman faced as a student, she said. Except this time she wasn’t alone. Thousands of people had her back.
“What was incredible is that people in my area messaged me and said, ‘This is unacceptable. How can we help? How can we get involved? How can we support you?’ and that was an incredible moment for me,” he said.
It was also ironic, Roman added, because her passion for her community and social justice is rooted in her faith: “Justice is the central tenant of Islam,” she said. “It inspires me to be good to others, to care for my neighbors and to protect the marginalized.”
It is also rooted in her family’s experience as Palestinian refugees, who she said were driven from their homeland by Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
“My Palestinian identity has instilled in me a focus on justice and caring for others,” Roman said. “Everyone deserves to live with dignity. I hope Palestinians everywhere see this as proof that constant showing up and hard work can be history.
“I may not have much power in foreign policy, but I sincerely hope that I can at least remind the Palestinians that the Palestinians are not the nuisance, or the terrorists, or any other terrible stupidity that society has done to us,” he added. “We are real people with real dreams.”
Roman joins three other Muslim Americans elected to state and local office in Georgia this election cycle, according to the Georgia Muslim Muslim Voter Project, but her victory is particularly groundbreaking.
“We had Muslim representation at the state level in Georgia, but these victories make Georgia’s Muslim representation more than ever because now we have more gender and ethnicity representation for Muslims,” the group’s executive director Shafina Khabani told CNN. “Not only will we have representation that looks like us and aligns with our values, but we will have the opportunity to advocate for and influence policies that directly affect our communities.”
“Having diversity in political representation means better laws, more inclusive leadership and welcoming policies for all of Georgia,” he said.
More than anything, Roman hopes her election points to a future free of hate and bigotry.
“I think this shows that people have learned that Muslims are part of this community and that the tide of Islamophobia is hopefully starting to recede,” Roman said.
Looking back on her childhood, Roman wishes she could have told her younger self that things would get better in time and that one day she would not only make history in Georgia, but hopefully make a real difference in the world.
