Vinny Demme

Apr 4, 202113 min read

#Squadgoals - Who Is "The Sqaud"?

"Our sisterhood is resilient"

- Ilhan Omar -

What do you get when you cross a group of four women running for Congress--one Puerto Rican, two Muslim, and one Black,--with a nation that is experiencing one of the most divided points in its history? Well, for some, the combination inspires feelings of hope that America is indeed becoming an equal nation. For others, the combination produces an unhealthy mixture of racism, misogyny, and lies.

Back in 2018, opinions from both sides of the aisle were on full display when a group of four young women, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (31), Ilhan Omar (38), Ayanna Pressley (47), and Rashida Tlaib (44), decided to run (a). The best part about their stories is that they are only in Congress; they are nowhere near done in Washington.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (AOC)

Space travel. While it is fascinating, it is also something that the people of Earth today will more than likely never reach the levels of excitement or advancement seen in movies like Star Wars and Star Trek. All earthlings can do is read stories, watch documentaries, and study insane phenomena like the Big Bang and the dino-destroying asteroid 65 million years ago. Fortunately, one asteroid, in particular, will never hit Earth, but, unfortunately, that one asteroid will not be seen by ordinary people until they can make safe travels inside the asteroid belt. This asteroid, of course, is 23238 Ocasio-Cortez, and its name comes from the youngest woman to ever be elected to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (2).

A young AOC with her father, Sergio | TIME

Ocasio-Cortez was born to parents Sergio--a longtime Puerto Rican Bronxite who worked as an architect and Blanca. She also has a younger brother named Gabriel. In the early years, Alex and her family lived a happy life in the Bronx. Still, the happiness only lasted so long as the Bronx became very impoverished in the 1990s, leading the family to move to a neighborhood 40 minutes outside New York City called Yorktown.

Yorktown was ethnically different from the Bronx as there were fewer Latinos by a landslide. Living in Yorktown also opened up Alexandria’s eyes to the fact that people lived where they lived based on income and wealth--two factors that affected the resources they received.

Still, she made the best of her circumstances. In her own words, she had always been a bit of a nerd, interested in things like Harry Potter and Star Trek. At the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), she won second place for a project in microbiology, leading MIT scientists to award her the honor of 23238 Ocasio-Cortez (3).

Before 2018, Ocasio-Cortez had a successful academic career and a varied professional one. She studied International Relations and Economics at Boston University where she was the school's Alianza Latina leader, an organization that helped connect Latino students. One day during an economics class, she received a call from her mother. Her father had been hospitalized due to lung cancer, and the two shared a final conversation in the hospital room; the last thing he’d ever say to his daughter was “Make me proud!” (3).

Ocasio-Cortez lost her father to cancer, something that led the family to nearly losing their home. Her mother continued working as a bus driver and housekeeper to help pay for the house. After she graduated in 2011 and accepted a job as an educational worker with the National Hispanic Institute, she began waitressing and bartending to help pay for the house, as well (8). She would continue waitressing and bartending until the year 2018…

ILHAN OMAR

It was a typical day for Victor Hugo as he walked to work--until he saw a man wearing is mud-splattered clothes and rags stained with blood around his ankles being arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. This, of course, inspired the opening and plot of his critically acclaimed and internationally beloved musical, Les Miserables (4). Les Miserables sees a young man named Jean Valjean arrested for the same crime. Except in Valjean’s situation, it was to help save his sister, who was close to death and starving (b) (5). In the musical, this fact plays as a motif, meaning they reference it time and time again throughout to prove just how brutal the punishment for stealing truly was. Unfortunately, in 2014, a grandmother in Minneapolis, Minnesota, faced a very similar situation.

The woman had a five-year-old granddaughter who was sick, and with little money, she was forced to steal a loaf of bread to give her some strength. At this point, Omar was reporting back to a Minneapolis city councilman about court issues, and when she witnessed the woman get fined $80--a fine she couldn’t pay--she yelled out, “Bull-$%#@!!” in the courtroom (6).

Omar in her home office | The Guardian (c)

Omar’s story begins seven years earlier than AOC’s. Born in Somalia, Omar’s early life was plagued by hardships as her family escaped to a Kenyan refugee camp due to the civil war present in Somalia (4). The Dadaab refugee camp in Garissa, Kenya, was very impoverished, but when Omar was 12, the family relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota (5). Growing up as an immigrant in America was not an easy task. “For me as an immigrant, who didn’t speak the language,” she stated in an interview, “when I had struggled as a kid, my dad would say: ‘Once you are able to communicate with people, they are able to connect with you beyond your otherness” (7).

Omar attended North Dakota State University in 2011. She pursued a degree in political science and international studies. She soon found herself the Director of Policy Initiatives for the Women Organizing Women Network (WOWN), an organization created to empower women, first- and second-generation immigrants in particular (7).

AYANNA PRESSLEY

Growing up, people often wonder what their peers will do with their lives and careers after school. Sometimes, it can be a rather obvious answer; that was the case for six-time class president and now Congresswoman Ayanna Presley (9). Born in Cincinnati on February 3, 1974, to parents Sandra and Martin Pressley, Presley lived a life of early hardships similar to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Not only did she grow up in a rough part of Chicago, but she also had to grow up watching her father struggle with a heroin addiction for sixteen years--an addiction that saw him in and out of prison (10).

However, Pressley continued to attend the Francis W. Parker School, where she was always a very dedicated student. Not only was she a six-time class president, but she was also named “most likely to be mayor of Chicago”, a title that was awarded to her undoubtedly due to her heavy involvement in the debate team and her time serving in student government (9).

Ayanna Pressley-young and much younger, an excerpt from a school newspaper | The Boston Globe

Pressley enrolled at Boston University in 1992, but when her mother lost her job at Time Warner, Pressley soon found herself back at home to support her family by working as a receptionist at a hotel in Boston (9). A few years later, Pressley worked as an unpaid intern and then as a paid staffer assisting seniors in acquiring Social Security benefits for Illinois Congressman Joe Kennedy, who she helped during his 1996 campaign. Like many Black and minority Americans, Pressley found herself quite alone while working in the field of politics and, at the same time, discovered the truth underlying how some candidates can pay for such high-budget campaigns. Pressley stated in an interview with Roll Call:

[T]he lack of diversity, both on the internship side of things and also on the staff. It was my observation that the interns were usually children of donors, and it was a real barrier to access the political process to get that tutelage and that training and that mentorship, especially because the internships were unpaid… I worked three paid jobs to support that unpaid internship… but as times went on, it became clear it was a barrier to entry disproportionately for low-income as well as young people of color. (11)

RASHIDA TLAIB

In 2008, America elected its first Black president. America also saw its fair share of more diverse candidates winning elections across the country, a remarkable hint of progress and preview of what America truly could be. One of these electoral victories belonged to Rashida Tlaib (tuh-leeb), who became the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan state legislature. Both of her parents, Harbi Elabed, her father, was an immigrant from Nicaragua, and Fatima, her mother, was an immigrant from Palestine.

Tlaib is the oldest of fourteen children, giving her the blessing of the oldest child--always needing to chip in some time to be a parent to her younger siblings while the actual parents work. Both her parents worked tirelessly at assembly-line jobs with Ford in Flat Rock, Michigan, but the family still lived in poverty. Despite the poverty, Rashida worked hard in school and became the very first person in her family to graduate high school (12).

The pointed out person in this picture is Rashida Tlaib, 1987, with her mother | The Times of Israel

In 1994, she began school at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where she pursued a bachelor’s degree in political science and government, and, in 2004, she earned a Juris Doctor from Western Michigan University (13). Growing up Muslim in America, she experienced the same harassment many other Muslims do every day. When she was just a kid, she witnessed her mother being harassed in a grocery store for wearing a hijab (12). However, this did not discourage her from serving her community. “There’s an Islamic saying,” she stated in a 2016 speech at the Detroit Economic Club, “‘After you take care of your family at home, you take care of your neighborhood” (14).

Upon being elected to the Michigan legislature, she did all she could to take care of her neighborhood and worl. When people in her district began to complain that there was black dust coating the riverbank, she was told by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality that there was no need for testing or inspections--a statement that was soon disproved when Tlaib discovered cancerous chemicals in the river, ordering a cleanup. She also organized the “We Have a Right to Breathe” campaign, which focused on keeping semi-trucks out of suburbs.

After three terms, she battled more environmental issues like emissions at the Marathon Oil Refinery in Detroit, Michigan, an oil refinery that has had a long history of environmentally-damaging incidents, while working as an attorney for the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice (12). “Marathon is a prime example of corporate polluters continuing to choose profit over safeguards for our public health,” she stated in a press release, “It is time to say enough is enough” (30).

2018 - Running for Office

With the four women making strides in their lives and communities already, it was time to elevate things to new heights and run for office. For Ocasio-Cortez, it came as a surprise. After graduating college, she worked as an educational director with the National Hispanic Institute while waitressing and bartending--a somewhat common occurrence for students who have just graduated college with a massive amount of student loan debt. At that point, a very progressive Democratic candidate came into her life--Bernie Sanders. Ocasio-Cortez was instantly hooked on Sanders’s messages of more affordable colleges, minimum wage increases, and closing the gap between middle-class America and the top 1%.

Everyday people gathered to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline in February 2017 | The Guardian

Ocasio-Cortez knocked on every door she could in the Bronx and Queens. In the end, Bernie did not win the Democratic nomination for the 2016 election, however, the messages of simply helping all Americans stayed in Ocasio-Cortez’s mind, leading her to advocate for a better America. She protested with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the Dakota Access Pipeline and even stopped to visit Flint, Michigan, the home of another environmental crisis. Soon, she got an unexpected call asking if she would be willing to make a run for Congress--Gabriel had submitted her name to the Justice Democrats, a website looking for young people to run for Congress to establish a "Democratic Party that fights for its voters, not big corporate donors... [and find leaders] who will represent [their communities] in Congress and fight for bold, progressive solutions to our current crises (31). Ocasio-Cortez was the perfect fit (3).

At the same time, Omar was looking for a change, but not just any change: a change to “expand what is politically possible” (16). Meanwhile, both Pressley, who was serving as part of the Boston City Council as the first Black woman elected, and Tlaib were beginning their campaigns for Congress, as well (17). All four women shared very similar political ideals--civil rights, socioeconomic equality, more comprehensive healthcare, gun control reform, environmental protection, reproductive justice, and LGBTQ+ rights. All four women ran grassroots campaigns, meaning they weren’t supported by large corporations but by donations from the people voting for them, and they all helped each other in their campaigns.

Omar celebrates her 2018 electoral victory | The New Yorker

Not only was the Minneapolis record for turnout in a primary election broken--out of the 340,000+ total votes cast, Omar had 78%--becoming Minnesota’s very first woman of color elected to Congress (18, 19). Not only was it a milestone for Minnesota, but it was also a milestone for America as she became one of the very first Muslims ever elected to Congress.

Tlaib, the fourth Muslim to win a congress seat, ran against two other Democrats and easily won the election by receiving 84% of the votes (32).

The now-iconic AOC 2018 campaign poster | Amazon

Ocasio-Cortez, who was now known on social media as AOC, was running in an election that many people, including her opponent James Crowley, a long-time holder of the house seat they were both running for, essentially counted her out of.

AOC wasn’t a big fan of Crowley, not only because he was a candidate who accepted funds and donations from large corporations, but because he was a New York House member representing the Bronx that lived over 200 miles away in Washington, D.C.. Crowley made a point to show little interest in the election--an attitude that was put on full display when he altogether avoided a debate between the two candidates. However, the experience of knocking on doors from her Bernie days proved worthwhile for AOC, who spent her breaks at work campaigning for Congress and knocking on doors (3). Even though she and those around her figured she had little to no chance, she won the election with 80% of the vote (20).

Ayanna Pressley celebrates her 2018 primary victory | wbur

Pressley was facing a similar challenge in her election. She was up against Mike Capuano, a man who had many critical political endorsements and had held the Massachusetts House seat for twenty years (21). With Boston being a very racially diverse city, Pressley knew the best way to gain votes would be to appeal to everyone she could, which is why her campaign released a multitude of campaign video ads in multiple different languages online, making them easily accessible to the multitudes (22). “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Capuano said in his concession speech after only 13% of the votes had been counted, “but this is life, and this is okay. America is going to be okay. Ayanna Pressley is going to be a good congresswoman, and I will tell you that Massachusetts will be served” (21). Ayanna Pressley won the election by over 17% (23).

A NEW CROWD IN CONGRESS

Omar, Pressley, Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez | AOC Instagram

With all four women running against the idea of large corporations funding political campaigns (a big reason why so many candidates in Washington can support their campaigns) and their political ideals being far more progressive than other members of their party, they were bound to catch some criticism. Some more obvious criticism came from people like Donald Trump, who tweeted, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from where they came. Then come back and show us how it is done,” as if they weren’t all already in Congress representing their communities to assist them as well as the rest of America (24).

Nonetheless, criticism also came from people in their very own party; Nancy Pelosi, a Congress member with thirty-four years of experience under her belt, has had many feuds with “The Squad”--a nickname that came about when, according to Pressley, somebody had put #squadgoals in an Instagram post featuring the four--about who they are, what they mean to the Democratic party, and which direction the Democratic party is going in the future. Even with criticism from both sides of the aisle, The Squad remains relentless.

AOC takes a selfie with a very in-awe supporter, Amber Hess, at a political event in Cedar Falls, Iowa | Amber Hess

AOC, to voters of all ages, has become the main face of America’s environmental future by pushing legislation like the Green New Deal, a policy that sets out to tackle environmental racism issues as well as working to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in America and create environmentally friendly jobs and infrastructure (25). AOC has also advocated for a better police force by sponsoring the Prohibiting Law Enforcement Use of Chemical Weapons Act, and is, of course, a strong advocate for better healthcare (27).

Ilhan also became the first person to ever war a hijab in Congress | The Guardian

Omar has spent time supporting many bills that seek to protect the environment and barring specific lobbying opportunities with countries that have both little human rights and overall violate human rights. She also introduced the Northern Triangle Engagement Act, which, among many things, assists the fight against human and drug trafficking (26).

Pressley, looking defiant in this picture, never let her condition get to her while advocating for what's right | Biography

While struggling with Alopecia, a disease that has caused her to lose her hair, Pressley has introduced a House resolution called The People’s Justice Guarantee. The resolution calls for a “comprehensive resolution devoted to dismantling the injustices within the criminal legal system so that it is smaller, safer, less punitive, and more humane” by legalizing marijuana and abolishing inhumane punishments like solitary confinement in prisons (28).

With her family around, Tlaib is sworn into congress by Nancy Pelosi

Rashida Tlaib has advocated for the protection of Americans by sponsoring bills like the Representative Payee Fraud Prevention Act, which gives U.S. attorneys the right to prosecute those who attempt to harm retirement benefits and retirees by misusing funds and partaking in fraud (29).

Many will call them the world’s worst politicians, and many others will call them the world’s best politicians. But one thing is for sure: no matter what political party one is part of, it is impossible to deny that each one of these women has used the most challenging parts of their lives as inspirational tools to improve the lives of those around them. Again, they have only served one full term each, but with each of them winning reelection in 2020, it will be exciting to see where their journeys take them individually and as a squad.

Footnotes

a. Young at heart at young by Congress standards, where a majority of people are well into their sixties.

b. Unfortunately, the source below is from the movie version of Les Mis -- a production that is both the best and worst thing ever created

c. Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to find a young picture of Omar... but, she still looks like a badass.