Meet Bushra Amiwala, the first Gen Z woman to hold public office in the U.S.
Bushra discusses her accomplishments on the Skokie Board of Ed, achieving work-life balance and a potential presidential run. (Courtesy of Bushra Amiwala)
Bushra discusses her accomplishments on the Skokie Board of Ed, achieving work-life balance and a potential presidential run.
At 21 years old, Bushra Amiwala became the youngest Muslim elected official in the U.S. when she was elected to the Skokie Board of Education in Illinois. Running on a platform of transparency, accessibility and inclusion, Bushra mobilized voters in her hometown and made history — all while pursuing her undergraduate degree at DePaul University.
Since assuming office, Bushra has worked to pass a law requiring every public school in the state of Illinois to teach the positive contributions of Muslim Americans in history and helped enact land acknowledgments before every board of ed meeting. Now 25, Bushra balances her board of ed responsibilities with her job at Google and her MBA studies at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
I got the chance to speak with Bushra about her political career, becoming the first Gen Z woman to hold public office in the U.S. and how she balances her personal life with her work commitments. We talked about her advice for young women interested in politics, what she learned working for a Republican senator and what her hopes are for the future (hint: a potential presidential run!).
I was able to learn so much about Bushra’s work-life balance, upbringing, values and more. I hope you enjoy reading our conversation and feel as inspired by Bushra as I do.
Anya Sen (AS): Why did you decide to run for the Skokie Board of Education? What was your vision for what you would be able to do with this position?
Bushra Amiwala (BA): On the board of education, our job is to oversee the superintendent of the school district. Similar to how there's a CEO of a company, there's a superintendent of the school district. Our job is to hire, manage and oversee this person who oversees everything in the schools. It's really interesting!
When I first decided to run for the board, something that was really important to me was transparency, accessibility and inclusion. And all of those are really kind of buzzwords now, but when I was running four years ago, they really weren't topics that people were talking about — accessibility, inclusion, access, honesty and transparency. Everything from our board meetings wasn't recorded or streamed or played, so there was no access on that front. We were able to set that up within my first six months of getting elected to the board.
It's little logistical things like that make a difference. For example, we now read a land acknowledgment before every meeting, before even the Pledge of Allegiance, which I think it's so cool to implement as it helps with the inclusion aspect. Something that I'm personally particularly really proud of is we offer halal and kosher lunches in our schools.
“When I first decided to run for the board, something that was really important to me was transparency, accessibility and inclusion.”
When it comes to these topics, there's a very limited amount of what one can actually do on a Board of Education because a lot of the job is to be fiscally responsible and to ask the right questions. The analogy they give is a school dance: there are the chaperones in the balcony and then there are the people on the dance floor. As a board member, you have to stay on the balcony and just look down on the dancer. A lot of the things I was excited about and wanted to do didn't fall in my job description or purview, so I honestly just had to trust that the people who are doing the job can do the job and that I can ask questions along the way.
Finally, in board meetings, I ask questions that I might know the answers to, but I know the parents at home might not fully understand what we're discussing, and to me, accessibility, transparency, inclusion, and access all stem from that as well.
AS: Building off of that, is your position exactly what you expected it to be? What do your daily routine and typical workday look like?
BA: I had no idea when I was signing up or honestly. My day job is at Google and my elected role on the board is a part-time position. Typically [for the board of education], I have anywhere from two to four meetings a month — everything from committee meetings including the equity, finance and governance committees. Apart from those meetings, there is a lot of pre-reading that goes into it, which is something I wasn't necessarily expecting or prepared for. I wasn't surprised, but I just didn't know how important it was to read something like the packet that comes out on Friday before our Tuesday meeting.
My day-to-day is everything from my working full time at Google to evenings spent on school board work. It's been really fun though because I think it’s really cool to be at the top of an institution at a young age. It really teaches you so much about yourself as a leader. I also constantly remember that it's not my money we're spending, but to be fiscally responsible means you treat every penny that's coming out of this institution as if it was your own, and as if it was your last; it means to value the taxpayers’ dollars.
“I think it’s really cool to be at the top of an institution at a young age. It really teaches you so much about yourself as a leader,” explains Bushra. (Courtesy of Bushra Amiwala)
AS: How did you balance your college life at DePaul University with your role in the Skokie Board of Education? And now balancing your board of ed work with your job at Google?
BA: I'm actually in grad school right now as well! I'm at Northwestern, at the Kellogg School of Management getting my MBA. I had a very hectic schedule in undergrad, but when I was out of school, things were a bit calmer because the pandemic was going on as well.
But I'm back in school now and did a lot of reflecting about what was it that I was compromising when in undergrad because I had the same 24 hours in a day that other people do. I realized that I used to compromise on sleep, on relationships in terms of friendships — even romantic relationships — and on my physical health. I wasn’t eating that well; I would eat one meal a day because I was always on the go. I would drink a lot of coffee and I never made time to exercise. But, these lifestyle changes are at the forefront now. Now, I really rely heavily on my calendar app. Not that I didn't before, but I now put workouts and meals in my calendar. I always block off time, even if it's only 15 minutes, otherwise, it won't happen. I really think the calendar app also helps keep me accountable because if I want to spend an hour scrolling on TikTok for example, that's an hour that is not on my calendar and that's an hour of unaccounted-for time — which is fine sometimes if I do it just to decompress and unwind. But, it comes with accountability and really managing my schedule well, which can definitely be challenging.
After doing this for a long time and having a chaotic lifestyle, I've seen historically what's easy to compromise and what I don't want to compromise. What I want to prioritize now is relationships, physical health, well-being and sleep and more. I've also learned to say no. I've learned to think quicker. I no longer second-guess myself. I don't do double takes. All of these little lifestyle changes make a really big difference in saving time and managing my schedule.
Bushra Amiwala with the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. (Courtesy of Bushra Amiwala)
AS: What’s something you’ve accomplished on the Skokie Board of Education that you’re really proud of?
BA: In the past, I went to these public schools and I think the only times we talked about Muslims in the classroom was in reference to the Ottoman Empire and for 9/11. And I wanted to showcase the positive contributions of Muslim Americans in history. By being a school board member, I had the opportunity to testify in front of the Illinois General Assembly to showcase the positive contributions of Muslim Americans in history, along with other minority faith groups too — including Jewish and Hindu people — that might not be significantly tied to their religious background. And this law was passed. Now every public school in the state of Illinois is required to teach the positive contributions of Muslim Americans in history as a part of their curriculum.
AS: That's so amazing and such an important policy to implement. What difficulties have you faced in your workplace and how have you dealt with them? What is the hardest part of your job on the Skokie Board?
BA: The hardest part about my job is when you have to make difficult decisions, because people are not able to know the full story behind the rationale because of personnel issues, because of confidentiality, and you want to be able to explain yourself. This makes it easy for people to think that I made this decision out of haste or judgment. For example, historically, there has been a big chunk of students that choose to opt-out of Halloween celebrations in our school. They have to sit in another classroom while all the kids dress up for Halloween. This is not inclusion, and when did Halloween become an exclusionary holiday. Therefore, we made the difficult decision of having Fall Fest instead of Halloween. We had surveys put out and had been talking about this decision for a year and a half. We've had so many opportunities for opinion gathering. No one really came forward. So, we made the decision, but the next day we had a lot of angry messages from people saying we “took away fun and Halloween,” which was really hard. That’s the hardest part of my job: when my decision is taken out of context and put in a vacuum, and I feel as though people are speaking on my behalf and not doing well.
“I also constantly remember that it’s not my money we’re spending, but to be fiscally responsible means you treat every penny that’s coming out of this institution as if it was your own, and as if it was your last; it means to value the taxpayers’ dollars.”
AS: On the flip side, what is your favorite part of your job?
BA: My favorite part about my job on the board of education is being able to make a positive impact in the educational lives of the next generation. Any time we get to engage with students is so exciting for me. I recently went to the play that our students put on, which was Mary Poppins Junior. It's a K-8 school, so everyone's under the age of 13. There is so much talent and I was beyond impressed and entertained. We also had kids from our student government association come to read the land acknowledgment. At our board meetings. I annually go to visit the Social Justice Club and give a talk, and I think my favorite memory was when I was at this meeting. The coordinator for Social Justice Club sent me a picture of a whiteboard and they were brainstorming a list of changemakers that they would love to meet and people that inspire them. And the first name on that list was my name. The second was Malala, and there were so many other powerful people like Amanda Gorman. And I was like, “Woah, these people like follow me on Instagram!” and here I am at this Malala Fund interview. That was so cool to me. Maybe one day I'll know these women too. Just having my name be in their company said by sixth graders like that was so cool.
AS: Speaking of inspirational people, who is someone that inspires you?
BA: I've actually met a lot of the people that have inspired me at a really young age, such as President Barack Obama. I had a two-hour meeting with him just a year ago, which was so cool because he inspires me so much. I was in sixth grade when he won the election. Fast forward not even that many years later to have a meeting with him for two hours was so cool. Another person who inspires me is Ilhan Omar, who I’ve met multiple times. We’re so lucky to have her representing us in Congress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the only one who I haven't been able to meet, but one day I really hope to do so. It's just so cool to see the resilience that all these people have. That's the common thread that inspires me about them. There are many people that say they can't do things, but these people are proof that they can. And of course, Malala is really, really, really cool too. When it comes to representation, she is so inspiring to me as a Pakistani.
“My favorite part about my job on the board of education is being able to make a positive impact in the educational lives of the next generation. Any time we get to engage with students is so exciting for me,” Bushra Amiwala shares. (Courtesy of Bushra Amiwala)
AS: I read that when you were younger you began your political career as an intern for Republican senator Mark Kirk. How did this experience shape who you are today and your interest in politics?
BA: Prior to interning for Mark Kirk, I was involved in fieldwork — as in going door to door — for a nonprofit about a referendum on the bottom of the ballot. When the opportunity came up to work for a U.S. Senator at the time who happened to be a Republican, I wanted to get a firsthand look at what it meant to be a Republican. Since I had the field experience, I interviewed for the role. When I got the role, my job was to go door to door to various registered Republican voters' homes and ask them a series of five questions. The first question on that list was, on a scale of 1 to 10, how fearsome are you of an Islamic terror attack on U.S. soil? So many people would say, 10, very fearsome.
Growing up in Chicago and then moving to Skokie, the world's largest village, and living in a neighborhood where people have yard signs that say, “Hate has no home here,” — and then to go three more miles up north and ask a question like that and hear the responses was a wake-up call. It was a reality check that I live in a bubble, and that the rest of the country doesn't think the same way as I do, even if it seems obvious to do so. This experience taught me a lot about how to talk to someone who not only might be scared of me, but fundamentally disagrees with me. I also learned a lot about different people's rationale for different things and how to be really empathetic about it, too.
“My first and most important piece of advice is to never burn a bridge because you never know when you’ll have to walk a certain path again. This applies not just to politics, but to any life occupation.”
AS: What steps can we take to promote women in politics, and why do you think the political field is male-dominated in many cases?
BA: We live in a patriarchal society, right? We have been made to think there is only one seat at the table for someone that looks like me, for example. By virtue of that, we've really tokenized a lot of people and we've also intentionally — or unintentionally — pitted women against each other to think that they are one another's competition. This has led them to believe that an opportunity more for you is an opportunity less for me because there's a finite amount of opportunities, which is a very toxic mentality. It's not like that anymore. We're not just filling quotas, and we're not just filling diversity hires. We're looking for very qualified individuals that happen to fit a diverse background and are able to equalize the playing field for all the damage that's been done. So for me, for example, when I get invited to a fancy event or I'm given the opportunity for a free ticket somewhere, I don't want to be the only young Muslim woman in that room. What do I do to ensure that I'm not? I ask for four extra tickets and bring four other young Muslim women with me. While it can be considered fun to be the token, I want to be remembered as the connector. I want people to be like, “Oh, Bushra is who you tap on for a network!”
AS: What advice do you have for young women interested in going into politics?
BA: My first and most important piece of advice is to never burn a bridge because you never know when you'll have to walk a certain path again. This applies not just to politics, but to any life occupation. It’s a big life lesson that I like to emphasize. On a similar note, I would recommend investing your time into causes, issues, and people that you care about and they will invest their energy back in you. Guaranteed.
AS: What are your hopes for the future? What do you hope to achieve professionally?
BA: I would love to run for Congress one day. I'm not old enough just yet, but I would love to run in the future. I used to be really shy to say this, but another thing I’ve always wanted to do since I was a young girl is run for president. I know we all say it, but even to allow yourself to say it, especially on a platform like this. Assembly inspires young girls to say and dream their wildest dreams. So that's what I'm going to do: honor it and say it. My dad has 12 brothers and sisters from his entire extended family. I'm the first person to be born in the United States. There has always been an ongoing joke in my family that I could be president one day. To grow up and have this kind of political adventure would be my dream come true.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Read more
