On November 8th, many of us stayed up all night, anxiously glued to our TVs to see which candidate would win. Millions of Americans, myself included, were crushed by the result because of how the president-elect marginalized our respective groups. However, we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and realize that even though everything seems scary and uncertain right now, incredible feats were made in this election that are worth celebrating. Check out these ladies who got us just a little bit closer to shattering that ultimate glass ceiling.
Catherine Cortez Masto
Meet America’s first Latina senator (ever!), who hails from the state of Nevada. Cortez Masto was Nevada’s attorney general and she promises to fight for comprehensive immigration reform.
Stephanie Murphy
Another first for the US: a Vietnamese-American woman. When Murphy was a year old, she immigrated to the states with her parents, who came as refugees from Vietnam.
Ilhan Omar
Omar is our first Somali-American Muslim female legislator. When she was a young teenager, she escaped from the Somali civil war before spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp. One of her main goals is to help East African women get more involved in politics.
Kate Brown
Brown is Oregon’s new governor and is also the first openly LGBTQ governor to ever be elected. She has technically been the governor since 2015, but she is the first openly LGBTQ candidate to ever win a gubernatorial race.
Kamala Harris
Harris is the first black US senator from California. She is of Jamaican and Indian descent. She is also only the second black woman to be a senator and the first Indian-American woman to serve as senator.
Pramila Jayapal
Jayapal is an Indian immigrant who came to the US as a teenager. She is serving the state of Washington as the very first Indian-American to score a seat in the House of Representatives.
These incredible, diverse, and powerful women give us hope for our future and remind us that no matter how dire a situation is, there is always something great that can come out of it. I look forward to seeing how these amazing women—and others like them—will follow through with the president-elect’s promise to “make American great again”. These ladies are helping us get closer to equality, and I couldn’t be more excited!
P.S. Check out this quote from Hillary Clinton’s incredible concession speech.