Rashida Tlaib

“I cannot imagine our country not having the right to economic boycott.”

“Confrontational or not, my approach to public service has always been fighting for my families.”

“I was the third parent, growing up, and it did make me a very overly responsible adult.”

“I remember the different things that were happening to my family as we were getting situated and buying our first home in southwest Detroit, watching my mother learn how to drive for the first time.”

“We cannot afford to deliberately cripple our cities by transferring public tax dollars to private entities for benefits that are unclear at best.”

“Detroit can't come close to repairing the decades of neglect without addressing the crisis in our neighborhoods. I live in southwest Detroit near Woodmere Cemetery. My neighbors and I deal with the negative impacts of job loss, increased poverty, and pollution every day.”

“Southwest Detroit has been through hell (excuse my directness) with Matty Moroun, his Bridge Company, and all his fancy-named subsidiaries. From blighted homes that my boys have to walk by to allowing his trucks to rumble down our residential streets, passing our parks, schools, and homes - we have had it.”

“This kind of 'separate but equal,' I've seen what it's done in the history here in America, and it didn't work. And it still hasn't worked, I mean, even in continued segregation of our schools, which has increased with the privatization of our school system.”

“Mayors, city council members, and legislators come and go, but neighborhoods don't go anywhere.”

“I'm a member of the Michigan Democratic Party, a DSA member, member of the League of Women Voters, ACLU.”

“I remember Congressman Conyers voting against the PATRIOT Act, voting against the Iraq War when it was unpopular to. That tremendous amount of courage that comes with that kind of leadership, I mean, that's what we need.”

“We have to be a nation of compassion and some sort of humanity when it comes to the treatment of other human beings.”

“I'm constantly working, and I've earned everything that I've been able to achieve on my own, and that's what being the eldest of 14 taught me.”

“My mother raised 14 kids, with little means, from our humble house in Southwest Detroit - and now her daughter, who started school not speaking English, is going to be a congresswoman. It was so important for her to know her strength got me here, and that I'm going to fight every day with her spirit inside me.”

“Allowing workers' compensation for all injured workers is a better system than allowing people to be part of a black market of undocumented workers.”

“It is so clear that the conservatives in Congress will only settle for a bill that allows the unequal treatment of immigrants, allow them to be shoved around the system with no way to plead their case for relief.”

“I am for everyone, every single person, Israeli, Palestinian, to have equal access to opportunities, to feel safe where they live, and to really be a genuine partner and a visionary around reaching peace in that region.”

“As a young girl, I watched my mother hand-stitch thobes while sitting on the floor with a lamp at her side. She would make the small designs of flowers and different shapes. Just thinking about it brings up so many memories of my mother and how proud she was of being Palestinian.”

“The first thing I think about when somebody says you're going to be the first Muslim is celebrate this moment.”

“My mom is a woman who grew up in a small farming village in the West Bank called Beit Ur El Foka. She only went to school up to 8th grade and then dropped out to go work in a tailor shop that made dresses and different embroidered designs to make money for her family.”