First-Gen Student Elected as USG President
Rahma Ali’s path to the 2024-2025 presidency paves the way for inclusive progress and student empowerment in underrepresented communities.
By Hadeal Rizeq
When Rahma Ali first arrived in the United States from Somalia at 11 years old, she recalls knowing “zero English.”
Now, following her election this semester as the president of next year’s Undergraduate Student Government at the University of Minnesota, she said, “It’s a full circle moment for me.”
“It has yet to hit me yet because I’m still processing what my high school graduation felt like,” said Ali, who is a third-year student majoring in biology and social sciences and environment. “It’s a lot of emotions — a lot of excitement. At the same time, I do feel like I worry a little bit …, but I have been doing my best to just keep trusting Allah [God] and just say Bismillah [In the name of God] in every environment I go into.”
Ali said attending college as a first-generation student is a big deal for her and her family. Her father didn’t finish high school, while her mother didn’t get the chance to attend high school.
“I could have chosen not to go to college after high school,” Ali said.
But she did and is now pursuing a career in health care because of her family, she said.
“My family is my reasoning; my parents are my reasoning,” she said. “So anytime I go and do something for the first time, I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, this is I’m doing it not only for myself but for my family, as well as for my own community.’”
Humble beginnings
While growing up in Somalia, Ali said, her extroverted personality contributed to her love for community.
“Back home, everyone is very community-focused, which is, I think, why I am a very community-focused individual too,” Ali said. “Constantly during Ramadan, we have the doors open at the house, so anyone could walk in for a iftar or suhoor.”
For Ali, coming from a close-knit culture that’s focused on community, she said she was shocked by America’s individualistic cultural values.
“Here in America, I had to learn how to sometimes just be in my own bubble, even though I’m a very outgoing person,” Ali said. “That was the most culture-shocking thing to me — why are we all so isolated?”
But her dedication to supporting the community was the main reason Ali wanted to run for Undergraduate Student Government president, she said.
“Being able to sort of grow up in a large community — and then continue being in larger communities here at the university and just outside of the university as well — has really impacted my reasoning for why I wanted to be president, which is just representing people,” Ali said.
Evonne Bilotta-Burke, a teaching specialist in the leadership minor, said Ali is a visionary when it comes to her leadership attributes.
“I think that one of Rahma’s strongest attributes of her leadership is her mission. She’s a visionary,” Bilotta-Burke said. “So, she thinks in long-term goals and change, and I think that creates the most hope for creating the vision that she wants to with the people that are around her — the assets that she has surrounded herself with.”
A Campus Trailblazer
Ali’s leadership and involvement shine elsewhere. She is also a member of the President’s Emerging Scholars program, a CLA ambassador, a University of Minnesota Bookstore ambassador and a secretary for the UMN’s chapter of United Mission Relief & Development.
Student advocacy is what drew Ali to student government. As a first-year student, she began interning for Abdulaziz Mohamed, who served as the first Somali student president at the university during the 2021-22 school year.
“I focused on working with him on different projects, whether that was getting a mobile market on campus once a month for students to access affordable groceries,” Ali said.
The experience showed her the value of advocacy work in government, Ali said.
“This is something that we (at USG) really focus on —- is student advocacy,” Ali said. “Getting issues out there, working on projects, initiatives, and then it’s getting the resolutions passed.”
Bilotta-Burke said Ali’s dedication to leadership roles made her destined for the presidency.
“She was very interested in growing and pursuing leadership roles, and I know that she was active with USG at that time,” Bilotta-Burke said. “So I knew that it was probably going to take a couple of years, but that was probably her trajectory.”
Leadership as representation
Being involved in all of these organizations, Ali said, is an important part of representing the multiple facets of her identity as a Muslim woman, a Muslim African American woman and a first-generation student.
“We’re very successful people that have a lot of ambition for the future and are very talented in so many different ways,” Ali said. “Why not show off our work and show off our talents and just how amazing we are to people that have never seen individuals like us?”
Ali has also participated in Reviving Sisterhood, a community leadership initiative in Minneapolis focusing on Muslim female empowerment.
“Being a part of the organization and seeing Muslim women running everything was very, very empowering,” Ali said. “I was like, ‘This is what I want to be, this is what I want to be around. These are the women that I want to look up to.’ And having those connections with the woman that started the organization is the best thing possible.”
When asked about the increase in Muslims being elected into office throughout the past five years, like with Mayor Nadia Mohamed in Saint Louis Park, Ali said it makes her smile.
“They are a part of my inspiration, my community inspiration, my community role models,” Ali said. ”It really brings a lot of relief and happiness to me because I’m like, ‘Oh, I am not alone in this process.’”
Along the way, Ali also makes sure to not forget her roots as a first-generation college student and to advocate for those students.
“The President’s Emerging Scholars Program has been the community that I’ve felt the most support from,” Ali said, so funding first-generation organizations and programs will be a focus for her.
As she moves forward in this leadership role and in others, Ali said she cherishes the first-generation student part of her identity.
“I will forever be a first-generation student,” Ali said. “We’re constantly learning, and I will constantly be going into spaces for the first time, representing my identity.”