GPPR Podcast Editor Kharl Reynado (MPP ’23) spoke with Virginia State Senator Ghazala Hashmi about diversity and representation in government. In this podcast, Senator Hashmi addresses the underrepresentation of women and minority groups in government and politics, the importance of adequate and accurate representation of the identities that have shaped America, and the notion of moral leadership.
“The story of this country needs to be much broader and much more inclusive of everybody who has contributed to making this country the way it is.” – Virginia State Senator Ghazala Hashmi
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Podcast Transcript:
[Episode Start]
Senator Ghazala Hashmi: I’m Senator Ghazala Hashmi and I represent the 10th senatorial district, which is located in Central Virginia, and it covers a good part of the city of Richmond as well as Chesterfield County and all of Powhatan County.
Kharl Reynado: Thank you, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what inspired you to run for political office?
Senator Hashmi: Well, certainly, you know my background is primarily in higher education, and so my path to politics was a rather circuitous one. I knew ever since I was a fairly young child that I was going to teach in college. That’s what my father did and he was always very influential and a great mentor to me, so I knew I wanted to teach in college, and I especially knew I wanted to teach literature. And when I was in graduate school at Emory University in Atlanta, I focused my work around American literature.
Senator Hashmi: But I think that work and American literature actually led me into a more robust understanding of American politics and democratic principles, because my research focused around, really, the idea of what it meant to be an American and the kind of philosophy and writings that develop that American consciousness and the idea around democratic ideals. So, in 2016, in particular, I think I, along with many Americans, was just appalled at the direction of our national politics. I was appalled, in particular, that an individual who assaulted so much of what we cherish and value about American democracy and the principles that uphold it was elected to the highest office. In particular, as a Muslim American and as an immigrant, I felt that I in my community and so many other disenfranchised minority groups were under personal attack by an administration that sought to really scapegoat and demonize the value and worth of immigrant voices in this country.
Senator Hashmi: And, as a result of that I wanted to be much more politically engaged, but I also knew that I had a responsibility to speak out and to represent what I cherish and what I knew so many people in our community here cherished, and so I decided to run for office in 2018 and my election was in November of 2019.
Reynado: Thank you, you alluded to it a little bit earlier. You are the first Muslim American to be elected to the Virginia state Senate. How do your identities as a Muslim and Asian American woman shape your experiences within the State Senate?
Senator Hashmi: Well, I think it’s really important to have broad representation in all levels of government, and in particular we know how very, very important local and state government is because we are so very close to our communities, to our constituents, to the localities that we represent. I think it’s absolutely vital for people to see themselves represented in government and to know that their particular identities or their values are being represented in an appropriate manner. That they are not sidelined, that they are not marginalized, but that they actually have a seat at the table.
Senator Hashmi: And so, I really see myself serving that role, not just as a Muslim American or as an Asian American. But, as a member of the kind of diversity that we are really seeing in Virginia – the explosion of many, many different communities that call Virginia home. And I think it’s important to have this level of representation and to speak to the issues and concerns that impact us all across the board.
Reynado: So, women and minority groups have historically been underrepresented in government and politics. As you alluded to earlier, Virginia has seen an explosion of diversity in the electorate. In recent years we have seen an increase in the diversity of elected officials. Why is diversity and representation within government important to you?
Senator Hashmi: So, I’ll share a little story of some of my colleagues in Virginia Senate, the first women to be a part of the Virginia Senate, who were elected a few decades ago and they continue to serve and be very, very important representatives for women. They’ve shared oftentimes that when they first arrived in the General Assembly, and at the Virginia Capitol…in that building there were actually no restrooms for women. It was designed only to be a place for men. And for centuries, of course, it was exclusively the place for men. And so, women have really had to literally break walls and carve out a place for themselves and make sure that half of the population – more than half of the population – has a voice in our government. So having women, in particular, in office, is so vital and we’ve seen this during the COVID crisis. Over one million women actually nationwide left the workforce, because of the COVID crisis and women have borne the brunt financially, economically, socially – they’ve borne the brunt of the crisis because they’ve had to take care of family members, take care of children, make sure that they are able to keep their family going in a time of real emergency for all of us nationally.
Senator Hashmi: Women’s concerns are social concerns. Women’s lives impact every dimension of our society, whether we’re talking about childcare issues, education, the driving economic forces in our service industries, in caring for the elderly, medical professions – all of these are very, very vital for what women do, what women contribute and have historically always been a part of. Women have always been economic drivers for every society, but they haven’t had the representation, they haven’t had the political voice or the economic power to really make a change and to speak out on those concerns, on behalf of the whole community. So having more women in office is absolutely essential. Right now, in the Virginia Senate we’ve got 11 women out of 40. I don’t think that’s nearly enough, we need to have more women in positions to make the kind of decisions that are so necessary for all of our social concerns.
Reynado: Absolutely. If I could ask a follow up question to that: within the diversity of elected in representation, how do you feel diversity impacts the relationships within the state Senate and how does it enrich a collaboration within local government?
Senator Hashmi: So, I’m pleased that we are seeing increasing increasingly diverse voices in our General Assembly and it is a better representation of the growing diversity of Virginia, as I mentioned earlier. So just this past year, last spring, we were able to establish an Asian American Pacific Islander Caucus as the first legislative AAPI Caucus to be established in the Virginia General Assembly. We have four, now five, members in the House of Delegates. We just had a new member that was elected this past November. Then I am the representative from the Virginia Senate, so there are six of us now and we saw such a critical need for the establishment of this caucus. So just as a quick example, of course, is the exponential rise of hate crimes against the AAPI community that we saw emerge out of the pandemic where AAPI individuals were targeted for hate crimes – scapegoated for the pandemic. We certainly heard from our community members how children were being bullied in school and belittled for their background and their identity. These are serious concerns.
Senator Hashmi: We have to speak out and address that and one of the ways that we want to really highlight the concerns of the AAPI community is through expanded educational opportunities. You know one thing critically missing, well several things are critically missing and that way American history it’s taught, marginalized communities and are not integrated effectively in our history books. The story of America is such a rich and complex one, but the way it’s told in our classrooms often sidelines so many of those important voices. And so, an important part of what we are trying to accomplish through the AAPI Caucus is to make sure that there is adequate representation of the history, the culture, and all of the different ethnic identities that have created this narrative of what is America. We want to make sure everybody knows that Asian American history is American history. Black American history is American history. These are all part and parcel of what this country is about, and the story of this country needs to be much broader and much more inclusive of everybody who has contributed to making this country the way it is.
Reynado: Thank you, so my last question for today is … Running for public office may sound intimidating for some people. What advice or insight would you give to those listening about running for public office?
Senator Hashmi: Well, first of all, I would say running for public office is not for everyone, but there are so many ways that individuals can get involved and contribute and work in public service. Anybody who wants to be a part of government has ample opportunity. There are many, many levels of government and elected office is just one part of it. We need smart, dedicated, hardworking folks in every level of government, whether it’s state, local, national. There are so many different positions that one can be a part of, so many different agencies and different divisions. So I would encourage people to find where their passion is and if one wants to be in government, there are pathways to working and being a part of making changes.
Senator Hashmi: But if anybody wants to run for elected office, then there are certain things that I would recommend. One is to really find why one would want to be in an elected office. It’s really important to know why you’re running in the first place. I’ve met a lot of people who can’t really articulate that effectively for themselves, let alone for the broader public. And so, the first question any candidate is asked is: “Why are you running? What’s made you run?” You need to have a really good understanding of what’s motivating you. Hopefully the motivation is that you want to make a change in the way the government is working and that you also want to represent the communities that you are passionate about and you want to help people. In large measure this really is a service-oriented position. About 40 to 50 percent of my day in my office staff days is spent in constituent services – helping people navigate some of the bureaucracy or to reach the resources that they need and to be able to have a better and easier life basically. So that’s really important to know why you want to run. The second thing I would encourage people to think about, and most particularly for our diverse communities, is to begin to build that network of support. Understand who is around you, how that how you can help them, how they can help you and to really have those conversations – to be a part of the bigger picture of what’s happening.
Senator Hashmi: For young people in particular there’s so many ways to get involved. You can get involved through campaigns, you can get involved through internships and offices, you can just reach out and talk to elected officials and ask them about what is important to them and what their work is like and get a better sense of this particular dynamic. So there are any number of pathways, any number of opportunities, and I think I represent the opportunity to do things differently. I developed a set of skills in academia. I developed a set of skills in the classroom and through administrative work and all of those have been really, really helpful to me now as I’ve transitioned into this new position.
Reynado: Thank you. I wanted to give you an opportunity to, if you would like, to say anything more about any of the questions that we had previously discussed or if you’d like to add anything that you think would be important as part of this conversation.
Senator Hashmi: Well, I would just reiterate the last point that we were just talking about. How to get more involved and, and I think it’s quite obvious when you meet people who think that they are a politician, and they look and act and behave a certain way and talk a certain way. But I think it’s also obvious when you find some folks who are in office and are serving for the right reasons and that’s because they really are reflective of the communities that they’ve emerged from and that they are authentic and that they understand the set of values that they are subscribing to and that they’re going to work hard to champion those values. That’s the kind of moral leadership I think we really desperately need in this country.
Senator Hashmi: And so, one thing I always like to emphasize is that we really need to revise our sense of electability. Too oftentimes a lot of people are told that they are not electable and therefore they should not run for office or seek political office but that’s because we’ve defined electability a certain way. We’ve defined it according to those who can raise a lot of money, those who have broad networks, those who are entrenched in the political system. I would hope that we begin to revise our notions of electability around individuals who are ethical, that demonstrate integrity, and that are also have a very clear sense of what they need to do to effectively represent the people in the broader community that’s around them, so I hope we begin to work in that direction.
[Episode Ends]
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