Abdi Warsame Narrator

Ahmed Ismail Yusuf Interviewer

June 12, 2014 Minneapolis, Minnesota

Abdi Warsame -AW Ahmed Ismail Yusuf -AY

AY: This is Ahmed Ismail Yusuf recording for the Minnesota Historical Society Somali Oral History Project. I am here with Abdi Warsame, who is the highest Somali official elected in Minneapolis—Minnesota, actually, in that matter. Abdi, welcome to the interview, and thanks for agreeing to it.

AW: Oh, thank you, Yusuf. I appreciate the opportunity.

AY: So I normally actually start it from the basis of where one was born and when, sort of those things. But in your case, let us just exactly talk about when you came to Minneapolis first of all.

AW: Well, I came to Minneapolis in the year 2006, which is about eight years ago now.

AY: And the reason why I am just exactly asking that question is just that it seems that, to me actually, with the speed of light you traveled through the ranks and became the first Somali official elected in this state. Nationwide, you are the second Somali elected. So did you have that ambition when you actually came here, or how did it start?

AW: Well, to go back a little bit, I didn’t come directly from Somalia. I came from London, England. I was born in Somalia, and I was raised in the UK, across the pond. I grew up in a place called Leytonstone in East London. I was educated in the UK. I went to King’s College, University of London. I graduated from Middlesex University, and I also got a master’s degree from Greenwich University with an international business degree. I moved to the United States in 2006. I was brought here by my wife and my daughter, and when I first came, my ambition was to settle in, to become a citizen, and to work hard and find a place for myself and for my family.

AY: So you had no political ambition to say, not the least.

AW: No. I mean, at that time I didn’t even know where I was, and I was getting adjusted to the environment and to the weather and to a new city, a new life, a new baby. So it was an exciting time, but for me there was no grand plan. Things basically fell into place with time.

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AY: But in the process of actually, even, going to school in London, sort of those things, how were you politically involved? How informed were you when it comes to political…

AW: You know, to be a Somali and to be a Somali of my generation and the generation of the civil war, and to live in the original diaspora city of London where you had Somalis from all across the country, the former republic—politics was in your blood. Politics was part of your life. My family have political background back in Somalia. The civil war informed us, our generation—the longing for home, the reason why. As a child I asked many times, “Why are my people so poor? Why are they destitute? Why are they refugees everywhere? Why are they suffering? Why is there so much hardship?” So those were political questions that were always on my mind. And when I was younger, in my college days, I was one of the founders of the Somali Student Association in the UK. We organized ourselves. We always had discussions and discourse about what it was to be a Somali in the diaspora, and how we could be successful in the countries that we lived in, especially the UK, and also how we could contribute to the people back home.

AY: So you came to Minnesota, and actually the first title you had was the executive director of Riverside Plaza Tenant Association. Which is not exactly much, but in that where the Somalis are concentrated, what did you see? How did that ambition fall within there?

AW: Before the tenants’ association position, I worked for Wells Fargo for a while. I applied what I learned from school. Fortunately the position came up for the tenants’ association, the Riverside Plaza Tenants’ Association [RPTA], to be the executive director of RPTA. And to be the executive director of RPTA was an important milestone for myself.

AY: In what way?

AW: Because what it did was it connected me to my future constituents. It allowed me to understand some of the issues that affected the large and growing Somali-American community in Minneapolis in a way that I would not have had. I would not have had the insight that I had from working at RPTA by working at any other job, because when you do a nine-to-five job and you have a family, it takes a toll. You don’t have enough time to gauge people. But when your job is to represent the tenants of the association—and we represented four thousand tenants. We employed twenty people. We had a good, sizeable budget. So it wasn’t a bad job in any stretch of the imagination. And we ran all the community spaces within the plaza, so we were running a small city, as to speak. And also I was the chair of the Cedar-Riverside NRP, Neighborhood Revitalization Program. That was a volunteer position, but that kind of also gave me insight into the issues of the neighborhood, where you had the neighborhood where eighty percent or ninety percent of the people were renters, and yet the Neighborhood Revitalization Program was geared towards homeowners. So there was preferential treatment for homeowners, and there wasn’t enough support for the tenants or renters who lived in the plaza, who happened to be East Africans—Somali majority with Oromo population. So those kind of things kind of gave us an insight into some of the equity issues that would come up in my election. So being there, meeting the elders, meeting the mothers and our brothers and sisters on a day-to-day basis, solving some of their problems that they had with the landlord, and the problems that they had with security,

2 and issues that they had with the police, and just basically livability issues, was a great insight and it was a great preparation for my future agenda.

AY: So at the beginning, were you just exactly trying to advocate from the grassroots point of view and you did not have—I mean, how did you all of a sudden get this…

AW: Well, there was an election. I mean, if the question is… Even when I was at RPTA, I did not really understand or have an appreciation for political office. Remember, this is my first time there. The first election that I ever participated in was 2008—Barack Obama’s rise. That was something that was amazing, transformational for myself, because Barack Obama happens to have East African heritage, and then the fact that he was such an outsider. So I took part in just following that election, and understanding that election, and studying the importance of the message that he had—the change and the hope, and galvanizing people and encouraging people, and getting to the grassroots. Empowering the small man—I think that was a very important lesson that we learned from 2008. In 2011, there was an election for state Senate. A man by the name of Mohamud Noor was running, and I participated in that. I didn’t know him at that time, and I met him, and he said he was running for state Senate. And I was like, “State Senate?” It was a primary. And, “What’s a primary?” And then we had the task, me and a core group that would later on take part in my election, we had the task of organizing two precincts. One precinct was the Cedar-Riverside precinct, which is the power base of the Somali-American vote. The other precinct was the Seward precinct, which was the neighborhood that I live in now. And we organized it. That was my job. I took that upon myself. It was voluntary. I wasn’t doing it just for him. I was doing it because I wanted to learn, and I wanted to see how far we could stretch.

AY: At that moment are you questioning, not the process, but are you questioning the viability of even the…

AW: Our numbers. How many East Africans are there and the kind of impact they can have. And he lost by two hundred votes. And what that actually told me was—there are buildings within an area called the Ventura Village area. I think they are called the Hiawatha buildings. Three of them, they kind of look like each other. Another building called the Pentagon behind it. Now, that area is very close to Cedar-Riverside. You can walk to that area from Cedar-Riverside. It’s like two blocks, I think. Almost three blocks. Yet those people could not vote in that election because they were in a different district, they were in a different area. Then I looked at the map of the city itself, and I realized that what we had was a large concentration of East Africans in a very small area, but they were divided into four different wards. And that became something that I kept thinking about on my own.

AY: So did you look into it just exactly when Mohamud lost, or just exactly in the process of just organizing it.

AW: No. When he lost and he lost by such a small margin, that came into my mind. I don’t know how it got into my mind, but I think we were debriefing. Our team, we were debriefing and I said, “If we had those buildings in this district, we would have won the election.” And that eureka moment started the quest for unifying the areas that would end up becoming Ward 6.

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AY: Mostly Oromos and Somalis, or the entire neighborhood?

AW: No, not just the neighborhood. We represent nine neighborhoods, nine precincts. So what we started doing was, after that—but I didn’t have a process. I didn’t know how to do it, I didn’t know how to go about it. But then when I studied—I remember that we were very fortunate. At that time, the redistricting process was starting, and for the first time with the redistricting, what we realized was that public participation was allowed. Before, it used to be done behind closed doors.

AY: And this was new, too.

AW: This was new. So this idea—then we figured out. And I put together the Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting, which was a body that I chaired and I was the spokesman for.

AY: And how many of you?

AW: There were about five of us. Five of us that were core.

AY: And you were the Somali. What were the others?

AW: No, they were all Somalis. We had one or two Oromos. But they were all Somalis and East Africans, Oromos. Oromos, we see them as Somalis now here. So we started the redistricting process, and I remember that time. For me, the most successful thing I’ve ever done in my life is the redistricting of the city of Minneapolis.

AY: Yeah, definitely.

AW: That’s more important than the election that we won. That’s something that I will give to my children, and that’s my legacy that I’m very fortunate to have had was the redistricting. Because for the first time, I was able to put some of the frustrations that I had throughout my life—which was, you know, you were helpless. Events were always happening around you and you couldn’t affect the events around you. But for the first time, we could change the events around us. That was a watershed moment.

AY: And exactly when did you sense that you were having that kind of an effect?

AW: I think that comes later on. When you are in battle and you are in the heat of the battle, you don’t really realize what happens. Later on you have hindsight. Later on you can sit down and contemplate and think about and meditate and look at all the things that went right and all the things that went wrong.

AY: Yeah, but…

AW: So it was after the effect. But in that time, I remember writing an email to one of my friends. Basically, what we did is we redrew the map, the whole city. We had to redraw the

4 whole city, not just Ward 6. Because it’s a puzzle. If you want this area to go together, what happens with other areas? What happens to two, what happens to three, what happens to four, what happens to seven, what happens to thirteen? All the different wards. You know, there’s one city. So your map has to fit into the rest. So when you change a bit here, how does it affect everybody, every other area?

AY: Unintended consequences and all that?

AW: Exactly. And we couldn’t draw a map, you know. None of us are geographers. So we found a lady called Hazel Reinhardt, who was the demographer of the State of Minnesota.

AY: No kidding.

AW: And she was the vice president of the Star Tribune. I went to her and asked her, “Can you help me with this?” She said, “Wow. Yeah, okay.” And she drew the map for us. And we found a guy called Brian Rice, who was a lawyer, who is a good friend of mine now. And he helped us with the legal issues. But the organization of it, the idea of it, coming up with it—it was ours. And like I said, this is the most marvelous thing I’ve ever done. More important than the election, the genius was the redistricting. We got the redistricting.

AY: Absolutely. So, though, when you just exactly took the idea to the first people that actually just exactly listened to you, what was their perception? I mean, were they just exactly saying, did they say, “You are just a child. You just came here, your community came here. Are you out of your mind?”

AW: No. You know, we had two things. We knew the charter commission, who were the people who were making decisions, and that we have to give our presentation. And, actually, we were the first group in the whole city to put a proposal together.

AY: No kidding.

AW: Yes, the whole city. And everybody else followed us. The Latino community followed us, and other communities came, and the African Americans came, and other people followed ours. So we were pioneers. We were the first. We came very fast.

AY: So they were asking you. Not only that they were actually following you, but they were asking your advice.

AW: I mean, the charter commission was amazed that we were so well organized. And we brought sixty old men and sixty old ladies to their meetings to show them that we had popular support. And we had a proposal that was put together. Actually, it is online. You can get the proposal. I can print it for you. We had a proposal. We talked about the community and the importance of this for this community. This is a new community. This is a community that votes and a community that wants to empower itself. This would mean that the charter commission themselves are attentive to our wishes and needs. So this was an amazing thing. But the

5 reaction—the charter commission respected us because we followed all the steps, and we wrote it very well, and they understood it.

AY: So you were not only organized, but you were informed.

AW: Yes, we did our homework. This was my life at that time. This was the most important thing. I had no weekends. That was my weekend. I woke up thinking about it, and I went to sleep thinking about it. So this was a great deal of effort, and I believe I’m an organizer.

AY: But you don’t play in it, in a way. But when you just started it, you say, when you are in the heat of the moment, which is the heat of the moment, you don’t really see the impact. But, on the other hand, you must have a sense of just exactly what was going to take place.

AW: I remember, like I said to you, I remember sending an email to my colleague. We had a wish list. We wanted this neighborhood, that neighborhood, this neighborhood put together in such a way. We wanted certain areas, you know, designed in such a way. And I remember sending to one of my colleagues, and I said to him, “You know, if we get forty percent of what we want, we will be very lucky.” I remember writing that way. And we went through the process, and we went to every meeting. Nobody did that. These are boring meetings, they are long meetings. Nobody shows up and we were showing up every day. And we have opposition. But the genius of our idea was we weren’t just asking for one ward. We asked for Ward 6 to be an East African opportunity ward—means to give these East Africans the opportunity to get somebody elected. But we also asked for Ward 9, which was a Hispanic opportunity ward. So that was the genius of it. The genius was not that we just asked for our community—we were speaking for the immigrant communities together, in one. There was no Hispanics in our ward, on our team, but what our team did is we realized we need this community to come on board, otherwise we look like just greedy people who just want their own. And that had consequences where the incumbent, the gentleman that we eventually ran against, he put together a team. Him and his staff put together a team called, “We All Win.” And they were Native Americans and Hispanics, and they were crying and they didn’t like it, and they were very much against our proposal. But in fact, today they have an elected official because of that.

AY: The Spanish—

AW: And we created that ward. This was a ward we created. It wasn’t anything that they did. So we played history, major history, in the city of Minneapolis. We reshaped the city of Minneapolis. That was breathtaking. And it took a long time, but we persevered. And at the end of it, we didn’t get forty percent. We got a hundred percent of what we wanted. And that was unbelievable. We went from having seventeen percent African population in Ward 2, which was the largest African—not African American, but traditional African, which was Somalis and Oromo—to forty-five percent in Ward 6. So we became the plurality. We were the largest population in Ward 6. This is unbelievable. And it is the largest concentration of Somalis anywhere in the world. I am from London and it is not like that. There’s no one area like that.

AY: But the processes were not all that smooth. The accusations flew that there was a conflict, that [Robert] Lilligren also…

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AW: That’s the election, though. That wasn’t at the redistricting.

AY: Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m jumping ahead.

AW: So when we did the redistricting and we won and we got the map, then it became, “Who’s going to run?” And people told us, “Oh, you’ve got a map, now.” This is traditional Americans, they would say, “You got a map, but do you have the organizational capacity? Do you have the machine to win an election?” So we got the map and as soon as we got the map, we started having the next battle, which was the creation of a machine, creation of a political machine that would actually run the election and win.

AY: So just exactly to just pinpoint or to accentuate—I think I jumped ahead—but then the first battle…

AW: Was the redistricting.

AY: Yeah, the redistricting. Once you won that, though, I mean, nobody expected it to follow.

AW: There is one point that you said before that I will answer—our community did not see it coming. The so-called community leaders, the gatekeepers, the so-called politicians—all of them did not see it coming.

AY: Even meaning the redistricting itself?

AW: Yes. They did not see it coming. And they did not see the importance of it, so they were blindsided. Because a small team put this together and organized it—and a team that never was involved in politics, so we didn’t have the usual suspects. What you had is something that was clandestine. So it wasn’t seen. But the people that heard about it, the so-called political leaders, all of them thought that this was undoable. “You’re going to change the map? How are you going to change the map? It is impossible. It is impossible.” We could hear it. “It’s impossible.” We said, “Listen. You know, impossible is in the mind.” We changed it.

AY: Okay. I am coming back to this. When you are hearing that, by the way—you yourself and you are the lead, of course—didn’t doubts actually just exactly set in at times? Did they?

AW: You know, we have doubts all the time, and man by nature is a doubtful creature, and the most difficult time that we all face is when we are by ourselves. I grew up in a tough environment. I come from one of the largest cities in the world, and I understood what it means to… And this, I was doing it not for myself. I was doing it for my community. Like I said, even when I was younger, my main aim was to contribute to my people, somehow. And you always think, when you think about your people, you want to contribute back home. But the people are here, and they need confidence, they need hope, they need a success story. And they never had that before.

AY: And they need role models.

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AW: Yeah. And they need a success story. So whatever doubts I had—and I had many doubts, I had doubts every day—but whatever doubts I had, the mission was more important. And the focus was, “Can this be done?” And if you do this, this is something that, you know… I have an eight-year-old daughter, and I am fortunate to be able to tell her all the time that if your father, who had nothing, with little resources, who was poor, could do this, you are expected to do grand things, big things. Land on Mars or something. You have to do something large.

AY: It doesn’t matter whether your name is Saadia—meaning a Muslim name or Somali name.

AW: It doesn’t matter. Yes. Her name is Aisha, actually, which is a Muslim name. So for us, that was the focus. So any doubt that was there, any obstacle that was in front of us didn’t mean anything.

AY: So, tell me the first taste—I know still the battle has not yet begun—but just tell me the first taste of victory.

AW: You know, it was amazing when I saw first the map itself. It was great. It was a vindication of our strategy, of our struggle. It was something you cannot imagine, and for me I knew there was no turning back. After that moment, there was no way that people could put us in a box any more.

AY: So now you know the map is all yours. The political machine, the experts, and the people with names are just exactly telling you, “Well, you know, you did that, but how are you going to bring people to vote? Where are you going to gather the crowd from?”

AW: Yeah. So the problem was we didn’t have a political machine. We had a gentleman who passed away called Hussein Samatar, who won an election, but his election was an open election. He’d never contested anybody. He was just by himself. So he was basically given that position. But he was a pioneer. He showed us that you could win an election, and I’m very grateful to him and to all the other people who came before him.

AY: As well as Mohamud Noor himself.

AW: As well as Mohamud, to a lesser extent, because he didn’t win. You know, there’s a saying which says, “Victory has many fathers; defeat is an orphan.” So for us, Mohamud was the beginning of our structure, our understanding of the city, and we are fortunate for that, that he gave us that.

AY: Sowed the seeds, to some extent.

AW: Yeah. But in terms of—he was no Hussein Samatar. So we start planning. And I planned— I don’t want to take credit for everything. There was a whole team.

AY: Please do. Right now you have an opportunity. [chuckles]

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AW: Yeah, yeah. But what I was always good at was organizing. I was always good at organizing. This was my forte. You know, changing the map, they have so many constraints. You have other people making that decision. But this was all mine. This was my opportunity to stamp my authority, to stamp my mark on history. And, you know, I’m a student of history. I have never studied history in academia, but I study history, I read history. And so, Mandela and Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping and, you know, Napoleon—all the great organizers, all the great people who did things always started with a base.

AY: Who of American origin do you enjoy, too? While you are at it.

AW: American history? Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy—the great general. And I will say Eisenhower, and I will say Malcolm X is one of my heroes of all time. So many. Of course, Americans have had a profound effect on me. But like I said, organizing is important, and I was good at organizing. And we showed in the Noor election that we could organize. Now we needed to build on it. We had six neighborhoods, nine precincts. We studied the map. Because we created the map, so we knew it, back of our hand. So I had a big map on my house, right next to my bed, of Ward 6, every street. And then we started to work an underground movement. Nobody could see what we were doing. We started with a core of five individuals. And then we built a database of every neighborhood. Who was the loudest woman in “M” building? Who is the religious leader people look up to the most? Who are the elders? What are the clan dynamics of these areas? These are the questions that we asked. And we used that to our advantage.

AY: So tell me about the clan dynamics in particularly our community. I mean, sometimes we think that we know. And right now, as a matter of fact, if we are Somalis, what you did to us— we trashed in our book or pamphlets of whatever we thought that exactly Somalis were here. I mean, we had to start it from the scratch. We totally changed our composition of where we thought we are here.

AW: What it was is, first of all, the clan is an illusion. I have always believed it’s an illusion, because clans are made up of clans and they are made up of sub-clans. And sometimes the most loyal people or the most supportive people that you have may be your in-laws who happen to be a different clan, may be your mother’s family who happen to be a different clan. And I was always fortunate, without mentioning names—we’re not here to have an anthropological study of Somali clans—but without going into that, I was very fortunate to be a background of many families and many clans. Especially my mother’s family and my dad’s family were always the most opposed two families in Somali history.

AY: Yeah.

AW: So my earlier point about the clans being an illusion is that Somalis overplay the clan. They think, “Oh, somebody’s going to get support because he’s from that clan.” Or, “Somebody’s not going to get support because he’s…” That’s an illusion. What we wanted to do was to forge an identity which was Reer Minnesota [people of Minnesota]. You know, when you go abroad and you go to London, people ask you, “Oh, you’re Reer Minnesota. How’s Minnesota?” And what our idea was, when we went to people, we told them, “We are Reer Minnesota. We are one clan here.” Because the experience that we have here unites us. My first cousin, who lives in Somalia,

9 has never seen snow. He’s never seen this temperature. He cannot understand or fathom living here. Nor can I understand or fathom where he lives and his culture. So an Oromo child from Arsi who lives in Minneapolis is closer to me than a guy from Mogadishu who has never been here. So what we wanted to do is we wanted to say, “Listen, we need to rise above the little petty differences and the names and the reer hebel, reer hebel [clan so and so, clan so and so], and become a unified political force.” So our aim was, first of all, to give a message, an inclusive message, a message that was, “We are Reer Minnesota, and together we can do things.” The small divisions did not work. But you have to be very tactful about it. You know, a lot of Somalis say, “Oh, the clan doesn’t matter.” Or they say it matters too much. You have to have a middle ground where it’s an identity. You have to know how to talk to people from different groups. You have to appreciate a southern context and the northwestern context, the northeastern context, southwestern context. Those guys who are from…

AY: Somali Ethiopia, all over…

AW: All over. You have to. And I have been very fortunate. I know guys from Hargeisa [Hargeysa]—my best friends grew up there, we grew up together—who are actually now in that region and part of the government. And my mother lives in Mogadishu and some of my families are from the northeast. So you have a more world view when it comes to being a Somali. But then you understand the Oromo as well. They need to be appreciated. They are the largest tribe in Africa. They sometimes feel that the Somalis don’t take them into granted. So we created an East African movement.

AY: Community, yes.

AW: Rather than a Somali movement. And it unifies the Somalis by saying, “East Africans.”

AY: Yeah. One of the things while you’re at it—sorry to actually interrupt you there. But all that success—one of the things that was actually touching to me was just your speech, your acceptance speech. Once you actually said the Oromo community, you included all of the people actually in that unit. But on the other hand, when you just exactly brought them into the fold, that’s really, I mean, a moment that I wasn’t expecting from a Somali, even you.

AW: Yeah, but you have to understand Somalis are a gifted people, and we have a great talent pool. It’s just that our talents usually are not given the opportunity to present itself.

AY: We sell ourselves short sometimes.

AW: Yes. But like I said, I am an astute student of history. You cannot ignore a large community like the Oromo, who live amongst you, who campaign for you, who knock on doors for you, who supported you, and who voted for you. I will say I got ninety percent of their votes. And they voted en mass. They never voted for anybody as much as they voted for Abdi Warsame. So that was a small gesture. And you know, we are mindful that we will do a lot for them specifically. And I met their leaders and I’ve been to their mosques since I’ve been elected. I feel a very close bond to the Oromo. I feel that they’re my community. I am Oromo as much as

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I am… You know? And I think that when you feel that empathy towards people and you show it, it gives you that strength to speak for them.

AY: That somehow or other—

AW: But if you are shy or you are afraid of them—because again it’s that division. We are used to division. We are not used to success. And success—you have to have a big tent. And so we started small. We started very small. And what we did is, one of the genius ideas that one of my colleagues brought was we had to deceive our opponents, our competitors.

AY: In what way?

AW: Which was, for example, we had a website called votewarsame.com. And we told Lilligren’s team that we had this website. And we had moles within the Lilligren team, so we had people who were within their team who were giving us information.

AY: No kidding!

AW: All the time. And what they would do is they would go on the website, and they would see nothing. Under construction. So they think our campaign is under construction, but our campaign has moved fast. We’ve already identified all the public housing buildings, we’ve been into those buildings, we’ve brought food into these buildings, we’ve had meetings into these buildings. We created databases. We excited the base. “You have problems with parking, you have problems with police, you have problems… We will change. We will change the way people see you in Minneapolis!” And when Somalis come across someone like myself, whose English is his first language, and who understands Somali very well and will give a speech in Somali—and the funny thing is, throughout the campaign my Somali presentation has improved immensely, which proves the adage, “practice makes perfect.” So, over time. I wasn’t very comfortable giving speeches in Somali. I was far more comfortable in English. Now I feel more comfortable in Somali, even or comparable to English.

AY: So, do you think, was it also the effort, or do you think it’s the practice? Which one is it? Or is it the combination of both?

AW: It’s nature and nurture. So I believe I have the natural ability to speak very well, which I inherited from my parents. My mother speaks very well. My father was an orator. So it is a natural way of speaking that comes across. And it is also what you listen to. Throughout the civil war, I listened to the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation], and I listened to the VOA [Voice of America], and I listened to Somali speeches, and I listened to Somali poetry. And that gives you an opportunity to speak in the language of leadership. So when I speak to Somalis, I tend to speak with that language of the leaders who usually are interviewed. So you mimic that, and over time you get your own style, your own style of speaking, which is more participatory. You talk about the people in the crowd, you make sure you understand them. If it is a crowd full of women, you talk about your mother. You know, if the crowd is full of men, you talk about the struggles. Somali people, you talk to them…

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AY: Play the audience.

AW: By giving their children hope. Mothers love when you talk about their children. I want to make sure your children get jobs. Make sure that they survive. Make sure that they are respected. And this was a new way of doing things. I believe what you had in our election was—and we ran the election from every level. The election was a Somali-Oromo-led election on every level, from the strategic decision making, to the operational strategy, to the tactics and implementation. On every level it was Somali. And that was intentional, because what I wanted to give the community was the confidence that this was their victory. It wasn’t because somebody else taught us something or some guy gave us something. It was us. It was our ability. It was our organizational skills. The website design, that was a Somali. The guys who put together the talking points were Somali. The guys who wrote the articles were Somali, you know. The girls knocking on doors were Somali. The volunteers were Somali. And the strategists, who happened to be myself, were Somali. So that gave the community something they never had before. I remember Gandhi did this when he was running in India. He said, “It has to come from us. The Indians have to see that it came from us.” So for me, even though I lived in Minneapolis and I could have played into the hands of, “Let’s appease the larger community,” my aim, foremost, was confidence for the community. That was more important than Abdi Warsame winning the election. Because Abdi Warsame had a job, and he didn’t need a job. I could get other jobs, and I could start my own business. Somalis are very successful at starting businesses—millionaires in the city now. But my aim was to give hope to this community and that was a wildfire. That became—when people, when you do things for the greater goal, for the common good. And then that was something different. So, what you had was we started early on—very early—we organized and we started raising money. And we followed the law to the letter. We registered the committee, the Warsame Volunteer Committee, and we raised more money than our opponent, who was a twelve-year incumbent. And who did we raise money from? Cab drivers, restaurant owners, janitorial workers, my uncles, my aunts, my friends, my neighbors, my Oromo kinsmen. You know, the small man. Forty dollars, a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars, you know—and we raised more money. Because Somalis, as we know, they are generous.

AY: Oh yes.

AW: They are giving. But they’ve never given to a political movement.

AY: Right.

AW: They will give money to some guy who came from Somalia who is a minister or something, or they will have a beautiful event at the Convention Center.

AY: Yes, at the Convention Center.

AW: And that’s a waste of money, in my opinion. Even though the Convention Center, beg your pardon, is part of the City of Minneapolis. They should definitely rent the Convention Center. [both chuckle] So what you had was all of these stereotypes were destroyed. For example, let me give you a very important thing. The Star Tribune. The Star Tribune would always give negative coverage about Somalis. You know, al-Shabaab. And Somalis are divided. You have some guy

12 who is speaking for the community that nobody knows what he is doing. He doesn’t even have a job. All of these guys. So, Star Tribune, the first time we started talking to them, it was the redistricting. And I told them, “I’m not going to talk to you.”

AY: You did?

AW: And they would call me, I’d say, “I don’t want to talk to you.” “Why?” “Because what do I need you for? The people that I’m trying to talk to don’t read the Star Tribune.”

AY: No kidding! You told them that?

AW: Told them that point blank. They called me four or five times. They ask something like, “Okay, we’ll talk to you. What do you want?” I said, “Treat me like you would treat a Caucasian American.”

AY: That is what you said?

AW: This is. And I’m saying right now. “Treat me like you would treat a Caucasian American. Treat me with the respect that I deserve.”

AY: And who are you talking to at that moment? Are you talking to the editors or are you…

AW: No. I’m talking to the journalists, the reporters. “And if you write a bad article about me, I’m not going to talk to you ever again. I don’t need you. You need me to sell papers, because I’m the exotic politician that your readership in Edina is going to read about. You need me. But I don’t need you.”

AY: [chuckles] Wow. And you’re saying that yourself?

AW: I say that to them, I said that to them, and I play that game. And I don’t compromise with my image, I don’t compromise with my community. Because when Abdi Warsame speaks, the Somali community speaks. The image people have of us was divided community, people who were ready to hang their dirty laundry in public, to write stupid stuff, you know. And what I wanted to do—again, it was about hope—an article about a Somali guy doing, changing the map of the city, and why he’s doing it. If you read the Star Tribune articles from the redistricting to the campaign—there was one or two bad ones in the middle, the ones with the accusations—but they were very positive. You know, “Somali Clout Comes to City Hall.” We were on the front cover of the Star Tribune when we won, with Betsy Hodges. So for me, the image you give out, the confidence you give out is very important. It was very important. It was not something I compromised with. And that’s how it was with all media. I don’t talk to media. I set the agenda. I told them the questions they can ask me and the questions they could not ask me. So when they came, they better be prepared. And when I’m not ready, I’m not going to give you no interview. I’m going to give you an interview on a time of my choosing, not when you are ready to write your report. I don’t care about your report. Write it if you want or don’t write it. But I will give you an interview when I am ready to say something.

13

AY: So wouldn’t you say, at times, would you say a feeble mind would think otherwise? Meaning that I would say, actually, “Well, they have the power,” in my case. Possibly that’s why I’m not Abdi Warsame. [chuckles] I would say, “This is actually…” The power of media is very valuable, even though they take the case at times wherever they want. Because I was one of the people actually that they called.

AW: It is, it is, it is. I remember when you were called. I’m telling you one thing—the media is a tool. It can be used in the right way and it can be used in the wrong way.

AY: Right.

AW: They need to talk to you as much—especially myself—as much as I need to talk to them. In fact, it doesn’t affect me. If the Star Tribune writes, “Abdi Warsame is an idiot,” how many Halimas and Farahs are going read that and will care about it? It’s going to be put on here online, and a couple of people are going to write something on Facebook, who some of them don’t live in Minneapolis. But the actual reality is I knew my importance, and by understanding my importance—

AY: And who you are talking to, who your audience were.

AW: Yes. And by understanding my importance, I could gauge the—and all politicians do that. If a guy writes any of my colleagues a bad article, they call him and say, “Why are you writing a bad article about me? So what makes me the stepchild? So what makes me the…”

AY: But, I mean, you did not have that experience. I mean, were you advised or somehow or other it was just…

AW: No, no, no. Because, like I said, I’m a student of history.

AY: Right. Student of history. [chuckles]

AW: I come from a city called London, where you have Alastair Campbell, who was a spin doctor. The word spin doctor was invented in the UK. You had people who spin the media. When there was a big problem, they would send out the bad news. You know, the guys who ran Tony Blair’s elections. So we understood the media. I grew up around the BBC. I understood the media, the powers of the media. I’m a superstar—why am I going to sell myself short? I am the LeBron James of Minneapolis politics. Why am I going to look myself down and say, “I’m poor…” No. The way I view myself, I’m a superstar, and I wanted them to understand that. And they understood that.

AY: Okay, so if you travel one day, today not only you’re audience are Somalis, but you’re actually representing them. But on the other hand, tomorrow, if you have a larger vision—of which I am absolutely sure that you do have that, possibly you are not admitting it today—but are you not also just exactly on the preparation of that itself, on the precipice?

14

AW: You know, maybe. But, you know, one has to understand his limitations. If you look at if you have an ambition and you already articulated it, to get to that position or to get to that place, you understand the steps that you need to take. And the steps that you need to take will mean that you compromise. For me, I don’t like to compromise. I never compromise on the fundamentals. I never compromise on being a Muslim, and I never compromise on being a Somali, and I don’t compromise on being an American. And I think all three of them I can use interchangeably, because I believe America represents the best in the world. Islam gives me a lot of confidence in my values, the access that I have. And being a Somali is my pride. This is what I am. This is my ethnicity. This is my history. This is my mother, my father, my grandparents. So those things I don’t compromise with. Everything else is up for negotiation. Look, you have a community where there is a lack of hope. There are many paths and you want to articulate a path. The path that you articulate should be a path that’s the most—it is very difficult for me, and I have a lot of gray hair because of some of the choices I that I make. But you have to be tough, you have to be focused, because what you’re doing will have implications that you cannot imagine. If I fail, the image of a whole community fails. If I fall down, my community falls down. If I say something stupid, my community says something stupid. So the larger community, also, it’s a way of talking to them, it’s a way of building bridges. Look, I’m a Westerner. By training, by trade, I am a Westerner. I watch American movies. The Cohen Brothers are some of my favorites. Clint Eastwood films are some of my favorites. I have listened to American music, I’ve been to American theater. I read American books and Western books in general. The Guardian newspaper is my favorite, the New York Times, all of these. So I am a Westerner.

AY: Of Somali origin, or East African origin.

AW: So I can actually relate to my larger community, my brothers and sisters in Minnesota. My white brothers and sisters, my African American brothers and sisters. I can relate to them in a way that very few Somalis can relate to them.

AY: Which means that you actually can straddle…

AW: Yes. But straddling does not mean assimilation, nor does it mean isolation. It means integration. I take the best of my community. My community is beautiful. Our women are beautiful. Our children are beautiful. We are a very beautiful people. We are very intelligent people. We are very tough and resilient people. We are one of the most successful tribes in all of Africa. That’s who we are.

AY: Somalis.

AW: Somalis. And that, I believe wholeheartedly. And that’s what I convey to the larger community. I convey to the larger community that I am a man equal to anyone, and I will serve this city to the best of my ability—equally to everyone. Not just Somalis, but to everyone. And I think that genuine—when that comes across, people understand you. What was it? “Beggars are not choosers.” They can’t choose. So we were never beggars. We were people who were very confident, and Minneapolis gave us that opportunity.

15

So, when we ran the election, we had a problem at the election. Let me tell you one of the most important things that took part. We had to beat Robert Lilligren and take away the DFL [Democratic-Farmer-Labor] endorsement. I am, I would say, a more conservative Democrat than most.

AY: In what way?

AW: In what way? I believe in family values. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I don’t hide that. And you have a DFL party that has become very liberal, far left, in terms of social issues. And we have a community that is very conservative when it comes to social issues. A hundred percent conservative. And I never compromise on that.

AY: But does that mean that exactly somehow you have to reject or refuse the rights of gays and lesbians?

AW: No, it doesn’t mean I refuse their rights. But it doesn’t mean that I agree with everything that they agree with. Just like they don’t agree with everything that I agree with. Look, respect is a two-way street. I respect the way they live. I understand it more than anybody else. But where I draw the line here is, you know—I never ran for a position which was about, let’s say, a legislative position where I even have an impact on it. And people would ask me all the time, “Do you agree with this? Do you agree with this? Do you agree with this?” Right? And I said, “You know, if it’s the law of the land, I can’t change it. I’m not going to go against the law of the land.” But what my belief is, my inherent belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman. This is what Barack Obama believed four years ago.

AY: But he evolved.

AW: But, yes, again he evolved, and for whatever reason—

AY: And as a matter of fact, became a very advocate of it.

AW: But that’s him, that’s him. But I have a right to hold my position. Because you know, you know yourself, the Muslim doctrine is not something that we leave at home. It’s something that’s around us when we pray, and for me that was very important that I did not compromise on what I believed in. Nor that I lie to the public. I mean, for political expediency I’m going to lie and say, “You know, I agree with this, I agree with that,” when I don’t? No! But I wasn’t hostile against it, you know. I wasn’t campaigning against it. It wasn’t my issue. This is for the general public, and the general public decided that this was okay. That was okay. Let them get married, then, and have that right. But the fact is, when people ask you this question and ask you again and again, “Do you believe in this, do you believe in that,” it’s like me saying to them, “Do you believe in coming with me to pray in a mosque?” And they will say, “No.” And then I’m forcing you, and I am saying to you, “No, come with me to pray in the mosque. Let’s go.” That’s how I saw it. And it was a way of dividing, it was a way of saying, “Oh, look at the Somalis. This is what they are.” And I’ll tell you, that’s what Somalis are. Somalis are a very conservative community. So when we run against a man, a DFLer, long-term, member of the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] community…

16

AY: Lilligren. Yes, minority himself.

AW: That was used against us. It was used against us because people were saying, people actually started making up attacks on him, and insults that we didn’t do. Look, there was no way that I—

AY: Who was making the attacks?

AW: Oh, they were, they were. His group, his team members. Somalis within his group were making up stories, they were making up lies, because they thought that they were going to rile up the larger community. They were dividing people. He thought, “They have forty-five percent Somalis? I’m going to have fifty-five percent non-Somalis.” So that was the aim. The aim initially was to picture me like I’m a warlord, I’m a bad person, I’m against this guy because he’s LGBT, I’m against him because he’s Native American, I’m against him because… You know, it was just that divide and conquer thing. And it didn’t work because I presented my case and said, “You know what? I’m not against him for what he is, but I’m against the fact that he hasn’t done anything. And his track record and his history is what we’re against in terms of service all through the city.” But he could have been an African American or he could have been anything else, and we would have still been as tough on him as we were.

AY: So while we are at it, what’s the relationship between you and the Native Americans as we speak?

AW: Oh, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful relationship. We have a very good relationship.

AY: Is it something that is evolved?

AW: There was nothing against us. There was nothing between the Somalis and the Native Americans. We have most of the Native American institutions in Ward 6. And you know, I respect them, and I love them, and I think they are a great community. I think they are a community that was here before us and we have to respect that. And the sacrifices they have made have been unbelievable. So what people did was they used that issue. That’s why openly I can talk about it. They used that issue where it was all, “Oh, you are against gays.” I’m not. I’m not against gays at all. And some of the people we supported were openly gay.

AY: So tell me one more time. I’m not exactly sure whether we jumped over or if you answered. I mean, when was the first taste of victory? When did you really, when was when you just said, “Oh my goodness, I cannot believe we did this?”

AW: Oh, the first time I remember was April 6, I believe, 2013. The caucus night. The caucus night basically was the night we defeated Robert Lilligren. We took ninety percent of the delegates. There were 386 delegates. We took three hundred and something. We brought one thousand five hundred people to the caucuses. Every single caucus we won. Every single one. It’s never been done before. Cedar-Riverside in 2009 had zero participants. Two thousand and thirteen, it had six hundred people show up. When you add the number of people who showed up

17 in Ward 6 caucuses, they were equal to six other wards’ population. We had the highest in the history of Minneapolis. That’s when we knew we won. The election was over in April.

AY: So the last days of election—I mean, the final was just in your pocket already.

AW: That’s when we won, when we won the DFL endorsement. And there was a lot of outcry and then there was a shock. It was shock and awe, to use [Donald] Rumsfeld’s analogy.

AY: That kind of language.

AW: Yeah. Shock and awe. It was unbelievable, and it showed our skill at organizing.

AY: But that’s when the accusations also came flying, too. Right?

AW: Oh yeah. That’s when the hardball politics, the hardball Chicago-style politics came to Minneapolis. I remember, that’s the title of the article. You know, supposedly we bribed fifteen hundred people.

AY: So did you bribe? [chuckles]

AW: How can I bribe people? My people are not cheap. So I saw that as an insult. I saw that as a very big insult that, “Oh, they bribed people.” Why can no people replicate that now? See, this was a skill. This was a skill of organizing. This was my life’s work. This was what I was— everything I did growing up was for that day.

AY: At this moment.

AW: And I remember that day. Listen, this is how it happened, right? I remember that day. My base was Mapps Coffee Shop. I woke up early, I took the day off from work. It’s a Tuesday. The weather’s good. It was snowing before. We were lucky. We had divine support.

AY: No kidding.

AW: The weather was good. So we come. So I sit at Mapps Coffee, and I have all my chess pieces ready. The caucus starts around six, seven. But we were so organized, everybody was ready in his station by two o’clock in the afternoon. Our opponent was led by a girl called Nimco Ahmed. They call her Nimco—I don’t know why. But Nimco—who is somebody I respect—she was in a book signing. What I know is—I have intelligence, right? So, people are telling me Nimco is at a book signing in the African Development Center. Some Somali lady called Hawa Abdi, a doctor, was signing.

AY: Yes, Hawa Abdi, yes.

AW: So Nimco was there at five o’clock, getting a book signed by Hawa Abdi.

AY: Okay, and you are there in the trenches.

18

AW: And we are ready. We are ready to pull the trigger, and she’s there. That told me that they were not ready for us coming.

AY: So how did you celebrate?

AW: I didn’t celebrate.

AY: No?

AW: I didn’t celebrate.

AY: But you know that exactly victory was just right around the corner.

AW: But you didn’t get it yet. I knew, it motivated me more, but I didn’t celebrate. You know, I never really celebrated. I never got an opportunity to celebrate, because then all of a sudden, the accusations started flying. You have to answer accusations. “Ah, this happened, that happened.” So, really, they try to take away as much, taint you as much as possible. They try to play you down as much as possible. They said this was an act of God, this was too perfect, this was luck. The redistricting was luck, this was luck. And we had a problem, which was this was the sixth [of April]. We have to get ready for the convention on the twenty-seventh. So they said, “Oh, they’ve got all these people out, they’ve got all these delegates. This was in the afternoon. East Africans are lazy. They come out in the evening, but they’re not going to come out at eight o’clock in the morning to a convention.” And this is where you see the powers-that-be can play very dirty. The convention was held on the twenty-seventh of April on a Saturday in Saint Mary’s University. Early on we realized we have a problem.

AY: What was the problem?

AW: The problem was Saint Mary’s University said that you could not have food or beverages—at all! You can’t have any food here. This was the deal with the DFL. We read it to be the powers-that-be, who were shocked, were supporting their friend, Robert.

AY: Right.

AW: So they wanted to destroy the convention, make sure people just go away, there’s no quorum, and then no endorsement. So we prepared ourselves. So you had no honeymoon, you had no celebration. And we waited for the list of delegates, and we get the final list of delegates from the DFL five days before the convention. So I have five days to organize my people. So we have to find Halima, we have to find Jama, we have to find every elder. We have to go to their homes, we have to put a team together, we have to get buses ready. All this takes a lot of organizing. But this was great. It was one of the great moments, because it destroyed the myth that many people had towards East Africans. We brought old people, and we realized very early that most of our delegates were diabetic. Now, this is a problem. If they don’t have enough food, they’re going to have problems. So what we made sure was, we went and we got food. We got breakfast, and we made sure every single one of them had breakfast. Imagine that. We had buses

19 to carry these people. In the bus, people were getting food to eat, because we were worried that they were going to have diabetic problems. We smuggled in oranges and chocolates. Really, smuggled in—contraband!

AY: Are you kidding me? [chuckles]

AW: I’m not kidding you. And we had a machine in place, and they stayed for eight hours. Robert Lilligren gave up by eleven o’clock. He gave up. And then they had the Somali ploy, a guy called Mahamed Cali, who just stayed. He just stayed! And we talked to him, “Mahamed, what are you doing, man? End this.” “No. I’m going to seek my chances.” “Mahamed, come on. Don’t embarrass yourself.” “No!” He goes to people he sees from his clan or his elders, “Oh, da- da-da,” and they say, “Oh, get lost. Naga tag warayaa, xawayaan yahow [Get lost, you animal].” And we stayed there eight hours and the elders stayed. They didn’t budge. They didn’t move. Discipline. They brought nine different motions and we destroyed every motion. We threw every motion down.

AY: So all the conflict, and all that hullabaloo, and all that Somalis were actually fighting like animals—all that, did that…

AW: No, none of that happened. That was Nimco’s stories, Nimco’s fake fairytales. In the convention it was the most orderly convention. Look, this is how disciplined our people, our troops were. All other conventions people made mistakes. Right at the end it became me and Mahamed Cali, so I started speaking in English, because I know Mahamed doesn’t speak English very well. And I answered all of the questions. One of the questions was, “What do you believe in gay marriage?” I said, “I believe everybody has a right to do whatever they want, but I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s my belief.”

AY: Simple.

AW: And then they became the election. Me and Mahamed Cali. So this was the result. Two hundred and ninety-two, Abdi Warsame. Zero, Mahamed Cali. Seven abstain. The guy spent eight hours, and he got zero. Eight hours, he wasted eight hours of our time, and he got zero. Not a single person voted for him. Not the forty white guys who were there voted for him, not a single one. And we got the endorsement. And we won. And my mother called me that day, and my stepfather called me.

AY: Where is she?

AW: Mogadishu. My stepfather called me.

AY: She called you from Mogadishu?

AW: Yes. My stepfather calls me and my mom calls me. My mom, she was very indifferent, because she always believed I could win. She had great confidence.

20

AY: But she knows the relevance and the weight of a Somali elected. Somehow or other, we always know the weight of a Somali who is actually elected to office.

AW: She knows that, but she was like, “You haven’t won yet. So this is all right.” But my stepfather said, you know, “You have proven your intelligence, which I have always known.”

AY: And where is he?

AW: He is in Mogadishu, too. And that meant a lot to me. That was the good thing. That was a good thing. I lost my younger brother in that period of time. He passed away that year of the election.

AY: Of the civil war, or just natural causes?

AW: No, no, no, no. He died in London. He died a natural death. But he never saw this. I kind of had a very dark period at that time. So everybody sees me as doing very well, but it was very dark.

AY: What did he die of, by the way?

AW: Heart—he had a heart problem.

AY: What was his name, by the way—I’m sorry.

AW: His name was Abdirahman—Allah ha u naxariisto [God bless his soul]. So we go through this election, we went through that period, and now we get ready for the actual election. In August people start registering to vote. There’s no primary. And what happens is in August, they bring in five different Somalis with the same name. Five Somalis—all Abdi’s. Abdi this, Abdi that. Abukar Abdi, Sheikh Abdul, Mahamed Cali, Abdi Addow. And myself. We saw it. I saw it. I waited. They didn’t have a Warsame. They actually had a Warsame, and then he pulled out. But they didn’t have a Warsame. So we thought, “Okay. We’ll use the Warsame name more. We’ll highlight Warsame. Warsame will be bigger. That differentiates us. That’s what differentiates us from the rest of them.” And then we worked on another thing, which was how do we overcome any confusion. Because they knew the tsunami’s coming. But they wanted to build barriers about Robert Lilligren, so instead of getting swept away he just gets wet.

AY: So who is just playing that—

AW: Oh, Robert Lilligren, Robert Lilligren.

AY: Robert Lilligren’s team, or Somalis who work with, or the DFLers, or…

AW: No, there was a combination of people who didn’t want this monster called Abdi Warsame to win. Who were uncomfortable with change. Who thought they could play with this kind of game.

21

AY: Who were they?

AW: Oh, there were many of them. There was a combination. There were Somali gatekeepers who were a bunch of the pawns. Robert Lilligren, of course, he was entrenched—he was, I think he was, I believe he was part of it. I am not sure how deeply he was, because he seems like a genuine person. But anyway, whatever they were, there was a strategy that was placed. I locked myself in my house for a weekend to think about things and to plan all the different eventualities, and then it came to me. We can do the early voting. We are going to make sure the most vulnerable members of our community, the sick, those traveling, the elders, and those who work who might not have an opportunity on a Tuesday to come out, to vote earlier. And I put it to people, and they said, “This is impossible. Cannot be done.” Barack Obama had the record in 2012 for absentee, physical. People going to a place and voting early. Twelve people did it. On our first day we took 149. So we beat that ten times. On Friday we took 149. The next Monday we took two hundred and then it became a cycle. We had actual machinery.

AY: Absentee ballots.

AW: Absentee ballots here, in this place. And Robert Lilligren was here, and every morning he would see all these old Somalis and people voting. So it became a psychological burden.

AY: Psychological burden.

AW: Yes, yes. So he lost the election by just seeing that. His plans were in tatters. They weren’t organized. They were scared, but what could they do? Then we had lawn signs everywhere. There were Somalis in Eagan who had lawn signs, Abdi Warsame lawn signs. Lawns signs were everywhere, so the visibility was there.

AY: Yeah, those who were not even voting.

AW: So again, the pride was there, and the community was motivated. But you have to have that machine, the actual machine that gets people to where to vote, to come back, take them home. And we had a thousand six hundred people vote early. Then it became a problem where, “Oh, did we get all our people to vote early? What if they don’t show up?” We had another thousand six hundred to vote on the election day. So by November fifth, we won. And after that, you know, it was no longer a challenge anymore.

AY: So now the victory just exactly replicates itself. Meaning, in other words, that even your enemies were celebrating with you. History caught up to some extent.

AW: But I don’t have enemies. I think the word enemy or hating people is a very powerful feeling. I think people must avoid that. I never had any enemies. People who usually dislike me are people who don’t know me, people who hear of Abdi Warsame. “He’s a clannist.” Or, “He’s only been here a couple of years, and he’s an upstart. He’s arrogant, he thinks he’s better than everybody else. Wuu is mahadiyey [He is full of himself].” You know, you get all of those things. But people who don’t know you say that. But people who know me usually have very good loyalty and a lot of respect, because I respect them. I never set myself apart. And my team

22 were magicians in terms of they were the best soldiers to have. Any general would want to have my team, because they implemented everything that we wanted.

AY: So it was earthshaking victory, but was this the first of what you call fruit of a competition of which you won?

AW: This was victory, but like I said, we knew that day we brought one thousand five hundred people that we won the election. We could mobilize people. We could excite them, regardless of who they were, regardless of the age they were. We had an inclusive message, and our message was an American message as well. It was like the Irish before us, and the Armenians before us, and the Jews before us. This was something that was done by other people. But what we showed was that we were highly organized. And you had very talented Somalis involved in this. You had people with engineering degrees, you have people with MBAs [Master of Business Administration], you had people with religious background, you had women who were brilliant, you know. So we had the best of our community for the first time engaged on a single issue, which was to win an election. And then we got a lot of support from that larger community as well. We got a lot of votes from non-Somalis.

AY: So, even though that you were expecting it, and you knew the outcome was just exactly going to be the victory, just tell me what it feels like the minute that exactly that you came to the final…

AW: No, we were worried to the last minute to make sure that everybody voted. I remember that day. It was snowing. It started to snow. We were worried that it was going to snow early, but it started to snow around six o’clock. The polls were going to close around seven, eight o’clock. We were panicking all day. We were running around panicking, panicking, as if we’re losing. Until the polls closed, the machine was working. People running around getting people to the polls. Making sure. “Did you vote? Did you vote? Did you vote?” Running around, going to the buildings, knocking on doors. “Get out, get out!” So the machine was working, and it was exhausting, tiring. I wanted it to be over, but it was slow, you know. The last two hours were like very slow. They were like two days.

AY: Where are you at that last two hours?

AW: We were in the headquarters, we were in Cedar-Riverside. We had the little office on Cedar-Riverside, on Sixteenth Street. And I was there, and then people were shouting. And I remember everybody was shouting. People were excited. And I wasn’t excited. I wasn’t happy. It’s not over yet, and we were hearing that there were a lot of people voting in Stevens Square, so we are thinking their machine is picking up. But it wasn’t. And then I went and got a haircut, because I never cut my hair for a while. I had a big afro, so I had to cut my hair. I had to go home and change, put a suit on. And then Mixed Blood—Mohamed Jama, M.J., young guy who organized Mixed Blood. So we went to Mixed Blood and then the results came in. Our result was the first to be declared in the city. We won by sixty-four percent.

AY: What time was it declared?

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AW: Nine o’clock.

AY: Nine o’clock.

AW: Betsy Hodges called me nine, ten, to congratulate me.

AY: Wow! So at that…

AW: Then you won, then you won. Then it was like, “Oh.”

AY: What was your emotion? When did it hit you?

AW: I had no emotion at that time. It was overwhelming. It was numbing, numbing. Then I have to stand up, then I have to talk to all the media, and I’m really tired. I’ve been working nonstop for a month.

AY: The media was just global.

AW: MPR [Minnesota Public Radio], the Star Tribune, the Somali media, the university…

AY: But later on the global actually…

AW: Everybody, CNN [Cable News Network]. But you know what happened? So that night we went, we were looking for the Mark Andrew results and Betsy Hodges won. I was kind of disappointed, because we were supporting Mark Andrew. So there was a bit of a disappointment about that. And then we went to Safari, about five of us, and the whole city is talking about it. And people change in front of your eyes. You are no longer… Now you are special, you know? People start shaking your hand. Everyone will shake your hand. Two days ago, these people didn’t even know me. Now, “Abdi Warsame? Are you, Abdi Warsame? Abdi Warsame? Abdi Warsame?” And it’s a change. It’s like some sort of a mind-numbing thing.

AY: Experience, yeah.

AW: And then I went home, and I turned off my telephone.

AY: And went to bed.

AW: And I went to sleep.

AY: How long did you sleep?

AW: I couldn’t sleep for a while. I couldn’t sleep, then I turned off my phone. And I had a thousand add-ons on my Facebook, a thousand people added on, wanting to request my friend. And the BBC Somali World Service called me and I spoke to them, and I told them, “This is the first victory of the Somali youth. This is the beginning. This is the beginning, this is the start. There’s going to be hundreds of Abdi Warsame’s emerging in the next couple of years.”

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AY: And you meant it.

AW: And I meant it. And then I went to sleep, and I avoided the media. I didn’t speak to anyone. Other people were speaking for me, supposedly.

AY: Did you intentionally choose the BBC?

AW: Yeah, yeah. I spoke to the Somali BBC.

AY: That means also you were not exactly talking to us within Minneapolis or the United States. You were talking to Somalis at large.

AW: Yes. I spoke to the VOA and I spoke to the Somali BBC—intentionally. And then I spoke to the MPR. I gave an interview on MPR. And WCCO, I gave an interview, a couple of days.

AY: So I should actually mention that—in case others are actually looking into this—the reason why that you were talking to BBC and Voice of America is just because Somalis actually listen to them.

AW: Yeah. And I thanked the people who were supporting me. I spoke to the Oromo radio station here. I spoke to them, I spoke to WCCO. I chose what I wanted to speak to, but I turned my phone off. Everybody was trying to call me. Two days I just kind of kept to myself, stayed with my family. I was more happier. Then afterwards, you know, you get more energy to come out. And I remember, I remember Black Friday, the shopping Black Friday, which followed a couple of weeks later, and me and my wife went to Southdale Mall. And it was unbelievable. Every single person there wanted to shake your hand—white people, Somali people, black people.

AY: They all recognize you. Well, Somali will recognize you, but even…

AW: Even non-Somalis would recognize you and shake your hand. “Abdi Warsame, how are you doing?” “Are you Abdi Warsame?” I go to a restaurant, people ask me, “Are you Abdi Warsame?” The waiter asks me, “Are you Abdi Warsame?” Abdi Warsame became, you know, larger than life.

AY: So at this moment, do you think that you are still Abdi Warsame, though? Yourself?

AW: I don’t buy into the whole thing. You know, even famous people are just people like us. Normal people. You just have the perception people have of you. And for me it is a burden more than anything. It is not a blessing in any way, because people expect a lot from you. People expect you to change their lives. People expect you to help their kids.

AY: But you knew that when you were getting into it.

AW: No, no, you never know until you actually experience it.

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AY: No kidding.

AW: Yeah. You never know. You knew you could win, but…

AY: Yeah.

AW: This becomes something big. And then you have people who are envious, because they think you are sitting nice. Even people that you knew. Even family members start changing, because they think you have power, they think you can do things for them and you can do this for them. You are a community that never experienced this. It’s a burden. I will say—because I’m a very private person—I like to spend my time with my family. I like to spend my time with my friends. And you have no family—everybody’s your family and everybody’s your friend.

AY: That’s gone out the window. And you didn’t know! Maybe I should tell you that. [chuckles]

AW: And I remember the best advice that I was given was from my mother, who I always admire—a remarkable person. And when I first told her, “I’m going to run,” she said to me, “Don’t do it for two reasons. Don’t do it to be famous and don’t do it to make money.”

AY: Your mother in Mogadishu?

AW: My mother is a highly educated woman, but she moved from London to Mogadishu. But she told me that advice, and that advice has always been amazing to me.

AY: Well, now it gives me, then, the opportunity just exactly to ask you your background. Now, this is where I normally start. Where were you born—no, actually, before I ask you that, who was your father and who is your mother? Where were they born?

AW: My father’s name was Yassin Warsame Ahmed, and he was born in Somalia.

AY: What city?

AW: I’m not sure exactly, but I think it was somewhere near Galkayo [Gaalkacyo]. In Mudug, I would say.

AY: In Mudug region. Was born into a nomadic family, or was he born into…

AW: No, my grandfather actually was settled by that time. My grandfather was a settled guy. He was a survivor of the colonial wars. And a gentle man, a very nice guy. Never met him, but from what I hear, stories, Mr. Warsame was a good guy. And my father was a tough, handsome, tall guy, very proud, very energetic, who had an opportunity to go to the West. Lived in Germany, lived in the Arab world, made a good deal of money, and was very successful in his time.

AY: Was he college-educated or had enough education…

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AW: He had enough education. He had enough education, and he had a worldview. That was very important. He spoke different languages—Arabic. He spoke English quite well. And he died of cancer in 2000. I never really knew him very well, because my father and my mother divorced when I was around one and a half years old. He joined the rebel movement to fight the Siad Barre [Siyaad Barre] regime early on, when I was born. So my mother didn’t have that. She didn’t buy into that whole thing. She said it was a waste of time, and she was very smart. My mother’s name is Kaha Ali Wardheere, and she was born in the district of Hobyo in the region of Mudug. She was the first in her family to be educated. She was the youngest in her family. Her father died—my grandfather died—when my mother was six months in the belly of my grandmother. My mother, to me, is the closest person I have, the person I admire the most, and the person who has had the most effect on me growing up. She is very tough, she is very serious, and I’ve become like her.

AY: How far did she get into education?

AW: My mother was one of the first midwives of Somalia. When she was sixteen years old she was a midwife. She was very competent. And there was a drought in Somalia in the seventies, late seventies, and she actually ran the whole camps in El Afweyn [Ceel Afweyn], Sanaag region.

AY: That’s where I am from, actually, in that area.

AW: Siad Barre gave her a recommendation, an honor, because she ran the whole camp. She was seventeen years old. She was brilliant. She went to medical school. Never became a doctor because she had us—me and my sister. Now, my mother remarried. I was born on March 5, 1978, in Somalia, and my mother remarried around 1980, and she married my stepfather. His name is Mohamed Mohamud Guled [Maxamed Maxamuud Guuleed]. His nickname is Gacmadheere [Ga’modhere], and my stepfather is also a remarkable human being—my father, the man who raised me. He is also from the district of Hobyo region. Highly educated, he has a PhD in economics, a degree in agriculture, speaks Arabic fluently, half of the Quran, a businessman, very charismatic. And I mimic the way he talks in Somali. I realize that I talk a lot like him. It’s a lot nurture rather than nature. And he was my first political person who I admired, who I looked up to, who I learned a lot from—politics. And he told me that Somalis are in the same clan, they are in the same struggle, they are poor—what unites us is our poverty and our ignorance. And from him, I gained the political clout that I have.

AY: He told you that when you were with him?

AW: When I was a child, when I was five years old, when I was six years old.

AY: And you processed that, conceptualize it?

AW: Yes. That’s why I remember when my stepfather said to me, “I know how intelligent you are, you just proved it.”

AY: He did say that?

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AW: When I won the election, he said that. The caucus night.

AY: Oh, oh, when you won the election.

AW: The caucus night. So, he was a political leader. He became a minister in Somali governments.

AY: What minister was he? The last.

AW: He was a minister in the Ali Mahdi [Cali Mahdi Maxamed] government. He was a minister in the Abdullahi Yusuf [Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed] government, minister of interior, in the form of 2006. He was a businessman from Mogadishu, the clans that dominate Mogadishu now.

AY: So you were born in 1978.

AW: March 5, 1978.

AY: March 5, 1978. In Mogadishu?

AW: Yeah.

AY: How much of Mogadishu do you remember?

AW: I remember slightly Mogadishu. I remember it was a city with villas. I remember it was a big city, and I remember it didn’t have many roads. That’s what I remember from Mogadishu.

AY: When did you leave? How old were you when you left?

AW: Nineteen eighty-seven, so I was about nine years old.

AY: Nine years old. So…

AW: Even younger than nine, I think. Eight years old. I was young at that time, I remember.

AY: How much of the war do you remember? What was the war to you?

AW: We didn’t see the war. I remember the old saying, you know, when the war was in Burao [Burco] and Hargeisa, that the final will happen in Mogadishu. So the final did happen in Mogadishu. And my mom had foresight. My mother had two kids from one clan and four kids from another clan. So we had six kids altogether. And she had the foresight that this war that’s coming, coming to Mogadishu, is going to split her family.

AY: That’s what she said.

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AW: That’s what she said. And when she prepared to leave, people laughed at her, said she was mad. Caradii baa ka badatay [She was very angry].

AY: Wow! So this is the dynamics of our actually schizophrenic family relations. I’m sensing that your brothers are from two different clans—possibly from Isaaq and Darod [Daarood], are they? Or Hawiye and…

AW: Something like that. Like I said, for me, I don’t think the titles are important. My brothers and siblings are my siblings. They don’t belong to any clan, they belong to my clan. They’re my brothers and sisters. All of them are the same as me, and I am the same as them. And I identify with my brothers’ families as much as I identify with my family, because my stepfather was not an uncle to me, he was a father to me.

AY: So it’s just that you were bred into that, and then once you actually came to the West and also got your own opinion, you validated that—meaning that brother, or what in the Western world is called half-brother, is still your brother anyway. I mean, it’s not someone from the other clan.

AW: I have thirteen siblings. One passed away, so I have twelve now, and out of all my siblings, I have a sister who you would say in the Western language is a full sister. All my other siblings are either my mother’s children or my father’s children. So what we do is we will continue. What I will say is that upbringing from a family—I was raised by my mother’s family, and at the height of the power, they were the Blackhawk Downs, and the guys who ran Mogadishu, they were very tough, very tough people. And I never sensed anything. I never sensed to be an outsider from them. I was always their member. And it was my mother who taught us that clans are really irrelevant. Her friends were from every single clan. We had Barawani aunts. Habar Yarteena Barowaniga ah [our Barawani aunts]—because she was my mom’s friend. You know, we never had these little things—to us we were very nationalistic.

AY: Yeah.

AW: We were very nationalistic. Nationalism was very important. Patriotism was very important. Being Somalis was very important. It doesn’t matter if a person was a Reer Waqooyi [people from the north]. So what I would say is that for us, love of the people was very important, and that was instilled in me from my mother, and from my stepfather, and from my father. My father was a very courageous man, and as I grew older I looked to understand him and his history and his experiences. I never had an opportunity to actually see him as an adult. And I’m very proud of him as well. I remember speaking to my father when I was very small, one of the last conversations I had with him, and he said that, “You will be my…” Something like, “You are my favorite son.”

AY: Wow.

AW: And I said, “Why?” “Because,” he said, “Your mother is great.” And that became a self- fulfilling prophecy, because I always worked towards fulfilling my father’s prophecy.

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AY: Unbelievable.

AW: Yeah.

AY: So, now, actually, just because we are running out of time—we could, actually, I think, talk twenty-four hours, but… And this is very important as well, because I want the children who were born here or even in Somalia just to read and see this. What would you say the difference is between the UK and the United States was—or, in that matter, in this state? What are the differences?

AW: Somali diaspora?

AY: Somali diaspora over there and here?

AW: I would say the UK Somalis have been there for a longer time. Their identity has basically merged. In the UK there is less clan orientation, even if you have Reer Waqooyi and you have Reer Koonfureed [people from the south] and what they call Reer Xamar [people of Mogadishu]. But the identity, the Somali identity was very strong in London, even though you have Somaliland supporters, secessionist supporters, who are my friends, who I love very much. But the identity of we are the same people, we are in the same struggle, and we are going the same place, I think was much greater in London because they’ve lived together for a long time. So there was a mixing of the idea. For example, let me tell you something. I knew I was going to win my election when I saw… It was funny—I was sitting in a coffee shop in Cedar-Riverside and watching the Olympic Games. And I’m seeing this skinny Somali guy running, running, running—and he was like me. He actually came to London later than I did—Mo Farah. And the whole stadium and the whole country was fixed on him winning. And I remember, growing up, when nobody liked us. So that time when I saw Mo Farah win the Olympic gold, and became the greatest distance runner in British history, that shows that there was a change. For the first time…

AY: You felt it.

AW: I felt it. There was a change. You had Mo Farah, you had K’naan and the World Cup in 2010. So for the first time Somalis were becoming mainstream or very successful.

AY: I remember that. I actually listened to the BBC—I don’t listen to the BBC anymore, because I really loath the way that they, right now, articulate the Somali language. So I think they are, to be honest with you, a bunch of lazy guys.

AW: They waste taxpayers’ money.

AY: Yeah. I listened to it just because I wanted to survey the feelings of Somalis. I realized that Somalis in the continent of Africa were celebrating, the Somalis in Europe were celebrating, the Somalis in Asia were celebrating, the Somalis in Australia were celebrating, the Somalis in North America were celebrating. Maybe Antarctica if there were Somalis, they would have.

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AW: He became a winner, and we don’t have a lot of winners.

AY: Well, that’s the case. Okay, the point on which I would like to conclude is just that within twenty years, what do we look like in here in Minnesota? Or in Minneapolis? What does the Somali community look like to you?

AW: I think twenty years is not a long time, but I think the Somalis will work harder—

AY: Well, we have been here for twenty years.

AW: We are still adapting, we are still evolving.

AY: But we are very visible.

AW: Yes, we are. And I think the Somalis, they will do wonders in Minnesota, as long as they integrate and they don’t assimilate, as long as they keep their faith, as long as they keep their values, as long as they understand that those things are advantages to them—when you speak a language that your colleagues cannot speak and the unity that comes from our values. I think they will make wonders. They will surprise a lot of people, and I think this is just the beginning. You know, we are having hiccups, we are going to have hiccups, we are going to have bad moments. But what we will do will be something amazing.

AY: What about Abdi Warsame? What is in the plan or in the offing?

AW: Abdi Warsame, I will probably, if I am healthy and I am okay, my main aim is to raise my children. That’s my main aim, to raise them the way my mother raised me. To make sure that I instill in them that confidence, to instill in them that belief. And to do my best for my constituents. But I don’t see myself being in this for a long time, I don’t believe—especially in this office. I think it’s not a career, you know. It’s not something that you can really stay for a long time. This is a public service, and if you really love public service and you want to work hard for public service, it is something that you should put all your energy into for a good amount of time.

AY: But are you aiming a higher office?

AW: No.

AY: Okay. Well, I am just going to try to conclude here, before we get another knock on the door. And I really appreciate this.

AW: Thank you, Ahmed, for coming.

AY: Thanks.

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