Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
This Is What America Looks Like summary
Ilhan Omar
My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman
Listen to the first key idea
Key idea 1 of 8
4.5 (43 ratings)
23 mins
8 key ideas
Audio & text
What is This Is What America Looks Like about?
This Is What America Looks Like (2020) is a memoir tracing Ilhan Omar’s incredible, trailblazing journey from war-torn Mogadishu to the floor of the US House of Representatives. In the process, she learned what truly matters to her as a Muslim, mother, American, and human being.
About the Author
Ilhan Omar went from a Somali refugee who spoke two words of English to one of the first Muslim women elected to the US House of Representatives. She’s sparred repeatedly with President Trump, over issues including immigration, Israel, and Islamophobia.
Table of Contents
Key idea 1 of 8
Ilhan Omar’s carefree childhood was interrupted by civil war.
When Ilhan Omar was a child, she was physically tiny. However, she punched above her weight – literally. In her hometown of Mogadishu, Somalia, she often got into fights at school. Despite her size, she wouldn’t put up with bullies picking on her or other kids.
Ilhan wasn’t a typical Somali girl. But her family wasn’t a typical Somali family, either. For one thing, Ilhan and her siblings grew up without their mother, who died when Ilhan was two years old. For another, her family was Benadiri, an ethnic minority in Mogadishu. Her family had learned long ago that they didn’t fit in, so they might as well do and act as they liked. That meant, among other things, raising the girls in the family with as many privileges and responsibilities as the boys.
Ilhan’s first few years were happy. But that happiness wasn’t to last.
The key message here is: Ilhan Omar’s carefree childhood was interrupted by civil war.
When Ilhan was eight, war broke out in Somalia, seemingly overnight. Her house was hit by bullets and mortar shells multiple times, and the war caused serious food shortages, leaving her family with only rice and beans to eat. Still, they were the lucky ones: in 1992, the year the war broke out, around 350,000 Somalis died, many from starvation or disease.
When armed men tried to break into the house as the family cowered inside, Ilhan’s grandfather realized that they had to leave Mogadishu. The next morning, the family split up and loaded themselves onto several different cattle trucks, which were crammed with people fleeing the violence. Ilhan left with her pregnant aunt Fos, heading for southern Somalia. But the violence was spreading throughout the country, and soon the family was forced to cross the border into northern Kenya.
Eventually, they ended up at a refugee camp outside the Kenyan city of Mombasa, joining the rest of her family from Mogadishu. It was bleak, but at least people gave Ilhan food and water. At the camp, she felt looked after.
However, while Ilhan and her aunt Fos had escaped the violence of Somalia, they weren’t totally out of danger. Disease was rife in the camp, and soon, her beloved aunt contracted malaria. After a few weeks, she died of the disease. For the first time, Ilhan felt angry and scared for the future.
Want to see all full key ideas from This Is What America Looks Like?
Key ideas in This Is What America Looks Like
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
Who should read This Is What America Looks Like
- Superfans of The Squad
- American politics junkies
- Anyone looking for a modern-day fairytale
Categories with This Is What America Looks Like
Books like This Is What America Looks Like
What our members say
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
Start growing with Blinkist now
25 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers