Huldah Momanyi became the first Kenyan born immigrant to win a seat in the US elections that were conducted last month.

Huldah shared her story with Lynne Ngugi, revealing how she ended up in US politics.

According to her, her family fully migrated to the US in 1995 when she was 9  years old, but it wasn’t the struggle to finally become American citizens wasn’t a walk in the park.

“My parents fought the immigration system for 11 long years and you know how complex the immigration system is in America. After that it was  my church which is Africa-American petitioned then Senator Paul Wilstone who is very well loved senator in the state of Minnesota and in the country. He is the one who literally who went and lobbied for my family. He didn’t know us from anywhere but he believed in humanity and he believed that we contribute to the fabric of the state of Minessota. Within 48 hours our case was overturned,” Huldah said.

“I couldn’t have imagined that that moment, I was just a preteen, that moment would literally change the trajectory of my life  to now this moment 22 plus years later. I used to say am running for office, I can now say I have actually been elected into office.”

Huldah said that she was inspired to vie for the seat because of her community was being neglected in terms of resources and there was nobody to fight for them.

“I did a lot of community work and I was the president of the biggest Kenyan organisation in the mid west. I would go to the capital, literally lobby the elected officials  we are here we see there is money here and resources, what about our community? We have special needs that are not being met at the capital. Nobody is at the table, talking on our behalf,” she said.

All efforts to get the mayor address their concerns however left her feeling belittled and invisible. To make matters worse, the mayor announced retirement and endorsed another candidate for the position.

“I was like this is not the American democracy that I love and that I want to fight for. I looked around and I was like somebody needs to run. I remember that  night at 3 am under the covers googling how do I become  a candidate,” she said.