We all know how wrong polls and pundits can be. They underestimated the popularity of the current president’s first successful run for office in 2016. Pundits were dead wrong about a “Red Wave” of GOP voters that never materialized in the 2022 midterms. In the last presidential election, several polls of swing states were off base.

That recent history is partly why I remained so cautiously hesitant about the possibility of Zohran Mamdani -- a Muslim of South Asian heritage; a 34-year-old immigrant from Uganda; a former state assemblyman -- winning the New York City mayoral election. He was an unlikely candidate running against a political dynasty, with billionaires wildly throwing millions against him and with barely any support from the Democratic establishment and leadership.

But my doubts were rooted in something bigger than the power brokers lined up against him. Unlike Mamdani, a millennial who was 10 years old in 2001, I was in my late 20s when the horror of 9/11 changed us all and the world around us.

I can viscerally remember the trauma of that day as both an American, fearing for my relatives and fellow Americans who worked in the Twin Towers, and as a Muslim, fearing the backlash against our entire community. A brief moment of unity in the immediate aftermath was followed by years of hateful attacks and targeted policies and harassment. It opened the floodgates for the GOP to use Muslims as their scary bogeyman, especially during an election year, which is when the fears of impending “Shariah law” cynically reappear.

When the anti-Muslim attacks against Mamdani ramped up -- disgusting and dishonest smears that he would cheer another 9/11, that he was a terrorist who should be deported, that he was a threat simply because of his faith -- it tapped into a familiar anxiety among American Muslims in my generation. The bigotry was so open and oddly nonsensical. They called him a radical Islamo-Marxist Communist who would implement Shariah law, even though communism rejects religion and Mamdani has always been openly progressive and liberal.

But I had seen this show before, and I internalized the message: Racist political attacks don’t have to make sense or be connected to reality. They just have to provoke primal emotions of fear and anger to work. Trumpism ascended on the politics of grievance, fear, division and exclusion.

Could this relentlessly positive, charismatic young man talking about compassion and unity and affordability overcome that?

Clearly, he did, and with a mandate that was a stunning rebuke to the fearmongers.

The first Muslim mayor of NYC was elected by a diverse coalition of native-born Americans and immigrants, across religious, ethnic and racial backgrounds. In fact, Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, a self-described “liberal Zionist” Jew, who grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, was critical to Mamdani’s success in the primary.

Mamdani’s victory required hundreds of thousands of Jewish voters rejecting the idea that criticism of Israel’s war crimes is antisemitic. It took NYC’s affluent voters recognizing that the city can’t thrive unless its workers can afford to live there. It took New Yorkers who have lived in the city for generations embracing the belief that immigrants make us stronger, and that together we can stand up against an aspiring authoritarian. More than 2 million New Yorkers cast ballots and picked a different vision for the city than it’s ever had.

I don’t know if Mamdani will be able to deliver on all his policy proposals, but I know that running free buses in Kansas City since 2020 hasn’t turned it into a communist hellscape. I know that 50 years of trickle-down economics giving tax cuts and corporate welfare to the wealthiest hasn’t helped the middle class in America. And I can see that sending troops and masked federal agents into American cities against its own citizenry looks like tyranny, not democracy.

I don’t pray as much as I should, but I woke up before dawn on Election Day to say a special prayer. I prayed for better leaders who wanted to serve all their constituents; who believed in the worth and dignity of all people; who wanted to better the lives of the most vulnerable and stand up for justice. I prayed that a majority of New Yorkers would see through the tsunami of lies and bigotry.

When Mamdani was declared the winner with more than 50% of the vote, I felt a kind of hope and optimism that has felt out of reach for years. In his acceptance speech, he said: "I am young ... I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this."

In that moment, I saw a different future of possibilities in this country.

New Yorkers took a chance on a young, untested Muslim man to lead them during these divisive, difficult times, and it healed something deep inside of me.

It felt like a prayer answered, a hope ignited.

Nearly a hundred dancing guests spilled out of a white tent and into the streets of a quiet Midwestern subdivision on a Wednesday night. I wondered how long before someone called the cops.

Sippie, the bride, dripping in gold and wearing a hot pink lehenga, hopped in the back of a pickup. One of her relatives, dancing with a large, lighted pot on her head, led a parade of guests waving glow sticks and their bouncing arms over their heads.

The bride’s father, Neetu, is a college friend of my husband’s. In fact, my husband remembers dancing at one of Neetu’s wedding celebrations decades ago. Now, we were at our first Sikh Punjabi jaggo, a prewedding celebration with booming bhangra music, ebullient folk dances and an abundance of food and drink.

I’ve attended more than a hundred weddings -- 111, to be exact. Many of them have featured diverse traditions across South Asian cultures. But this was the first time I’d been part of a processional like Sippie’s jaggo.

Jaggo literally means “wake up,” and the event is meant to wake up the neighbors to let them know a wedding is coming up and to spread joy through the community. That’s good and well in India, I thought. But I was a bit nervous about the reception this merry band of revelers -- men in colorful turbans and women with vibrant, phulkari dupattas -- would get in a buttoned-up suburb of St. Louis.

It was 8 p.m. on a school night, after all.

Sippie quickly stepped down from the truck bed, saying she wanted to properly dance. She joined her relatives, who were competing in an informal dance contest between her mother’s and father’s sides. A trend in South Asian weddings involves elaborately choreographed and rehearsed dance performances by the family and friends. My husband and I have been included in a few group dance numbers at other weddings, proving that skill and talent aren’t prerequisites to participate.

But this dance-off was different. This was an exuberant, unrehearsed jubilee -- a mix of immigrants, their children and grandchildren, unapologetically taking up space in America in a way that has lately felt less welcome.

I met one of the many cousins who had traveled from out of town to attend the wedding. She explained that the host family gives advance notice to their neighbors about this boisterous tradition. As we walked, a car drove up behind the gathering. One of the guests walked beside the vehicle, parting the crowd to create a path for the driver to cross. The partygoers cheered the driver through.

A few residents came out on their driveways to wave and clap along with the wedding guests. On the march back to the house, I noticed another driver sitting patiently in his car for the procession to pass. Neetu and his wife were talking and laughing with their neighbor and urging him to come to their house and join them for dinner and drinks.

Watching that moment unfold felt restorative. When our political leaders are fomenting division and fear of difference, neighbors across this country still appreciate one another’s joy even when the celebrations look completely different from their own.

Back inside the tent, women of all ages began a series of traditional dances and songs. It unleashed an unbridled joy followed by a surprise dance number. Neetu and his wife, Pinky, performed to a poignant song about a daughter leaving her parents’ home.

It’s the beginning of an emotional farewell, which will continue in ceremonies and parties over several days, until her departure. Sippie’s face beamed watching her parents.

For Punjabis, dancing is a love language.

That night, it was understood by everyone within earshot.

The day "Suja" saw her young son crying and banging on the car window as her husband drove him away, she knew she had to get away.

Terrified and sobbing, she walked to a nearby playground and typed into Google: “My husband is hitting me. My son is crying.”

The number for a domestic abuse hotline came up. She called. The hotline worker asked if she was safe. Suja cried and said her husband had taken their son, and she didn’t know what to do.

They advised her to go back to their home. Pack quietly. Wait until her husband leaves the house again. The next day, Suja picked up her son from school and called the crisis helpline. They sent a cab and took them to a safe house.

When her husband realized they were gone, he began calling her relentlessly.

Suja, who is being identified by a nickname for her safety, went back to him that night, again hoping that he might change. She had left once before. Years ago, she took her son to India to escape her husband’s abuse. Family pressure and his promises of change brought her back to America, to the St. Louis area.

Change didn’t last.

This time, he reverted to his patterns much more quickly. Within a week, he started hitting their child. Suja called 911. The cops asked her if she had a place to go, and the crisis center sent another cab.

“I didn’t come back,” she said.

This was in 2015. When she left, Suja had an H-4 visa, granted to dependents of immigrant workers in America on an H1-B visa. The shelter connected her to Aruna Tailor, an advocate for domestic abuse survivors who has helped them navigate complex legal and immigration paperwork. Tailor advised her to file for an order of protection. After her husband was served court papers, he fled to India, taking all their passports and revoking Suja and their son’s visas.

Suja remembers her husband’s lawyer's words to her at the safe house: “You’re out of status now.”

She was desperate and terrified. Suja had $20 to her name and a dead cellphone with no service.

She realized that if she ever went back to her husband, she and her son could be killed, but once it was time for them to leave the shelter, she had no idea where to go. A friend from her church collected money for a deposit on a one-bedroom apartment.

Suja, whose husband had never allowed her to work in the U.S., began looking for a job that would pay in cash. Despite having a master’s degree, she accepted a restaurant job offering $3 an hour. She also met a woman at her local library who became another lifeline. This woman helped her find work cleaning houses, so Suja could pay her rent in cash.

Tailor helped her file for a temporary work authorization permit for domestic abuse survivors that the Biden administration had put on a faster timeline. Then, Suja’s husband came back from India.

Suja filed for divorce. It took more than three years of court battles to get it finalized. She won protection orders and testified in court when her ex violated them and began stalking her. In 2018, she applied for a permanent resident card for domestic violence victims.

Tailor, who co-founded a nonprofit for South Asian domestic abuse victims and serves on several boards to help survivors, says many factors prevent immigrant women from seeking help. They face cultural or language barriers and are often reliant on their abusers for legal immigration status. One of the women she was helping told her family about the abuse, and they told her to bear it, Tailor said. When she does presentations about domestic violence for refugee or immigrant groups, she is careful about the words she uses. If the women reveal they went to a presentation on domestic violence, it may trigger violence in the home, Tailor said.

Mary Ann Owens, CEO of The Women’s Safe House in St. Louis, said their help is available to any victim regardless of immigration status. In fact, they have a legal advocate who helps those survivors with the long and difficult process of regaining legal status. She said the current political crackdown on immigrants and ICE raids, which have ensnared even those who are here legally, have created an atmosphere of such fear that those trapped in abusive situations refuse to seek help.

Many won't even leave their homes.

Once Suja was legally allowed to work, she found a professional contract job with a large corporation. She rebuilt her life -- buying a used car and a small home, creating stability for her son. The nightmares that plagued her daily have lessened.

Suja said sometimes she still feels ashamed for the years she stayed in her abusive marriage.

“I was a very well-educated person,” she said. “How could I not know these things?”

She has continued to work under an authorization permit while her application for permanent legal status has been pending in the system for seven years.

She has no idea how much longer she’ll be waiting.

For help, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by texting “start” to 88788 or calling 800-799-SAFE (7233) or going to thehotline.org. The Department of Health and Human Services has also compiled a list of organizations by state (bit.ly/47jV00K).