Nabilah Islam is a progressive Democrat running for Congress in Georgia's 7th district. To donate to her people-powered campaign, click here.
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Hey -- you NEED to see Nabilah's latest piece on the importance of economic diversity in Congress:

Forsyth Politics: Nabilah Islam, in my own words

My name is Nabliah Islam. I'm running for Congress in Georgia's 7th district, where I was born and where I have lived most of my life. As a kid in Gwinnett, I didn't grow up with a lot of money. My parents are Bangladeshi immigrants, and when I was younger, my mom worked multiple jobs to ensure my brother and I would have a better life. She worked hard to ensure that we rarely felt the full extent of her financial hardship.

Often, the language of financial hardship in immigrant families is in the past tense, as though poverty can be alleviated in a single generation. Congrats, you worked hard, now you're fine forever! But I can tell you firsthand it's not the lived experience of most.

Recently, I had to put my student loans into forbearance. If you don't know what that means, let me tell you: I don't have the money to pay my student loans, so I'm going to put them on hold for the time being. I feel grateful that I'm able to take advantage of student loan forbearance, but it's a troubling spot to be in.

Some people love to tell millennials they just need to work smarter and harder to avoid financial ruin. But I did everything I could -- like going to an in-state public college to minimize tuition costs and working odd jobs from the time I was a teenager to save up.

But I still had those loans, and seven years later, I'm still paying them.

I threw my hat into the ring to run for Congress in 2020 because our country can't be called the land of opportunity if an entire generation is drowning in student debt, praying that if they forgo healthcare in the gig economy or lose it altogether after being laid off, they don't have a surprise medical emergency.

This isn't just a campaign talking point, this is real for me. I've had some hard conversations with my campaign team about what it will take for me to stay in this race. I've decided to cancel my health insurance. The plan I can afford does not cover the things I need it to if something seriously bad happens to me. If I hurt myself while canvassing or God forbid get hit by a car, I would be stuck paying out of pocket, regardless. The idea of going without health insurance is, to be honest, terrifying.

The thing that no one wants to say, the elephant in the room who never gets speaking time on the floor of Congress, is that it's a privilege just to run. It isn't just a coincidence that, over the past several hundred years since our nation's founding, hardly any representatives in Congress have been women or people of color. And we've still never had a woman, someone who didn't identify with Christianity, or an openly LGBTQ person as president.

If we don't have economic diversity in Congress, we'll never solve these problems, because we won't have anyone representing us who has lived them. We'll never break the cycle of the wealthiest deciding what's best for everyone else.

I'm risking a lot just by writing this. I'm running for Congress so I can be a voice for every millennial who is growing older in an America where everything -- our Social Security, our healthcare, our reproductive rights, the very future of the planet we live on -- is in question because of bad decisions made by other generations.

So what does this mean for my policy platform? I'm advocating for legislation that will make a tangible difference in the lives of middle-class Americans like me.

Firstly, we need to eliminate student debt. Right now, $45 million Americans owe $1.6 trillion in student debt. The student loan industry is inherently predatory -- it's predicated on the idea that 18-year-olds should be tricked into taking on decades worth of debt that they can't possibly comprehend. It sets Americans up for failure before their careers have even started.

And this is an issue that stretches far beyond my generation. $289.5 billion of that $1.6 trillion in debt is owed by Americans aged 50 plus, forcing so many into poverty in their later years. Our system shouldn't be targeting seniors post-retirement when they deserve to reap the benefits of decades in the workforce. If our government can bail out massive banks, we can support middle-class Americans trying to make ends meet.

Secondly, we need a living wage. Despite ever-rising costs for groceries, rent, and other basic necessities, wages haven't increased since 2009. The median rent in my district is $1,244 -- and individuals working minimum wage jobs make $100 less than that each month.

The system is forcing people into poverty, while Republican politicians release fear-mongering soundbites about how major corporations that pay their CEOs millions of dollars will crash and burn if they allow their employees $15 an hour. If we have an enforced federal living wage, we'll stand a much better chance of erasing -- or at the very least lessening -- the boundaries set by race and gender.

We need to tackle corporate welfare. Last year, Amazon paid $0 in federal income taxes. The company is valued at one trillion dollars and raked in $11.2 billion last year. Taxation on major corporations can be used to provide federal subsidies for small businesses, allowing them to compete in our ever-more cutthroat job market, stay profitable, and keep them in business despite competition from large corporations.

Some will say that my ideas are too big, too bold. A few others will definitely tell me that I need to go back to where I came from -- despite the fact that I came from Georgia, and I'm still here! -- and see what will happen when I propose my progressive platform there. I'll be compared to AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib, because all women of color who support the middle class are exactly the same, and also deeply evil. I know this because I'm already on the receiving end of these attacks every day.

But I'm not going to avoid supporting egalitarian policies because of a few racists who are determined to silence me. The only way we'll ever make progress is if my generation takes the wheel and demands that our government works for us, not the other way around.

Even though this is a tough time for me, I KNOW that we can change our country for the better.

Despite my student debt, despite forfeiting my healthcare, despite all the vitriol that's coming out of the White House saying that people like me don't deserve a voice, I am still standing strong, here, today. I'm a millennial daughter of immigrants who are struggling under unchecked capitalism -- but I'm in this race to win, and to give a voice to you.

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-- Team Nabilah