Mulling over the promise of Zohran Mamdani in Trump’s America at my daughter's Pre-K graduation

Where my daughter’s joy meets my immigrant ache—and why Zohran Mamdani gives me hope.

My preschool graduate at our elementary school in Astoria, Queens

The microphone let out a small shriek before the principal approached the podium and welcomed us to the pre-K step-up ceremony. I held my phone steady, zooming in on my daughter’s heart-shaped face as she mouthed the words to the school song. She stood in a neat row of small bodies, their voices wavering and wide-eyed, their arms rising in clumsy unison. I recognized the melody. I had once sung the same song on this same stage, decades earlier.

But I had never imagined this moment—at least not like this. The brown daughter of a brown mother standing in the glow of something I had long longed for as a first-generation American—tradition, continuity, legacy.

Growing up, I devoured sitcoms about white suburban life—Full House, Boy Meets World, 7th Heaven—stories whe…