Former refugees look to Election Day with a sense of duty
NEW YORK — The path to the voting booth hasn’t been easy for Hatoumata Tounkara, but the former West African refugee says she couldn’t have picked a better election to cast her first ballot.
As a newly naturalized American citizen, she’s one of thousands of former refugees and asylum-seekers who will be voting in a U.S. election for the first time this November.
“This election is very special to me,” Tounkara said. “This can show my daughter that she can become anything she wants in her life, because back home, women just cook and take care of the men.”
At 23, Tounkara fled her home in Mali after rejecting an arranged marriage. She made her way to the United States via Gambia in 2008. It took two years for the U.S. to grant her asylum, and then she waited six more for a chance to take the citizenship test.