Guest Columnist: Mussab Ali Says He’s Always Been ‘Too Young’
Originally Published — https://jcitytimes.com/guest-columnist-mussab-ali-says-hes-always-been-too-young/
If he is elected mayor of Jersey City in November, it’ll be the third time he’s the youngest person ever to do something.
Mussab Ali was the youngest person elected to the Jersey City Board of Education and became its youngest president. He’ll be the youngest person ever elected mayor here, beating Gerry McCann by three years. He’ll also be the city’s first Muslim mayor.
None of that is surprising to him, and he doesn’t think it should shock anyone else. He’s been an overachiever his entire life and intends to continue doing unlikely things.
Only once did he have doubts.
His story begins in 1997 when he was born, the youngest of three Ali kids in the Punjab region of Pakistan. In 2000, the family moved to northern New Jersey. Ali doesn’t recall the town, but remembers his mother came to Little India on Newark Avenue to buy groceries.
“It smelled like home,” she told him. She inhaled all the savory spices and told her husband they should move here. Once she learned of McNair High School’s achievements, that settled the issue. Jersey City became home
The first few years weren’t easy, he said. After planes hit the twin towers on 9/11, Ali’s father lost his job at Newark Airport because officials there assumed anyone named Mohammad could never pass a background check. His mother was able to keep her job teaching in New York City, although she recalls no one would sit next to her on the bus.
When young Mussab learned Donald Trump, a candidate for president in 2016, had made spurious claims about Arabs dancing on Jersey City rooftops on 9/11, he was furious. Recalling the ways his parents were treated and realizing there were no Muslins among Jersey City government top officials, he decided he’d be the first.
He was 19 years old, ambitious and qualified, he thought, but he was not old enough to hold office. Except on the Board of Education. And schools were what the teenager knew most about, anyway.
So he ran for a seat there. Good student that he was, he did his homework. He was flabbergasted during the first debate when the candidate in the next chair didn’t even know the amount of the education budget, how many teachers were in the system, or even the correct number of schools.
Nevertheless, he lost that election and said he felt like “an imposter,” a teenager running against all these older people. He decided politics was not for him.
That decision didn’t last long.
Trump became president and young Ali didn’t like the way things were going anywhere in the country. When a seat opened up on the Board of Ed less than a year later, he couldn’t resist trying again.
This time he won. At 20 years old he became a member and three years later became president.
He’s very proud of all the things he accomplished. Small things like getting new water fountains in every school and big things like increasing teacher salaries despite a $70 million cut in state funding, hiring a new superintendent, and persuading all the various teacher, parent, and other factions to work together.
He thought there should be a student representative on the Board and made it happen. Now, he says, every school board in New Jersey has at least one student, following the model he developed.
His time on the Board was very busy.
Ali had earned degrees in biology and economics from Rutgers and received a scholarship to Harvard to study law. During the pandemic all classes were virtual, so he could attend remotely during the day, handle Board responsibilities in the evenings and study all night.
Except an irritating cough led to a diagnosis of lymphoma and a series of almost debilitating chemo treatments. Fortunately, they worked.
Soon after Ali’s term on the Board ended he was cancer free and had a law degree, although he hasn’t yet found time to take the bar exam.
He’s been enmeshed in voting rights activities and couldn’t stop thinking about conditions in Jersey City.
“It’s the Golden Door of America, right?” he says, noting 41 percent of residents are foreign-born and the minority total is 76 percent.
“Where’s that representation?” he asks.
He believes there should be a mayor who reflects that diversity. He notes the mean age of Jersey City residents is 34, and he believes that demographic should also be reflected.
He believes he should be mayor to represent everyone.
People do tell him he’s too young, he says and laughs.
“I’ve been too young since I was 19,” he says, “but I’ve proved them all wrong.”
He feels his opponents have all been in the political system too long and have lost touch with what people need. He’s been talking with people for years, he says, and has developed policy papers and proposals with concrete ideas for what he’ll do as mayor.
He takes what he calls “a more academic approach” to leadership but says ideas must never come from the top, only bottom-up will work.
He is devoting every day to campaigning and expects to prevail.
“What if you don’t?” I asked. “With five candidates running, let’s say your chance is only 20 percent, and you might not make a run-off. Will you give up or plan to run again in four years?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed. “I can’t predict. So far my life seems to have changed every four years. Who knows what’s ahead?”
He does plan to remain involved in public service, however. He is certain of that. But for now, he is also pretty sure he’ll become mayor.
“I’ve generally been surrounded by people younger than me by decades and I have prevailed,” he said.
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Mussab Ali is the former JC BOE President, education non-profit founder, and cancer survivor. The son of immigrants, Mussab was raised and educated in Jersey City. A graduate of McNair, Rutgers, Tsinghua, and Harvard Law, Mussab founded the Ali Leadership Institute to equip activists, organizers, and community leaders with the necessary skills for effective civic participation at the local level.
