- Immigrant Times
- Nov 6
- 4 min read
Born in Uganda, raised in Queens, Zohran Mamdani elected Mayor of New York City
“My immigrant story is one of millions”
By The Immigrant Times’ NYC correspondent
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect, spent the first seven years of his childhood in Kampala, Uganda, (photo) and Cape Town, South Africa, before arriving in New York City as a seven-year-old. He will move into the NYC City Hall (photo) on 1 January 2026.
November 2025: When Zohran Mamdani took the stage on election night (4/5 November 2025), cheers rose not just for a political win but for a vindication of New York’s immigrant story. “New York will remain a city of immigrants,” he told the crowd, his voice steady but charged with emotion. “A city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants — and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”
With that, history was made. Mamdani, born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian-heritage parents and raised in Queens, became New York City’s first Muslim mayor — and its first of African birth. His victory, beyond politics, is deeply symbolic: the culmination of generations of migration, aspiration, and belonging.
From Africa to New York City
Zohran Mamdani’s journey mirrors the layered migrations that define modern New York. His parents, the eminent scholar Mahmood Mamdani and acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, were part of Uganda’s Indian diaspora, a community uprooted under Idi Amin’s regime in the 1970s and scattered across the globe. Their son was born decades later, but the stories of exile and resilience were the background music of his childhood.
From Kampala to Cape Town, and eventually to New York City when Zohran was seven, the Mamdani family carried with them what immigrants everywhere do: the conviction that identity can stretch, adapt, and still remain whole. Growing up in Queens, Mamdani learned that home was not a fixed place, but a process, something you build.
Growing up in Queens shaped Mamdani’s politics
Before his ascent to City Hall, Mamdani represented Astoria in the New York State Assembly, where he became a sharp and empathetic voice for working-class communities. His politics, rooted in social housing, worker protections, and immigrant rights, were shaped not in elite circles but in the daily rhythms of immigrant New York: the morning subway crush, the corner bodega, the mosque after Friday prayers, the public school parents’ meeting.
In interviews, he often credits the city’s diversity for his political awakening. “New York taught me that difference isn’t something to manage, it’s something to celebrate,” he said in 2023. That belief became the cornerstone of his campaign, and perhaps the reason so many New Yorkers, from Bangladeshi cab drivers in Jackson Heights to Dominican shop owners in Washington Heights, saw themselves reflected in him.
Victory night
On victory night, the crowd outside City Hall looked like the city itself: flags from half a dozen countries waved under the November chill, chants in English, Urdu, Spanish, and Arabic mixing in the air. Mamdani took the podium and paused, visibly moved, before invoking the people who built the city he would now lead.
“This city was laid brick by brick by hands that came from far away, hands that dreamed, that laboured, that refused to give up. It is their city, and tonight, their story continues.”
Those words echoed across immigrant communities that have often felt unseen in politics. For them, Mamdani’s win is not just representation; it’s affirmation.
Facing the city’s challenges with optimism
Mamdani inherits a city facing daunting challenges, a housing crisis, economic inequality, and a rising tide of migrant arrivals straining resources. Yet he frames these not as burdens, but as reminders of what New York has always done best: absorb, adapt, and grow.
“Every generation of immigrants faced scepticism,” he said during his campaign. “And every generation proved that the city is stronger when everyone belongs.”
For older immigrants, his rise stirs memory, the shopkeeper from Dhaka who remembers arriving in 1987 with $40; the Ghanaian nurse in the Bronx who worked three jobs to send her daughter to college. For younger ones, it stirs possibility: that an immigrant kid from a rent-controlled apartment in Queens can stand before the skyline and call himself Mayor.
NYC, the immigrant city
New York’s identity has long been described as “the immigrant city,” but under Mamdani’s leadership, that phrase feels less like nostalgia and more like a living mission statement. His administration, he has promised, will reflect the mosaic that elected him, in its appointments, its priorities, and its language.
He has already pledged to expand immigrant legal aid, strengthen multilingual education, and protect workers regardless of status. But beyond policy, what Mamdani represents is a cultural reset, a turning of the city’s self-image back toward its beating heart: migration as creation.
“I am one of millions”
In the final moments of his speech, Mamdani looked out over the crowd and smiled. “My story,” he said, “is one of millions. That’s what makes this city sacred, not that we’re all the same, but that we’ve all arrived.”
Further reading: Ghazala Hashmi elected lieutenant governor of Virginia || American sanctuary states and cities || An African immigrant serves NYC on the world stage ||
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