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50 Iranian-Americans You Should Know: Cyrus Habib, Lieutenant Governor of Washington

February 9, 2017
Roland Elliott Brown
3 min read
50 Iranian-Americans You Should Know: Cyrus Habib, Lieutenant Governor of Washington
50 Iranian-Americans You Should Know: Cyrus Habib, Lieutenant Governor of Washington

Iranians have been making significant contributions to business, science, culture and entertainment in the United States since the early 20th century. Today, there are almost one million people of Iranian origin living in the United States. In this series, IranWire profiles the Iranian-Americans you should know, highlighting their achievements and careers, and asking what it means to be part of one of America’s most educated and successful communities.

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Cyrus Habib, 35, is the Lieutenant Governor of the US state of Washington. The young Democrat is the first and — at time of writing— only Iranian-American to hold elected office at the state level.

His responsibilities of office include serving as president of the Washington State Senate, and as acting governor when the governor is out of the state.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Iranian parents, Habib is a cancer survivor, and lost his eyesight to retinoblastoma at age eight. Shortly thereafter, his parents moved to Washington state, where his father worked as an engineer for Boeing, and his mother studied law and later became a judge.

“After I lost my eyesight,” Habib wrote in a Washington Post op-ed,

my parents, in American fashion, pledged never to let my disability limit my dreams. Their confidence and support allowed me to go from Braille to Yale...It’s a tale that can only be told in this country, where hard-working and brave people of every religion, race and national origin come to contribute and flourish.

Habib studied comparative literature at Columbia University and then travelled to Oxford, England as a Rhodes Scholar, studying English Literature and writing a masters thesis on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Salman Rushdie’s the Satanic Verses—the novel that inspired Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to offer money for the author’s murder for blasphemy in 1989.

When Habib returned to the United States, he studied law at Yale University in Connecticut with financial assistance from the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation.

“When I applied for the Rhodes Scholarship and Soros Fellowship,” Habib told The Huffington Post in 2015, “I continued to try to express my core belief that the formula that makes America great is hard work plus opportunity.”

Upon receiving his law degree, Habib worked for Pekins Coie, the largest law firm in Washington, where much of his work involved assisting local technology companies with securing venture capital and licensing. He also taught at the Seattle University School of Law.

Entering politics in 2012, Habib was elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 2013. In 2014, the Washington Post named him one of 40 Under 40 Political Rising Stars. In 2015 he joined the Washington State Senate. He took his interest in technology into government. Once in office, says his official bio,

Habib fought for innovative policy solutions to help small businesses gain access to capital, ensure companies like Uber and Lyft could operate in Washington with appropriate safety regulations, and expand access to government for Washington residents by allowing for the submission of prerecorded remote testimony on legislation.

Habib’s passion for technology derives, in part, from his blindness. He has proclaimed Apple’s iPhone the greatest boon to the blind since braille, since he can talk to the device and tell it which apps to use.

Sworn in as Lieutenant Governor in January 2017, Habib began work on such day-to-day affairs of state government as natural disaster preparedness and community safety.

But within weeks, he was embroiled in the nationwide dispute over President Donald Trump’s executive order preventing people from seven Muslim majority countries including Iran from entering the US for 90 days.

Habib wasted no time in condemning Trump’s order. “This would have been my family,” he said, speaking at a press conference at Seattle’s Seatac Airport:

Twenty-so years ago, my father was on the road to citizenship, still a green card holder. If, this past Friday, for example, he had decided to visit friends in Vancouver, B.C., he would have been barred from coming home to his family... It’s inhumane. And it’s the kind of behavior that we had committed decades ago to having learned was un-American.”

 

 

 

 

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