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Did you know? Zohran Mamdani's wife went to school in Dubai, met him on Hinge
Syrian-American artist Rama Duwaji has been Mamdani's silent supporter all through
Some of the most powerful images coming out at the end of the New York mayoral race have been that of winner Zohran Mamdani with his wife Rama Duwaji by his side, taking in this historic moment. Mamdani's win has put renewed spotlight on Duwaji as the Gen-Z first lady of NYC.
The 28-year-old media-shy artist was born in Houston, Texas, and moved to Dubai when she was about 9. Her father, a software developer, and her mother, a doctor, are both Syrian Muslims from Damascus.
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They were supportive of her passion for art, though they also encouraged her to choose a more practical career. It was during her last few months in high school in Dubai that Duwaji decided to pursue art as a career.
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She attended Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar for her freshman year of college, and moved to Richmond, Virginia, the main VCU campus, to complete her undergraduate studies.
She graduated in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in communication arts. After that, she lived with her family in Dubai and participated in various artist residencies, including in Beirut and Paris. She moved to New York City in 2021 to study illustration as visual essay at the School of Visual Arts, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in 2024.
Meeting, marrying Mamdani
After moving to New York in 2021 to pursue a career as an artist, Duwaji met Mamdani via the dating app, Hinge, when he was a little-known state Assembly member. They soon developed a relationship, and Mamdani's friends have shared that Duwaji effortlessly blended into their group.
On October 21, 2024, Mamdani posted a photo of Duwaji, smiling, on Instagram, with the caption “Light of my life,” a ring emoji and the hashtag #hardlaunch. He began his mayoral campaign two days later.
The pair had an engagement ceremony and a Nikkah in a "garden romance" rooftop setting in Dubai Creek Harbour in 2024.
Mamdani also shared photos from their courthouse wedding, which featured the pair posing on the New York subway, with Duwaji wearing white with a vintage coat, holding flowers.
Formerly based in Brooklyn, the couple now lives in Astoria, Queens, close to Steinway Street. Astoria is known as a lively hub of Arabic food and culture, with plenty of shops, bakeries, restaurants, and hookah lounges in the area.
Quietly supportive
Duwaji has rarely spoken publicly about her husband's mayoral race, but is quite vocal through her art. One of her illustrations published in a feature article in New York magazine was about the objects that Palestinians took with them when they fled their homes in the Gaza Strip.
“I believe everyone has a responsibility to speak out against injustice, and art has such an ability to spread it,” Duwaji said in an interview in April with Yung magazine. Many of her designs express concern for humanitarian crises in Gaza, Sudan and Lebanon.
However, she has largely avoided the typical campaign activities expected of candidates' spouses, choosing to remain outside the traditional political spotlight and shunning the media attention that automatically comes with it.
With her husband's historic win, Duwaji now finds herself as the city's Gen-Z first lady, just four years after moving to New York as an aspiring artist. Whether she is able to maintain her low-profile, quietly vocal artistic life, remains to be seen.
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