The humble origin brag is a mainstay of Kelly Tshibaka’s campaign. “We are literally a family that went from homeless to Harvard,” Tshibaka said in 2020 in an interview with right-wing politician Jim Minnery, a slogan she also tried out with other right-wing groups.

Minnery claimed that “Kelly Tshibaka knows what it means to live in a tent,” though Tshibaka never lived in a tent.

“She went from being homeless when she first arrived in Alaska with her parents, living in a tent, to Harvard Law School. It’s a very inspiring journey,” Minnery falsely claimed.

Tshibaka’s parents briefly lived in a tent in the summer of 1975 in Anchorage, along with thousands of other young and healthy people hoping to make it rich on the trans-Alaska pipeline.

Along with the “homeless” charade, her invented humble origin backstory includes the Tshibaka claim to be the first person in her family to attend college.

“I fought hard to be the first in my family to pursue a college degree,” Kelly Tshibaka says on her campaign website, a claim she repeats in almost every interview.

Her grandfather on her mother’s side, Edward Allsup, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas. He went on to earn a master’s degree in music education from the University of Kansas in 1952.

Her grandfather earned a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California.

Allsup’s 1971 dissertation is “Certain teacher and teaching factors related to pupil success in reading in the second and third grades.”

He began teaching music in 1955 and retired as an elementary school principal in 1977. He taught graduate school at Cal State and Pepperdine and served as a reading consultant for various school districts in Southern California.

Tsibaka’s grandmother on her mother’s side, Jean Allsup, earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Oregon State University. She also earned a teaching degree from California State University-Northridge.

Jean Allsup taught elementary education in the LA school district for 22 years.

So why does Tshibaka continue to falsely claim that no one in her family had tried to pursue a college degree?

Because it sounds better and she didn’t expect anyone would check.