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‘Squad’: Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib band together at orientation

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley in a Twitter photo from September 2018. Twitter

A quartet of progressive women recently elected to Congress has arrived in Washington, D.C., this week — and based on their social media feeds, they’ve become fast friends.

Ayanna Pressley of Boston, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan have been taking people behind the scenes as they get ready for the start of the next congressional session together, giving supporters a snapshot of what so-called “freshman orientation” is like for incoming members of Congress.

On Monday, Pressley, who became the first woman of color to represent Massachusetts on Capitol Hill, posted a picture of herself with Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and Omar — all of whom were attending an orientation hosted by the Congressional Progressive Caucus — as they posed for a selfie.

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The image, which was shared on Pressley’s Instagram story, was stamped with the hashtag #Squad.

Later in the day, Pressley, who won Massachusetts’ Seventh Congressional District, posted a picture of a notebook, pen, coffee, and a pin emblazoned with the letters BYOC — or “bring your own chair” — that she wore while campaigning.

“Just a few freshmen orientation essentials,” Pressley wrote.

Senator Elizabeth Warren made an appearance in a video posted to Instagram on Monday by Omar, the first Somali-American to earn a seat in Congress, as the group attended the caucus’s “new member orientation.”

“Elizabeth,” Omar wrote, adding a smiley-face emoji with jazz hands.

On Tlaib’s Instagram, a picture of her standing with Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Pressley read, “#DreamTeam in Congress.”

“Going to hit the ground running fighting for #JusticeforAll,” Tlaib wrote.

Last week, Tlaib and Omar became the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

As for Ocasio-Cortez, who upset her primary opponent in New York’s 14th Congressional District, earning her the title of the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, there was no shortage of the documentation of the arrival of the four women to Washington.

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Her Instagram feed was peppered with videos and pictures of the group as they went about their day, attending meetings and getting up to speed on what’s to come.

“Can confirm,” she wrote. “It really is like freshman orientation.”

In one video, Ocasio-Cortez is holding her smartphone above her head, recording as they walk through a building while flashing peace signs and waving to the camera.

“Say hi, everyone,” she says in the clip, as the others smile and laugh in the background. “We out here.”

Her video was later circulated by Pressley and the others on their Instagram accounts, with some using the hashtag #SquadGoals.

One picture in particular that Ocasio-Cortez, a Boston University graduate, posted Monday seemed to strike a chord for many as an image of hope and was shared widely online.

It showed the four leaders sitting together in a row, at a long conference table, and was captioned with a single word that seemed to become the theme of the day: “Squad.”

“This is a superhero squad origin story right here,” one person wrote in response to the photo.


Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.