Their eyes were trained on the television as the first returns came in. Wilders’s party would pick up seats in the Dutch parliament, testifying to the hold his anti-immigrant message has taken in parts of the country. But he would not be in a position to govern, the newscaster explained, and the ruling, center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy would probably retain its position as the largest in parliament.

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The early results marked a setback for the far-right leader proclaiming a sea change in Dutch politics. Wilders found encouragement in the upset victory of President Trump in the United States and the British vote to exit the European Union last year.

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“I’m glad,” Boudarsyssy, 57, said of the early returns. “I think the right people will win.”

She immigrated to the Netherlands from Morocco when she was 18. The right people, for her, were the Greens, an upstart party led by a charismatic 30-year-old, Jesse Klaver, who is half Moroccan.

Rafika Boudarsyssy voted the same way, explaining, "We feel we can relate to him." He, in turn, seems to understand their perspective, she said.

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“And that’s not just good for us,” Boudarsyssy said, gesturing at her daughter, who is 21; her son, Mohammed, 17; and her husband, Ahmed, 56. An older daughter lives in Amsterdam, and an older son in Antwerp, Belgium.

“We’re not only voting for us and our family,” Boudarsyssy said, her daughter translating. “We’re voting for the rest of the Netherlands and the future, of course. We’re all part of one big family.”

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The family was gathered around black coffee and cookies in their spare three-story home on a block lined with Moroccan families. The parents, both sick with diabetes, no longer work full time. Their daughter just completed training as a medical assistant and is doing shifts at a clothing store in Utrecht before she takes up work in a hospital. Mohammed is in high school. The family voted together in the evening, before returning home to pray, for the fifth time that day.

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Their preferred party, the Greens, made major gains but will remain outnumbered in parliament by more mainstream parties, some of which moved right to fend off Wilders. To the family, this suggests a broader rightward shift in attitudes toward immigrants, spurred by individual acts of bad behavior that have come to characterize an entire community.

They resent this, but there is a generational difference in what they expect. She is not fully satisfied by the results, said Rafika Boudarsyssy, as her mother celebrated with a neighbor on the phone. Her father went to bed an hour after polls closed, confident his country’s direction would not change drastically overnight.

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But Rafika Boudarsyssy pointed to the rhetoric of the prime minster, Mark Rutte of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, who recently warned foreigners to “act normally.” She cited the government’s diplomatic row with Turkey, which she said threatens to intensify distrust of Muslims, who number about 1 million in the Netherlands, according to Pew data. And she said she feared that her employer could soon bar her from wearing a headscarf, in the wake of the European Court of Justice’s ruling that such rules are lawful.

If she has one hope for her daughter, Mamet Boudarsyssy said, it is that their lives will be easier here than hers was.