Asian American candidates aim to break state records - and 'the bamboo ceiling'
It took 174 years for Chicagoans to elect the first Asian American to sit in the city council - and nearly two centuries for Illinois voters to send the first member of the community to Congress.
Today, at least 10 Asian Americans hold elective offices across the state - two representing Illinois in the nation's capital. And voters will get a chance to dramatically increase those previously slow-growing numbers in elections this year and the next.
It's part of a nationwide trend already unfolding in Virginia, Michigan and Indiana - and reflective of a 2020 Pew Research Center study finding that Asian Americans are becoming the fastest-growing segment of eligible voters out of the major racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.
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