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| Alderperson-elect Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, center front, with her Filipino American supporters. |
When she’s sworn in next month, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth will join 11th Ward Ald. Nicole Lee as the only Asian Americans on Chicago's 50-member City Council. “I’m just thinking of my dad — never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined we’d get here,” she told the Sun-Times.
Manaa-Hoppenworth's upset victory gave Chicago two Asian American City Council members for the first time in the city's history.
"I am so proud to stand before you tonight as the first Chinese American elected to the City Council of Chicago," Lee told supporters at her victory party election night. "We've just participated in the first democratic process in the first Asian American majority ward. Let this moment, this memory, be one that you keep with you, as I will. If you ever doubt that a new path can be carved, don't."
The 11th Ward became the city's first Asian American majority ward under new ward maps going into effect in May in a Southwest Side ward that has long been the home of the powerful Daley family. The ward includes the Chinatown, Bridgeport, Armour Square, and Canaryville neighborhoods.
While most of the national media focused on Lee's historic run, on the North Side, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, the daughter of Filipino immigrants, was making history under the radar.
Long-time community organizer and small business owner Manaa-Hoppenworth clinched her bid to make history as Chicago’s first Filipino American City Council member on April 7 when her opponent, Joe Dunne, conceded defeat in the 48th Ward runoff.
“I’m very excited to represent the Asian Americans in the 48th Ward and across the city,” Manaa-Hoppenworth told the Sun-Times on election day, April 4 “I’m just thinking of my dad — never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined we’d get here.”
Dunne conceded after more than 900 mail-in ballots were counted by Thursday evening with Dunne earning 48.17% of the vote to Manaa-Hoppenworth’s 51.83%
The April 4 election results will alter Chicago politics, long run by the political machine led by the Daley family and their supporters.
Manaa-Hoppenworth was endorsed by Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson and rode a wave of victories by progressive candidates.
By electing more progressive candidates, “voters said they are tired of doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results,” according to Manaa-Hoppenworth.
“The voters told me at every door I knocked on that they wanted to make sure everybody had what they needed, housing first and foremost. To stop normalizing poverty, to make sure people get the health care they need,” Manaa-Hoppenworth said on election night. “We can do that with a more progressive City Council and mayor.”
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| Ald. Nicole Lee will represent Chicago's Chinatown. |
Manaa-Hoppenworth joins Lee, who gave Chinatown's first Chinese American Alderman. She won her run-off election after being appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who lost her own bid for re-election
With all precincts reporting, Lee held 62% of the vote compared to her challenger Anthony Ciaravino's 38%.
Manaa-Hoppenworth is a longtime local small-business owner and community organizer running for alderwoman of Northside's 48th ward, which includes parts of Andersonville, Edgewater, and Uptown.
The first Filipino American elected to the Council in its 185 year history, Manaa-Hoppenworth is a mother of three kids, all of whom attended Chicago Public Schools, she dances tango in her free time, is a licensed physical therapist, and identifies as queer. Her experiences as a Fillipina American and progressive activist also helped shape her political views on status-quo politics.
As co-founder of Indivisible Illinois, she collaborated with individuals and organizations with both rural and urban interests for the benefit of the entire state and, in Chicago, coordinated grassroots efforts to knock on doors and help get progressive Democrats like US Congresswoman Lauren Underwood and Governor JB Pritzker elected in 2018.
Other AAPI candidates running for Chicago Alderman seats were Roxanne Volkmann, and James Suh.
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