Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing populations in the United States. In the State of Illinois, this diverse and often over-looked community of 473,000 includes Americans of Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Pakistani, Thai, Tibetan and Vietnamese descent.

The Asian American Institute was established in 1992 as a pan-Asian not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. Its mission is to empower the Asian American community through advocacy, utilizing research, education, and coalition building. 

Specifically, the Institute works to:

• improve cooperation and mutual understanding by bringing ethnic Asian American communities together
  
• raise the visibility of the Asian American community and spotlight its concerns so that elected officials, policy makers and the general public will understand
  
• gather and disseminate data about Asian American communities