William Tong, the Connecticut Attorney General, is the first Asian American to be elected and then re-elected to a state-wide position in Connecticut.
According to the Connecticut Insider, Tong, a Democrat, was the first Asian American elected to the General Assembly in 2006. In 2018, he was the first Asian American elected to a state-wide position.
Tong is the son of Chinese immigrants and grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. He worked as an attorney before he pursued politics.
Tong has always understood the importance of bringing more Asian American voices into politics. He spoke about his role as an Asian American leader during an interview with Mother Jones while running for attorney general in 2018.
“Being an Asian American politician is a lot like being an Asian American—you spend much of your time feeling invisible. For example, there’s this traditional paradigm between black and white and now Hispanic. Often when people speak about racial injustice they say ‘black and brown,'” he said.
“When people say that my immediate visceral reaction is, ‘You must not see me. I’m invisible to you.’ Because in that setup, I’m not included in that and neither are you—we’re omitted from that conversation.”
Tong now is in a position to be a voice for Asian Americans. With his win in 2022, he is the first Asian American to be re-elected to a state-wide position in Connecticut. Tong wants people to know that this is just the beginning for Asian Americans.
“I’m not going anywhere, and people like me aren’t going anywhere,” Tong said in an interview with Connecticut Insider. “And you can’t wish us away and deny that the world is changing.”
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