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For roughly two decades, Asian Americans have been the in the United States. In time for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, ¹ú²úÊÓƵ’s Future of Work and Innovation Economy initiative interviewed Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke, president and CEO of the , which promotes political participation and representation from community service to elected office. 

Mielke’s Vietnamese and German American family was one of the last U.S. families to leave Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. She shares her journey growing up in the Washington, DC, area, finding a political home with APAICS, and targeting the most pressing issues facing the AAPI electorate in 2026, including the impacts of emerging technology.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Could you tell us a little about yourself and how you came to this work with APAICS?

I had the good fortune to intern after my freshman year of college for Steny Hoyer, my local congressman growing up. I had also already been president of my student body when I was in high school, and I became one of the vice presidents of the student body at my college. I had colleagues on the elected executive board who were all women. This was in the early 1990s, and we were very fortunate to be in leadership with a group of diverse women. I think that helped reinforce a lot of my identity as someone who believed in representation. 

From there I continued on my political journey, having worked at a national committee and then becoming a political consultant, where I had my firm for 16 years specializing in political fundraising and strategy. So I came to APAICS at a time where I really believed in being able to uplift the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander community, and it has given me a great opportunity to serve the community over the past eight years as president and CEO.

The found in 2023 that inflation and economic inequality were the most important issues to AAPI voters. In 2026, do you have a sense of whether that has changed? What do you see as the most pressing electoral issues among the AAPI community in today’s economic and political climate, facing a major midterm year? 

It hasn’t really changed that much when we look at current national events. My colleagues at APIAVote conducted their in 2025, which had very similar findings. Overwhelmingly, AAPIs were citing the cost of living and economic security as their top concerns (58 percent of respondents). 

Just recently, my colleagues at the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) and AAPI Data released their for 2026, and it again found economic security and the economy as key factors driving the community’s concerns. (Editor’s note: A March 2026 of registered voters across the country found that 26 percent identified inflation and the cost of living as the most important issue, alongside threats to democracy, topping other issues such as immigration.) The close second, depending on the time, is military conflict. I think that is also on the minds of people as they turn to the news on foreign policy and what’s happening internationally.

Nearly 70 percent of those were concerned about the military and defense spending as well as immigration enforcement. That alone is a big chunk of taxpayer dollars going towards something else when they would rather see it spent on health care and education. That goes back to the underlying feelings about economic security and jobs in this economy. 

All across the country, AI has become a divisive topic as states weigh , and reveals both hopes and concerns Americans share around AI’s impact on jobs and the economy. How has this shown up among the issues of importance to the AAPI community?

A from Asian Americans Advancing Justice tells us that individuals lack clarity on exactly what AI does and how it affects them. Job opportunities, especially those accessible to individuals who have limited English skills, are being reshaped by AI, which can also be a benefit. There are a lot of things that give us accessibility [through] AI. People need to understand where AI actually plays a positive role for us as well as the negative impacts. This is something that the 2026 NCAPA and AAPI Data also addressed. Respondents said they don’t want it to create racial bias. They want more legislation or public policy that prevents racial bias and prevents AI systems from making final medical decisions or educational placement decisions. There are things that you want a human to touch.

I think everyone is slowly catching up, and that’s why I think it’s important for us at all ages. We want our seniors to be well equipped to make decisions and not get scammed. We want our young people to feel like they’re on top of potential generational wealth that they can be learning to lean into. But we also want to be transparent about the risks and considerations. We need to figure out how to keep our feet on the ground and still be able to develop new things and be ready for opportunities for economic security.

How has APAICS tried to address these concerns in the community?

When I first came to APAICS, we didn’t really have a lot of policy conversations, and so I started integrating that as part of our work. Another thing we do is make people understand that Asian American legislators are at the forefront of a lot of this work, not because they’re Asian American but because they have been working towards subject matter expertise in their communities. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), for example, is an engineer and is focused on upskilling and workforce development. APAICS is here to help ensure that the community understands the topic. We bring in experts to talk to us, present on panels, and have a robust conversation about the impact of technology. 

Bringing people together for these conversations allowed APAICS to have a more robust dynamic with the legislators working on this at the federal level as well as folks who might be doing it in state legislatures. As we talk about manufacturing and technology, for example what happened with the [2022] CHIPS and Science Act, people need to know what it means in terms of its impact on consumers and the community. It needs to translate to how people understand its effects on them.

Sometimes technology develops a lot faster than public policy. Public policy leaders have an opportunity to set the guidelines and guardrails. That’s why the conversation is so important to us. There are times when you want to talk about the positive and negative impacts of technology from a full societal point of view, and then there are times when you want to talk about how it affects certain communities, including our own.