Asian-Americans have lived in Chicago for over a hundred years, and after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the number of Asian-Americans living in the U.S. dramatically increased. By 1990 there were over 290,000 Asian-Americans in Illinois.

In 1992, a group of activists founded Asian Americans Advancing Justice, which is an advocacy group in Chicago that is celebrating its 25th anniversary. We were joined by Tuyet Le, executive director of AAAJ.

April is National Poetry Month. In honor of that, we thought we would assemble some Illinois poets to talk about their craft, how and why they write, and what our poetry scene looks like across the state. We were joined by Champaign-based poet Gale Walden, poet and Monmouth College creative writing teacher David Wright, and Allison Joseph, associate professor of English at Southern Illinois University.