More details about Leni…

Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth is a longtime local small-business owner and community organizer who was elected as alderwoman of Chicago’s 48th ward on April 4, 2023. The ward includes parts of Andersonville, Edgewater, and Uptown. Leni has deep roots and investment in the 48th ward, the community that she loves. She is the first Filipina to serve in the 185-year history of the Chicago City Council.

Leni 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 Filipina American and progressive activist also inform her political views on the Chicago Machine and 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.  

Her local Indivisible chapter, Indivisible Illinois 9th District Andersonville-Edgewater (Indivisible IL9), has endorsed such initiatives as the Peace Book Ordinance, which calls for diverting a small portion of the CPD budget to fund job training and violence prevention programs led by young people, and CPAC Now, which has since become Empowering Communities for Public Safety ordinance (ECPS), which places police accountability in the hands of the people. Indivisible IL9 has also endorsed and helped get out the vote for progressive Democrats like Hoan Huynh for Illinois 13th District House Representative.

In 2016, Leni was the Director of Operations for the Illinois Chapter of the Women’s March on Washington, and helped mobilize 10,000 Illinoisans to Washington, DC. In 2017, she founded ILVOTE, a state-wide organization with the mission to help the electorate stay informed and engaged in every election. In 2018, she was awarded the Peggy A. Montes Unsung Heroine Award of Cook County for her work at ILVOTE.

As a small-business owner, Leni adopted the inclusive principles behind the Chicago Therapy Collective’s Hire Trans Now initiative in 2019, which advocates for policies that help reduce barriers to employment for trans people, especially people of color. In 2022, the city of Chicago also adopted this pledge.

Leni has served on the boards of Chicago Tap Theater, Cerqua Rivera Dance Theater, Jones College Prep Local School Council and the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce. In 2022, she was awarded the Kurt Mathiasson Award for community leadership by the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce for her work as a co-chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, whose purpose is to create a thriving community by upholding values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Andersonville Business District by providing business recruitment and support, education and training, coalition building, data collection and analysis, and support for other organizations engaged in this work.

The foundation of Leni’s campaign for alderwoman is that health, housing, and safety are human rights. Caring for our whole community leads to safety for everyone. Learn more about Leni’s vision for the 48th ward here. We all do better when we all do better.

In 2024, Leni was also elected as 48th ward Democratic committeewoman to activate and mobilize for every election and to support Dems up and down the ballot. The 48th ward is one of the few wards on the north side of Chicago that has not had a dedicated Democratic organization and Leni looks forward to fostering civic engagement with fellow 48th ward Dems.