Pakistanis, Muslims make history in US mid-term polls.

WASHINGTON -- 'Education is the first step towards empowerment,' says 21-year-old Alisha Khan, who was elected to the board of education in New Brunswick, a city in New Jersey.

'I graduated from high school only three years ago, so I know what our generation needs,' says Ms Khan, who is the youngest among those elected this year to state legislatures in US mid-term elections.

Her parents migrated to New Jersey from Karachi. 'Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. Together, we made history,' said Salman Bhojani, who is a Pakistani-American, like Alisha and Suleman Lalani.

Mr Bhojani and Mr Lalani made history as the first Muslims and South Asians elected to the Texas legislature. Both are Democrats.

Now, 'we build bridges here, not walls,' said Mr Lalani in an apparent reference to the Trump administration's decision to build a wall along the Texas-Mexico border to prevent immigration.

Their victory is also significant because in the Texas legislature, Muslims haven't always been met with open arms. In 2007, Dan Patrick, then a state senator, boycotted the Texas senate's first-ever prayer by a Muslim cleric.

Patrick now presides over the senate as lieutenant governor.

In Tuesday's mid-terms, 82 Muslims were elected to federal, state, local and judicial offices across the United States. There are a number of Pakistanis among them. Axios, a news site, reported that a record number of Asian-Americans were elected this year, including several Indians and Pakistanis.

The site did not disclose the exact number, but published several names. Among them are Shri Thanedar, the first Indian-American elected to the US House of Representatives from Michigan, and Aruna Miller, the first immigrant and first Asian-American elected as Maryland's lieutenant governor.

Earlier this week, Jetpac Resource Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a final count of 82 local, state legislative, statewide, judicial, and federal American Muslim electoral victories in the mid-term polls. It is the highest since Jetpac and CAIR started tracking the electoral progress of American Muslims - 71, the previous high-water mark, was set in 2020.

Of the 29 state-level Muslim incumbents, many were the first Muslims elected to their state's legislature and kept their...