Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, 2008: Andrew OuOffice of Civil RightsWashington, DC May 8, 2008  Andrew Hak Ou was born and raised in Seoul, Korea and completed his secondary schooling in Nairobi, Kenya before moving to Washington, D.C. to attend Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. After he obtained his Bachelor's degree in International Politics, Andrew worked in the Japanese government and education sectors for four years then completed a Master's degree in East Asian History at the University of Hawaii and East-West Center in Honolulu, where he wrote his thesis on Japanese cultural assimilation policies in colonial Korea. Andrew also studied at Seoul National University and Waseda University, and speaks Korean, Japanese, and French.
He joined the State Department in September 2001, and served in Jamaica and Hong Kong before his current assignment at State Department headquarters as Desk Officer for the Republic of Korea. As the second U.S. representative to the Baker-Kato Diplomatic Exchange Program, Andrew will work for a year in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs starting in September 2008 before transferring to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo as a political officer. If I had to comment on this year's theme of "Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Future"... My father was an ethnic Korean who was born and raised in Japan before immigrating to Hawaii more than fifty years ago. In his lifetime, he experienced the humiliation of colonization, devastation of civil war, and disorder of a nation in transition. I intend to honor his past by working towards a future that he and his generation must have struggled so hard to envision. This will be a future of peace and understanding, something we can all celebrate as Americans. Released on May 29, 2008 |
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