TalkTime: Kiran Ahuja, Champion of Public Service
Kiran Ahuja’s outlook on race was molded in Savannah, Georgia, where she grew up. She attended law school in Atlanta and went on to spearhead the White House’s AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) Initiative. Now Ahuja is the chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, which provides human resources and support to federal agencies.
How did your childhood in Georgia shape the
person you are today?
My parents immigrated in the early ’70s.
My dad was a psychiatrist. We lived in a
lot of different small towns in the South
and then ended up in Savannah in my
elementary school years.
When you're a kid all you care about is trying to fit in and it was, at the time, somewhat challenging, because there were few Indian families. Then, of course, the Indian families that were in the schools, everyone else thought you were related to each other. Just experiencing firsthand the dynamics of race in the South had a profound impact on me.
Many children of immigrants
could probably say that.
What is it about the South
in particular that resonated
with you?
It was a very different
experience from some of
these major cities that
are big draws for immigrants,
like New York
City or San Francisco,
where you're jumping
into a melting pot.
Also, when I was in Savannah, it was still under a desegregation order. The year I graduated from high school was when they came out from under the desegregation order, so I was bused downtown, and then kids were bused to my school throughout that time. You had diverse schools but you were also dealing with these dynamics of living in very different parts of the city. I saw it play out, where each race or community would stay in their comfort zone. Not that you didn't see the cross-pollination, but I learned very early on how to navigate both, and what that meant.
Is that what steered you towards law? I
am assuming it was a gradual evolution, but what
shaped that decision for you?
I did not like science and math. I was a political
science major in college. I was taught very early on
about what it meant to be engaged as a full citizen and
to care about those who are less fortunate. Law, in the
sense of doing public interest law, was definitely
something that I gravitated toward.
How did you get to where you are now?
After law school, I had a really
fortunate experience to get the job
I wanted, which was the Department
of Justice Honors Program. They
bring in attorneys directly from law
school, or federal clerkships. I got this
job inside the civil rights division working
on desegregation orders.
You came full circle then...
Absolutely. And then here
in D.C., I started to get much
more involved in the Asian-
American community. I
did civil rights litigation
for a few years, and then
became the first executive
director of this small
Asian-American nonprofit
that was focused on women's
issues. That also helped
significantly, because I built
relationships with a whole
host of Asian-American women
who were very engaged in
their communities, and cared
about a range of issues, from
health, domestic violence, trafficking,
immigration.
With Asian-Americans, it's such a huge umbrella.
How do you unite everybody under that umbrella,
when at the same time, everybody's concerns are really
different?
There are two significant challenges. There is the
Asian-American community, which in and of itself is
very diverse, and it is very much a political, social construct.
There is the Asia Pacific side, based on regions. If
we were to separate into individual communities like
Filipino or Korean or Japanese, the size would be really
small, so if we want to have any influence around
issues, it was important for the community to work
together. During my time at the White House initiative,
I always made a point of making sure that we not
only did work that cut across all these different communities,
but we focused on specific issues that really
affected niche segments.
What does your work involve now?
After serving as executive director of the White
House AAPI initiative for six years, I wanted to gain a
broader experience in federal government. You could
have the best mission-focused job in the world but if
you hated your boss, if you couldn't stand the culture, it
doesn't matter. We're setting the stage so that agencies
have the right people to fulfill their mission.
Now of course, it's not the same landscape anymore,
but what advice would you give to kids who are
looking to follow your path?
You are seeing a lot more South Asians coming into
public service. This helps because young Indian-Americans
are maybe pushing their parents a bit to say, ‘I
want to have alternative careers.’ There is value in serving
in government, and for young people at the beginning
of their career, it really should be guided more by
what’s your passion, not what’s your job salary.
Poornima Apte is a Boston-area freelance writer and editor. Learn more at WordCumulus.WordPress.com.
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