Payback Time: Shinae Chun Heads DOL’s Women’s Bureau
By Terry Hong
Special to AsianWeek
Within minutes of walking into the office of the Women’s Bureau Director Shinae Chun, she ushers me to her computer, where she demonstrates the vast range of information and resources available on the bureau’s website. She pulls up the last three issues of the Women’s Bureau’s e-News, explaining that dispersing information through the computer via email is the most effective means of communicating with women in the work force. “That’s just another example of why IT [Information Technology] is the key to a promising career,” she says animatedly. “You can’t even hope to get a good job without being familiar with the computer today. Almost every career requires technology know-how. And that’s one of the major areas we’re focusing on right now.”
As the Director of the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor, Chun is the highest-ranking Korean American in the Bush Administration. Born in Japan and raised in Korea, Chun arrived as an immigrant to the United States in 1965 to pursue further education. With her degree in English from prestigious Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Chun thought she might study library science. But Northwestern University, the school closest to where she was living at the time, did not have such a program, so she took a graduate degree in education and social policy instead.
Chun’s circuitous career took her from guidance counseling to public schools to state government to private consulting and eventually to the federal government. In May 2001, Chun took the helm of the Women’s Bureau under Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.
Founded in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified to give women the right to vote, the Women’s Bureau is the only federal agency devoted solely to advocating on behalf of working women. Today, the bureau is helping prepare America’s working women to be competitive in the new economy. And Chun is energetically “in the driver’s seat” guiding the bureau to meet its many goals. “For me, this job is a way of paying back,” she says. “It’s an enormous opportunity, a humbling experience and a huge privilege.”
AsianWeek: Once you finished your degree in education and social policy, how did you end up in the Illinois state government?
Chun: I chose guidance counseling as my major because I’m very people-oriented. After my degree, I chose to stay home for five years with my two sons. I believe that the first five years are a very important period of bonding with children. [Today, Toby is 32 and a lawyer in D.C., and Greg is 30 and working on his Ph.D. in computer science at UC San Diego.] Once Greg was in kindergarten, I found a job at the Bilingual Education Service Center (BESC) [in Arlington Heights, Illinois]. With the revision of the immigration laws in 1965 and the fall of Vietnam in 1975, the public schools were filled with Indochinese refugees and other Asian American children. The American public school teachers were well intentioned and committed to providing a good education, but they were not equipped for the vast language and cultural differences. It was like asking someone trained in mathematics to go teach music. BESC was funded to provide an in-service training program for teachers to deal with the educational and social needs of these children.
In spite of an influx of Asian Americans into the population, I realized that in the state government where the policies are actually made, Asian Americans were not connected at all. So in 1982, I was the first person to organize an Asian American coalition, which became the first Asian American Advisory Council in the office of [then] Gov. James Thompson.
AW: Two years later, in 1984, you were appointed by Gov. Thompson to be the first-ever special assistant to the governor on Asian American affairs. Please tell us more about that experience.
Chun: For the first time, the Asian American communities realized that numbers mattered — that as monoethnic groups, they were not as strong, but united as Asian Americans they could combine their voices and be heard. As the governor’s special assistant, I was the link between the various communities throughout the state and their government.
AW: And your career in state government continued to grow, eventually landing you in the Illinois Department of Labor ...
Chun: After five-and-a-half years as special assistant, the governor appointed me to the Illinois Department of Financial Institutions, which made me the first Asian American cabinet member in the Illinois state government. When Gov. Thompson left office, the new governor [Jim Edgar] asked me to stay on. I was one of two cabinet members to carry over. Then [in 1991] he asked me to head the Illinois Department of Labor. I focused on labor and management issues for the next eight years.
AW: Then you left the government for the private sector, to work at ITR Corporation, a company you founded with your husband.
Chun: Yes. It was natural to go into my own consulting. Consulting was also a great opportunity to travel and an opportunity to decide what I wanted to do for the next 10 years. One of my consulting projects was with the International Republican Institute — it’s a great institution founded by President Reagan under the premise that democracy is not for a few, but for all human beings. As part of this work, I eagerly went to the former Soviet Union to help build a democracy program. I was one of two trainers sent to Azerbaijan and Georgia to teach politicians how to campaign, how to create a two-party system, to select leaders in a democratic way so that democracy is at the core of their government. And it happened to be the Fourth of July, and I’m eating a double-decker hot dog, and I’m raving about how our founding fathers laid out our democracy. What we take for granted, others need to be trained on. I thought about my Asian American friends, my fellow immigrants and they are all busy making money, but they must find a way to be politically active! For someone like me who has received so much from this country, from my community, I was looking for a way to give back.
AW: So you had your next 10-year career plan.
Chun: Yes. I knew that I wanted to give back. When I returned to the U.S. from Azerbaijan and Georgia, I was invited to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. I went to help organize Asian Americans for [George W.] Bush. As part of this effort, an informal group of us identified Asian Americans who were interested in working in the Bush Administration. To my delight, I was nominated on March 30 [2001] and confirmed May 18. There are more than 75 Asian Americans in the Bush Administration. That’s an amazing story from a community organizing point of view. I want to emphasize how important it is to utilize your right to vote, especially since it is a privilege that so few have in other countries. Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or whatever, what is most important is that you exercise your citizenship duties and responsibilities!
AW: Please tell us more about being the Women’s Bureau director.
Chun: I’m in my 18th month and the job is non-stop. I look at our initiatives and we’ve done so much already, but have even more to do. Our “Strengthening the Family” initiatives include financial security for working women, flex time, and worker shortages. Our other initiatives include Women Entrepreneurship, Women Business Owners Summit, Women Apprenticeship in Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) grants, Girls’ E-Mentoring in Science, Engineering and Technology (GEM-SET) and Women and Girls in Technology (WGIT). Women in the IT sector make 60 percent more than in traditional jobs. Only a fraction of jobs today, and even more so in the next five years, will not require IT.
AW: As Korean Americans are about to celebrate their immigration centennial in 2003, what are some of your hopes and dreams for the next 100 years?
Chun: I would really like to see more Korean Americans in the pipeline to serve in public service and be a part of serving this great nation. Korean Americans [need] to reach out more to the mainstream, to interact with people in all communities and to contribute more to the community at large with volunteer work. Volunteer work is so important. I can’t stress that enough. No one will say ‘no’ to you as a volunteer. It’s a great way to get involved, to learn to give and take and to find a good friend. Korean Americans need to go beyond our own communities. We need to be in the government. We must be more active in politics, especially over the next 100 years.
For more information on the Women’s Bureau, visit www.dol.gov/wb.
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