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MN: Now, during the Clinton administration, you broke some barriers. I wanted to ask you, overall, what were some of the proudest achievements that you've been able to accomplish as an Asian American, as a female?

RO: Well, I was associate director of the White House Drug Policy Office, and I oversaw the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program. It's a very macho program. And I think some of the barriers is that people generally did not see Asian, even males, in leadership roles. And I took on the responsibility of an agency where the drug czar knew me from surveying on Attorney General Levy's minority advisory commission. He knew my beliefs, my positions, and he trusted me. He moved High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program from the supply side of the office into my shop because he wanted to develop a program that engages not just the federal or the dealing with international interdiction, but he wanted to develop programs that involved domestic law enforcement, state and local prevention and education. And I brought a background of doing a lot of that in the mayor's office. Other barriers... well, the, after my two years were up and the new drug czar wanted to select his own people, Ms. Reno asked me to come to the Department of Justice.

MN: And at that, at the Department of Justice, how high did you go up?

RO: Huh?

MN: What level did you achieve at the Department of Justice?

RO: It's a level of assistant attorney general.

MN: And I understand you were the first Asian American to --

RO: Woman.

MN: -- woman to reach that level.

RO: Yes.

MN: Was that a very, since you were the first, was there a lot of pressure, everybody watching you?

RO: I don't know. It didn't occur to me. We were just overwhelmed. There were church arsons, you know, our purview involved so many of the President's initiatives, the Initiative on Race, hate crimes, church arson I mentioned, race-based justice. So all, a lot of the priorities at the Department of Justice as well as in the White House involved CRS. So I may be the representative of the Department of Justice to a White House meeting planning the Race Initiative. I can tell the story with, our first meeting, we met with the President and the Vice President, and Mrs. Clinton, the First Lady. And they were talking about their thoughts, expectations about Initiative on Race. And here's this room full of White House executive and middle staffers, and I'm the only non-White House person in the room. And I have a tablet, and I'm listening, and I take notes, and I'm the only person taking notes. And I thought, "Well, that doesn't look too good, I come from Justice, I'm taking the notes." But I want to know what they are saying. Well, I went back, and I wrote a book on President's Initiative on Race, kind of a how-to book on racial dialogues. And you know, at that time, the planning process came to a halt. There's a lot of disagreements about how they wanted to proceed. And one day, this young lady named Sylvia Matthews, who was shepherding this project, stopped me and she said, "The President loved it," my how-to book. And one of my treasures from serving in the administration is a signed copy, "Thank you, Rose." But we went on and held hundreds of dialogues around the country. The goal was not to talk to them, let people come together across racial lines and try to resolve the differences that divide them.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.