Spotlight on Humphrey Honoree: Karen K. Narasaki

On May 12, Karen K. Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), will receive the civil rights community’s highest honor, the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award, for dedicating her life to ensuring equal opportunity for all people and working diligently against all forms of discrimination.

An expert on immigrant rights, voting rights, affirmative action, and civil rights issues, Narasaki is a leader in advocating for the rights and interests of Asian Americans.

Narasaki plays a critical role within The Leadership Conference, the nation’s premier civil and human rights coalition. She is vice chair of The Leadership Conference and chairs the coalition’s Compliance and Enforcement Committee, which oversees all 14 Leadership Conference task forces. She also plays a vital mentoring role to coalition members.

Narasaki led The Leadership Conference’s successful Presidential Transition Project, which identified the coalition’s civil and human rights legislative priorities for the incoming Obama administration in 2009. The transition project resulted in the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the passage of the economic recovery bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Narasaki serves in a number of other key leadership positions in the civil and human rights community. She heads the Rights Working Group, a coalition of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and immigrant rights groups working to address the erosion of civil liberties and basic rights of immigrants since September 11 terrorist attacks, and she chairs the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition.

She is also a member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age and of the Asian Pacific American Advisory Council, a group of nearly a dozen community, civic and business leaders who advise Nielsen Media Research, an international provider of television audience measurement and advertising information services. The Council advises Nielsen on a range of issues involving the sampling of Asian Americans for television audience measurement while assisting Nielsen to reaching out to Asian American communities.

Recognized by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the “100 most powerful women in Washington” in 2001, 2006 and 2009, Narasaki has received numerous awards and accolades. She was the 2005 recipient of the American Bar Association Spirit of Excellence Award, and has received the Congressional Black Caucus Chair’s Award, International Channel We the People Award, and was named one of the “100 Most Influential Asian Americans of the Decade” by A Magazine.

Narasaki is a graduate, magna cum laude, of Yale University and of the UCLA School of Law as a member of the Order of the Coif.

Visit our Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award Dinner page for more information on tickets, sponsorship, and the honorees.