On the recordJanuary 28, 1994
I have sent an amendment to the desk to authorize $300,000 from the State Department's salaries and expenses account for the recruitment and training of Hispanic-Americans in the Foreign Service. Our diplomats are America's face to the world. They are the people who live abroad and represent not only American interests, but America itself. For our diplomatic corps properly to represent the United States, it must mirror the diversity of American society. Indeed, one of our most effective diplomatic tools in this post-cold war environment is the power of America's example as a prosperous, democratic, multiethnic, multicultural democracy. One of the lessons of the recent Russian elections is that people must have a vision of how such a democracy can function. Our ability to project that vision by our example is undercut by the unrepresentative nature of our current Foreign Service. In addition, it is essential that all individuals, from all ethnic and gender groups, have equal opportunity to pursue a career in the diplomatic service. This is the flip side of the American example, living by our own principles. No one argues against the need for a representative diplomatic corps. Where we differ with the administration is in the criterion of success. The administration's criterion is process. It argues that it has programs in place to ensure that all gender and minority groups are represented in appropriate numbers. My criterion is stricter--results.
