Arturo Valenzuela
| Arturo Valenzuela | |
|---|---|
| Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs | |
|
In office 10 November 2009 – 31 August 2011 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Thomas A. Shannon, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Roberta S. Jacobson |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 23, 1944 Concepción, Chile |
Arturo A. Valenzuela (born 23 January 1944) is a Chilean-American academic who was the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs from November 5, 2009, until August 2011. His confirmation had been blocked by Senator Jim DeMint (R, SC) due to a dispute over President Barack Obama's approach to the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis. He previously served as Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He was previously Professor of Political Science and Director of the Council on Latin American Studies at Duke University. In May 2011 it was reported that Valenzuela would be leaving his government post later that summer to return to his academic activities. He officially left office at the end of August 2011.
Valenzuela was born Arturo Arms Valenzuela Bowie in Concepción,Chile to American Methodist missionaries Raymond Arms Valenzuela and Dorothy Denell Bowie Marsh. He spent his childhood in Concepción where he attended primary school at the Lycée Charles de Gaulle, where he learned to speak French. In 1960, after his school was destroyed by the Great Chilean earthquake, he was sent by his family for a year to the United States. During the next eight years, he went back to visit his family in Chile only once. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude in Political Science and Religion from Drew University and in 1971 he obtained a Doctorate and a master's degree in Political Science from Columbia University.
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