Byung J. “BJay” Pak sees America not as a melting pot of cultures but rather as a tapestry woven with threads of justice and liberty.

But justice “is not a constant, a static thing,” President Donald Trump's newly minted nominee as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia told members of Asian Americans Advancing Justice as he accepted the civil rights organization's Lifetime Achievement Award last year. “It's something that needs to be pursued. … And the bar moves every year.”

When his obituary is written, Pak added that night, he would like it to reflect “that I have done something in my life that people can point to and say, 'You know what? He advanced justice.'” Last Friday, the White House announced its nomination of Pak, Georgia's first Korean-American state legislator and a first-generation immigrant. Pak's family left Seoul, South Korea, to settle in Apopka, Florida, when he was 9. If confirmed, Pak, 42, will become the state's first Asian-American U.S. attorney. Pak's nomination “is a great leap for us,” said Atlanta attorney Cherish De La Cruz, 2017 president-elect of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association, which published a congratulatory banner announcing Pak's nomination on its website. Pak is a member and former board member.