Norman Mineta

Politician, activist

Norman Mineta was a member of the House of Representatives and a presidential cabinet member first under Bill Clinton, as secretary of commerce, and subsequently under George W. Bush, as secretary of transportation. He was instrumental in the passing of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act, which authorized a formal apology and monetary reparations for Japanese Americans interned during World War II.

Full name: Norman Yoshio Mineta (yoh-SHEE-oh min-EHT-ah)

Areas of achievement: Government and politics, activism

Early Life

Norman Yoshio Mineta was born on November 12, 1931, in San José, California, to Japanese immigrants. As a result of the Immigration Act of 1924, Mineta’s parents could not become US citizens. His father owned a successful insurance business and was able to provide the family with a comfortable life.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the US government forced the Minetas and one hundred and twenty thousand others of Japanese ancestry to move to internment camps. Norman, his parents, and his four siblings were first relocated to Santa Anita, California, and after three months they were moved to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center near Cody, Wyoming, where they lived with twelve thousand other people. Mineta was ten years old.

While interned, Mineta’s parents organized a Boy Scout Troop to maintain some sense of normalcy for their five children. Alan K. Simpson, future state senator from Wyoming and fellow Scout, met Mineta when Simpson’s troop visited the internment camp, and the two started a friendship that was renewed when they served together in Congress. In 1943, Norman’s father volunteered to teach Japanese to US soldiers and was relocated to Chicago, Illinois, to perform the work. He insisted that his son learn the language as well.

The Minetas returned to San José after the war (arriving on Thanksgiving Day in 1945) to resume their lives. The elder Mineta was able to reestablish his insurance business. Norman Mineta graduated from San José High School and then attended the University of California, Berkeley, for college. Although he had hopes of becoming an engineer, trouble with calculus compelled him to pursue a major in business. During this time, Mineta joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Mineta served as an intelligence officer and Japanese translator in the US Army while stationed in Korea and Japan.

After completing his military service, Mineta moved back to San José and joined his father in the insurance business. He became active in the local community and the Japanese Methodist church and served on the city’s human relations commission. While on the commission, Mineta helped establish a municipal housing authority to provide assistance to people displaced by construction of the interstate highway. As a result of this work, Mineta was appointed to the city council in 1967 to fill a vacancy and subsequently won election to the seat. In 1971, Mineta was elected mayor and became the first Asian American mayor of a major US city.

Life’s Work

Mineta, a Democrat, served as San José’s mayor for four years and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1975, representing northern California’s Silicon Valley and the Fifteenth District. He served in the House until 1995, during which time he cofounded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, serving as its first chair. Mineta served on the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation for twenty years, acting as chair from 1992–95 and as chair of its aviation subcommittee from 1981–88. He is known for authoring and fighting to pass two major pieces of legislation: the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which led to a formal apology and reparations by the US government for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, which was designed to make surface transportation (in particular highways and mass transit) more efficient and environmentally sound. As the representative from one of the major technology centers in the nation, Mineta also fostered private partnerships with the public sector that were critical to the growth of the technologies industry.

After twenty years as a member of the House of Representatives, Mineta resigned his seat mid-term in 1995 to work as a vice president for Lockheed Martin. During this time, he also served as chair of the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, a body designed to reduce gridlock among aircraft and improve overall air safety. President Bill Clinton’s administration adopted a number of the commission’s recommendations to improve the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

In 2000, President Clinton appointed Mineta to serve as secretary of commerce, an appointment that made Mineta the first Asian American to serve in a presidential cabinet. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Mineta to serve as secretary of transportation in his presidential cabinet, making him the only Democrat to serve in that cabinet. As secretary of transportation, Mineta was responsible for approximately one hundred thousand employees and had a budget of $60 billion. He was accountable for millions of miles of public roads, railroads, pipelines, ports, airports, public transit, and waterways. He held this post until 2006, making him the longest-serving appointee in that position.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Mineta’s profile rose due to increased scrutiny of the National Aviation System. In his position as secretary of transportation, he oversaw the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to oversee passenger and luggage screening. Remembering his days as an internee at Heart Mountain, Mineta was adamant that Muslims and Arab Americans not be discriminated against or profiled.

In 2006, Mineta went to work for Hill & Knowlton Strategies, a public relations company, as the firm’s vice chair. That year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. In 2008, the House passed a resolution to recognize Mineta’s lifelong commitment to public service. In 2010 he wwas named cochair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative and was named vice chair of L&L Energy. A leader of civil rights and a prominent Asian American politician, Mineta was heavily influenced by his family’s internment at Heart Mountain. Of all of his various accomplishments, he repeatedly said that he was proudest of the passage of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. In 2018 PBS aired the documentary An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy.

Mineta died on May 3, 2022, at his home in Edgewater, Maryland, of heart disease.

Significance

At a time when few people of Asian ancestry held public office in the US, Mineta became the first Asian American mayor of a major US city. He then ascended to the national stage and served as a member of Congress for twenty years. He was the first Asian American to serve in not one but two presidential cabinets. Most important to Mineta was his work to protect the civil liberties and rights of all people regardless of religion, skin color, or ethnic origin.

In 2022, the US Department of Transportation building in Washington, DC, was co-named in Minetta’s honor, receiving the title the William T. Coleman, Jr. and Norman Y. Mineta Federal Building. Coleman, who was Transportation Secretary under Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977, was the first African American to hold that position.

Bibliography

Brown, Emma. "Norman Mineta, Transportation Secretary Who Helped Create TSA, Dies at 90." The Washington Post, 3 May 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/05/03/norm-mineta-congress-transportation-dead/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Friel, Brian. “Norman Mineta’s Bumpy Ride.” National Journal 37.16 (16 Apr. 2005): 1157–58.

Morrison, Patt. "Column: Norman Mineta on Internment, 9/11 and a Life Spent in the Vortex of American Politics." The Los Angeles Times, 8 May 2019, www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-ol-patt-morrison-norman-mineta-politics-20190508-htmlstory.html. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

“Norman Y. Mineta.” Academy of Achievement: A Museum of Living History. Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, 23 Apr. 2008. Web. 29 Feb. 2012.

Weingroff, Richard. "A New Name for DOT Headquarters." Federal Highway Administration, 30 June 2023, highways.dot.gov/highway-history/general-highway-history/new-name-dot-headquarters. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.