Patsy Takemoto Mink

Politician, feminist

• Born: December 6, 1927
• Place of Birth: Paia, Hawaii
• Died: September 28, 2002
• Place of Death: Honolulu, Hawaii

Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color elected to Congress. She served in the US House of Representatives as a congresswoman from Hawaii’s At-Large District from 1965 to 1977. From 1990 to 2002 she represented Hawaii’s Second Congressional District. President Jimmy Carter appointed Mink assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs. As an advocate for equality, she drafted the Title IX amendment of the 1972 Higher Education Act.

Full Name: Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink

Birth Name: Patsy Matsu Takemoto

Areas of achievement: Government and politics, women’s rights

Early Life

Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink was a third-generation Japanese American born to Suematsu and Mitama Tateyama Takemoto on the island of Maui, in what was then the US Territory of Hawaii. Patsy Takemoto’s father worked as a civil engineer. Her mother’s family had worked on a Maui sugar plantation. Education was extremely important to her family; her father graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1922 and her mother was educated at Maunaolu Seminary in Makawao.

Takemoto was elected student body president of Maui High School in 1944, where she became class president and valedictorian. She began her college career at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, before transferring to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. While at the University of Nebraska, Takemoto successfully campaigned to racially integrate the dormitories. She transferred once more to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, graduating in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in zoology and chemistry.

She enrolled in law school at the University of Chicago and graduated with a JD in 1951. At law school she met and married geologist John Mink. They settled in Honolulu in 1952 and Patsy opened a law practice while raising their daughter, Gwendolyn. She also lectured on business law at the University of Hawaii.

Life’s Work

Mink began her political career in 1954, when she founded the Oahu Young Democrats. She was an attorney for the territorial House of Representatives in 1955. A year later, Mink was elected as a territorial Representative and served in the House of Representatives until 1958. She then ran for territorial Senate, where she served two terms, from 1958 to 1959 and from 1962 to 1964. In 1959, Hawaii was given US statehood. Mink made a bid for US House of Representatives but lost the election. In 1965, however, she was elected congresswoman from Hawaii’s at-large district and served until 1971. She was the first Asian American to serve in Congress. She served that district for six consecutive terms. Mink was a member of the Committee on Education and Labor (1965–77), the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, and the Budget Committee. Congresswoman Mink introduced the Early Childhood Education Act legislation to establish funding for federal programs to improve childhood education from pre-school through kindergarten. The legislation she introduced supported bilingual education and special education, provided for student loans, and supported the Head Start program and goals of the Great Society.

Seeking to open doors for women, Mink wrote the Title IX Amendment of the Higher Education Act of June 23, 1972, which amended Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. With the passage of this law, gender discrimination was prohibited in federally funded institutions. Women gained many more opportunities in higher education and school athletics.

Opposing the war in Vietnam and seeking solutions to end the conflict, Mink ran for US president as an antiwar candidate in the Oregon Democratic primary in 1972. Her two essential early political causes were improvements in public education at all levels and the search for an end to racial and gender discrimination. She further combined her goals by introducing the Women’s Educational Equity Act in 1974. This legislation, passed by Congress as part of a larger education bill, established federal protection from gender discrimination against women in education and aimed at ending gender stereotyping in elementary and secondary public schools. This act provided $30 million to promote gender equity in schools, expand career opportunities for women, and erase sexual stereotypes.

Serving on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, in addition to her educational reform work, Mink supported the needs and development of the Trust Territory in the Pacific, a territory formerly made up of more than two thousand Pacific islands. Mink was also chair of the Subcommittee on Mines and Mining and coauthored the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation (Strip Mining) Act of 1975 (vetoed in 1975, although a similar version became law in 1977) in addition to the Mineral Leasing Act of 1976. Both measures promoted conservation.

Mink ran for a Senate seat in 1976, but the Democratic primary was won by Spark Matsunaga. However, Mink was appointed assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs by President Jimmy Carter on March 28, 1977, serving until May 1, 1978. From 1978 to 1981 she was president of Americans for Democratic Action, a political lobby committed to progressive reforms.

After stepping down from her role in the State Department, Mink returned to Honolulu, where she was elected to the Honolulu City Council from 1983 to 1987. She also served as chairwoman of the council from 1983 to 1985. Mink was unsuccessful in her run for governor of Hawaii in 1986 and mayor of Honolulu in 1988. However, she did renew her political career when she was reelected to the US House of Representatives in 1990, representing Hawaii’s Second District.

She served on the Committee on Education and Labor and the Government Operations Committee. She was also appointed to the Natural Resources and Budget Committees and worked long hours in Washington, DC, as an effective and diligent congresswoman, often in concert with her husband, John, a consulting hydrogeologist in Hawaii and the Pacific area.

Mink, who strongly believed in gender equality, cosponsored the Gender Equity Act of 1993. She continued to crusade for women’s rights by forming the Democratic Women’s Caucus in 1995. She pursued reforms in education, labor relations, and health care, desiring passage of a universal health care plan allowing all Americans regardless of economic backgrounds to receive medical coverage and care. Mink served on the Education and Workforce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (1997–99). After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Mink supported the protection of civil liberties and individual privacy while protecting national security.

Mink served in Congress until her death in 2002 at age seventy-four. She was honored with a state funeral in Hawaii’s State Capitol rotunda and buried in the National Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in Honolulu. Because 2002 was a reelection year for Mink and her name remained on the November 2002 ballot, she was posthumously reelected in a landslide. In a special election after her posthumous reelection, Democrat Ed Case succeeded Mink in the 107th Congress and subsequently won a full term from 2003 to 2005 in the 108th Congress.

In 2024, Mink's likeness appeared on the second coin produced in the 2024 American Women Quarters Program of the US Mint. The coin depicts Mink in front of the US Capitol holding a copy of Title IX legislation.

Significance

Mink championed equal rights for all US citizens. She was an advocate for civil rights, Title IX, women’s equality, and educational reform. As the first Asian American woman in the US House of Representatives, she opened doors for other female politicians to follow. Her contributions to Title IX (1972) and the Women’s Educational Equity Act (1974) remain great legislative triumphs for social equality. Patsy Mink was an especially bright, skillful, and compassionate representative of Hawaii in the nation’s capitol, admired by all who knew her.

Bibliography

Alexander, Kerri Lee. "Patsy Mink." National Women's History Museum, 2019, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/patsy-mink. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Leavitt, Judith A. American Women Managers and Administrators. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. Print.

Matsuda, Mari J. Called From Within: Early Women Lawyers of Hawaii. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1992. Print.

Office of History and Preservation. Women in Congress, 1917–2006. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2006. Print.

"United States Mint Begins Shipping 2024 American Women Quarters Celebrating the Honorable Patsy Takemoto Mink on March 25." US Mint, 18 Mar. 2024, www.usmint.gov/news/press-releases/united-states-mint-begins-shipping-2024-american-women-quarters-celebrating-the-honorable-patsy-takemoto-mink-on-march-25. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.