Mineta, Norman Yoshio, 1931-

Biography

Norman Yoshio Mineta was the first Japanese American to serve as Mayor of a major American city and the first from the continental United States to be elected to Congress. Mineta was born in San Jose, California on November 12, 1931. During World War II, he and other Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were incarcerated in concentration camps because of their ancestry. Mineta and his family were interned at the Heart Mountain concentration camp 1 in Wyoming from 1942 to 1945. Upon returning from camp, he graduated from San Jose High School in 1949 and the University of California, Berkeley in 1953. After college, Mineta served in the United States Army from 1953-56. After he left the Army, he went into the family insurance business.

Mineta began his career in politics in 1962 as a member of the San Jose Human Relations Commission and served on the Board of Directors for the San Jose Housing Authority in 1966. In 1967, he was elected to the San Jose City Council and later served as Mayor from 1971 to 1974. In 1974, Mineta was elected to the United States House of Representatives.

During his tenure in Congress, Mineta was appointed to the position of Democratic Deputy Whip and became a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. He also served on the Public Works and Transportation Committee, chairing four of the six subcommittees: Surface Transportation, Aviation, Investigations and Oversight, and Public Buildings and Grounds. He authored the Airport and Airways Safety and Capacity Expansion Act of 1987, the Hazardous Material Transportation Uniform Safety Amendments of 1990 and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. Because of his long-standing efforts, Mineta was elected Chair of the Public Works & Transportation Committee in 1993. After serving nine terms, Mineta left office in 1995 to accept a position as senior vice president of Lockheed Martin IMS.

Perhaps Mineta's greatest legacy in Congress was his work on redress for Japanese Americans who were interned in concentration camps during World War II. As a ten year old boy in 1942, Mineta and his family were forced to leave their home in San Jose and were detained in the Heart Mountain concentration camp. Like other Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, the Mineta family lost a great deal due to the incarceration: they gave away most of their possessions since they could only take to camp what they could physically carry; their savings account at the Yokohama Bank was frozen by the government; and they were forced to sell their family insurance agency in San Jose. These personal experiences of internment would later influence Mineta to become an important force in Congress for redress legislation.

The redress movement was a grassroots movement that began in the Japanese American community in the 1970s. By 1978, many Japanese American activists were pushing for legislation which demanded that the government pay each former camp internee $25,000 and formally apologize for injustices committed during World War II. In 1979, Mineta and three other Nikkei 2 congressmen, Senators Daniel Inouye and Masayuki "Spark" Matsunaga of Hawai'i, and Representative Robert Matsui of California, met with leaders of the Japanese American community to discuss the possibility of redress for Japanese Americans. After much discussion, the group recommended that a formal commission be formed to investigate the justification for the camps to determine if redress was an appropriate remedy. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 96-317 which created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). The CWRIC held pubic hearings throughout the nation and concluded that the interment was a result of "race prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a lack of political leadership." They also recommended that the government issue a formal apology and pay each surviving internee $20,000 in redress.

Acting on the CWRIC recommendations, Mineta and the other Nikkei Congressmen sponsored several redress bills in the 1980s and lobbied fellow members of Congress for support. On September 17, 1987, the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution, the redress bill HR 442 was passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 243 to 141. Later, the Senate passed its version of the redress bill S 1009 on April 20, 1988. On August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which called for a formal apology and $20,000 in compensation to each survivor of the concentration camps. At a tribute dinner held in his honor in 1995, Mineta recalled the privilege of signing HR 442 after it had passed the House of Representatives: "There has never been a moment when I loved this country more," he said. Redress was " the best expression of what this nation can be and the power of government to heal and make right what was wrong."

1 Heart Mountain was the site of one of 10 concentration camps that housed Japanese Americans forcibly removed form the West Coast states during World War II. It was located in northwestern Wyoming, in Park County, 13 miles northeast of Cody. Heart Mountain opened on August 12, 1942 and closed November 10, 1945. 2 The term Nikkei is generally used in the same way as the term "Japanese American" both as a noun and an adjective. Nikkei has at least two additional meanings in a Japanese context. It is a term used by Japanese to indicate any person of Japanese descent who immigrated abroad or is the descendant of such immigrants.

Norman Yoshio Mineta was born November 12, 1931 in San Jose, California. During World War II he was detained in an internment camp near Cody, Wyoming, along with hundreds of other Japanese Americans. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley's Walter A. Haas School of Business in 1953. That year he joined the US Army and served as an intelligence officer in Japan and Korea. He then joined his father in the Mineta Insurance Agency. His political career began in 1967 when he was appointed to a vacant San Jose City Council seat by Mayor Ron James. In 1969 he was reelected to his seat on the council and became the vice mayor. In 1971 he ran against 14 other candidates to replace James; he was elected the 59th Mayor of San Jose, becoming the first Asian Pacific American mayor of a major U.S. city. As mayor, Mineta ended the city's 20 year old policy of rapid growth by annexation, creating development free areas in East and South San Jose. He was United States Representative for the 13th Congressional District of California from 1975 to 1993 and United States Representative for the 15th Congressional District of California from 1993 to 1995. He co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as its first chair. He served as chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee between 1992 and 1994. He chaired the committee's aviation subcommittee between 1981 and 1988, and chaired its Surface Transportation Subcommittee from 1989 to 1991. During his career in Congress he was a key author of the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. He also pressed for more funding for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He was also the driving force behind passage of H.R. 442, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for and redressed the injustices endured by Japanese Americans during World War II. In 1995, George Washington University awarded him the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Medal for his contributions to the field of civil rights. After leaving the Congress, he chaired the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, which in 1997 issued recommendations on reducing traffic congestion and reducing the aviation accident rate. Many of the commission's recommendations were adopted by the Clinton administration, including reform of the FAA to enable it to perform more like a business. After serving as vice president at Lockheed Martin Corporation, he was appointed in 2000 by Bill Clinton as Secretary of Commerce, making him the first Asian American to hold a post in the presidential cabinet. He served as Secretary from July 21, 2000 to January 19, 2001. He was appointed Secretary of Transportation January 25, 2001. As Secretary, he saw both his profile and responsibilities elevated by the events of September 11, 2001, taking action to shut down the nation's air traffic system and establishing interim security measures to ensure its safety, as well as assuming responsibility for establishing the Transportation Security Administration.

Norman Y. Mineta was born in San Jose, California on November 12, 1931. His father immigrated to the U.S. from Japan as a boy, and went on to build a successful insurance company in San Jose, where the family was prominent in the community. Their lives were severely disrupted during World War II, with the issuance of Executive Order 9066, which mandated relocation of all Japanese Americans living on the Pacific Coast to internment camps. From 1943 to 1944, the Mineta family was interned at Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming. Following the family's return to San Jose in 1946, Mineta graduated from high school in 1949, serving as student body president in his senior year. After high school, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a degree in business in 1953. In the same year, he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and served as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Army in Korea and Japan from 1953-1956. Mineta served on the San Jose City Council from 1967-1971, when he became the first American of Asian Pacific ancestry to serve as mayor of a large urban city (1971-1974). In 1974, Mineta was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1975-1995. Mineta retired from Congress in 1995, returning briefly to San Jose to assume the position of Vice President at the Lockheed Martin Corporation. Mineta became the first Asian Pacific American to serve under two Presidents. From 2000-2001, he served under President Clinton as the Secretary of Commerce, and from 2001-2006, he served under President Bush as the United States Secretary of Transportation. Norman Mineta has received numerous honors throughout his 40-year political career, including two local namesakes: the Mineta Transportation Institute, a research institute devoted to transportation policy located at San Jose State University (SJSU), and the Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport.

Norman Yoshio Mineta was the first Japanese American to serve as mayor of a major American city and the first from the continental United States to be elected to Congress. Mineta was born in San Jose, Calif., on 12 Nov. 1931. During World War II, he and other Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were incarcerated in concentration camps because of their ancestry. Mineta and his family were interned at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming from 1942 to 1945. Upon returning from camp, he graduated from San Jose High School in 1949 and the University of California, Berkeley, in 1953. After college, Mineta served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1956. After he left the Army, he went into the family insurance business. Mineta began his career in politics in 1962 as a member of the San Jose Human Relations Commission and served on the Board of Directors for the San Jose Housing Authority in 1966. In 1967, he was elected to the San Jose City Council and later served as mayor from 1971 to 1974. In 1974, Mineta was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

During his tenure in Congress, Mineta was appointed to the position of Democratic Deputy Whip and became a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. He also served on the Public Works and Transportation Committee, chairing four of the six subcommittees: Surface Transportation, Aviation, Investigations and Oversight, and Public Buildings and Grounds. He authored the Airport and Airways Safety and Capacity Expansion Act of 1987, the Hazardous Material Transportation Uniform Safety Amendments of 1990 and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. Because of his long-standing efforts, Mineta was elected Chair of the Public Works & Transportation Committee in 1993. After serving nine terms, Mineta left office in 1995 to accept a position as senior vice president of Lockheed Martin IMS. Perhaps Mineta's greatest legacy in Congress was his work on redress for Japanese-Americans who were interned in concentration camps during World War II. As a ten-year-old boy in 1942, Mineta and his family were forced to leave their home in San Jose and were detained in the Heart Mountain concentration camp. Like other Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, the Mineta family lost a great deal due to the incarceration: they gave away most of their possessions since they could only take to camp what they could physically carry; their savings account at the Yokohama Bank was frozen by the government; and they were forced to sell their family insurance agency in San Jose. These personal experiences of internment would later influence Mineta to become an important force in Congress for redress legislation.

The redress movement was a grassroots effort that began in the Japanese American community in the 1970s. By 1978, many Japanese American activists were pushing for legislation which demanded that the government pay each former camp internee $25,000 and formally apologize for injustices committed during World War II. In 1979, Mineta and three other Nikkei congressmen, Senators Daniel Inouye and Masayuki "Spark" Matsunaga of Hawai'i, and Rep. Robert Matsui of California, met with leaders of the Japanese American community to discuss the possibility of redress for Japanese Americans. After much discussion, the group recommended that a formal commission be formed to investigate the justification for the camps to determine if redress was an appropriate remedy. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 96-317 which created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). The CWRIC held public hearings throughout the nation and concluded that the internment was a result of "race prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a lack of political leadership." They also recommended that the government issue a formal apology and pay each surviving internee $20,000 in redress. Acting on the CWRIC recommendations, Mineta and the other Nikkei Congressmen sponsored several redress bills in the 1980s and lobbied fellow members of Congress for support. On 17 Sept. 1987, the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, the redress bill H.R. 442 was passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 243 to 141. Later, the Senate passed its version of the redress bill S. 1009 on 20 Apr. 1988. On 10 Aug. 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which called for a formal apology and $20,000 in compensation to each survivor of the concentration camps. At a tribute dinner held in his honor in 1995, Mineta recalled the privilege of signing H.R. 442 after it had passed the House of Representatives: "There has never been a moment when I loved this country more," he said. Redress was " the best expression of what this nation can be and the power of government to heal and make right what was wrong."

Biographical History

Norman Y. Mineta was born in San José, California on November 12, 1931. His father immigrated to the U.S. from Japan as a boy, and went on to build a successful insurance company in San José, where the family was prominent in the community. Their lives were severely disrupted during World War II, with the issuance of Executive Order 9066, which mandated relocation of all Japanese Americans living on the Pacific Coast to internment camps. From 1943 to 1944, the Mineta family was interned at Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming. Local attorney James B. Peckham protected their home by taking title of the deed; he rented the home to Dr. Lucy Lawson, a professor at San José State University. The mortgage on their home was held by Parton Savings and Loan. During the war, Norman Mineta's father, Mr. Mineta, served as a volunteer, instructing American army officers in Japanese in Chicago; his insurance company shut down during the family's internment, and reopened in 1946 following their return to San José. Norman Mineta graduated from high school in San José in 1949, serving as student body president in his senior year. Following high school, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a degree in business in 1953. In the same year, he joined the Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC) and served as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Army in Korea and Japan from 1953-1956. Following his military service, he returned to San José to work with his father in the insurance business.

A natural leader, Mineta worked closely with the Japanese Methodist Church, serving on the Santa Clara County Council of Churches. His appointment by San José Mayor Ron James to the Human Relations Council was an important stepping stone in his political career. Mineta served on the San José City Council from 1967-1971, when he became the first American of Asian Pacific ancestry to serve as mayor of a large urban city (1971-1974). In 1974, Mineta was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1975-1995.

In Congress, Mineta demonstrated his leadership in civil rights legislation, public works and transportation. He co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) and played a leadership role in the establishment of the 1978 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). In 1988, Mineta secured passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, recognizing the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans. From 1981-1988, he chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, and co-authored the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). This act increased control by state and local governments over highway and mass transit decisions that included fuel-efficient mass transit programs and the creation of bike lanes. Mineta's interest in aviation and surface transportation can be seen in his work as the Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Public Works and Transportation (1992-1995).

Mineta retired from Congress in 1995, retuning briefly to San José to assume the position of Vice President at the Lockheed Martin Corporation. Mineta became the first Asian Pacific American to serve under two Presidents. From 2000-2001, he served under President Clinton as the Secretary of Commerce, and from 2001-2006, he served under President Bush as the United States Secretary of Transportation. Mineta's rich experiences in politics, particularly his expertise in transportation legislation, enabled him to succeed during the tumultuous period after 9/11, when he helped restore the confidence of the nation in the transportation system and played a key role in the establishment of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Norman Mineta has received numerous honors throughout his 40-year political career, including two local namesakes: the Mineta Transportation Institute, a research institute devoted to transportation policy located at San José State University (SJSU), and the Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport.

Mineta lives in San José with his wife Danealia. He has two sons, David and Stuart Mineta, and two step-sons, Robert and Mark Brantner.