Photo by SAYO FUJIOKA
The photo, above, is from “Liberty Lost … Lessons in Loyalty,” a reenactment held on Apr. 28, 2002 in Watsonville at the Veterans Memorial Building. The event marked the 60th anniversary of when 725 local citizens of Japanese ancestry were evacuated from the Pacific Coast. In the photo, Cub Scout Brandon Shimizu is portraying Norm Mineta. The soldier is Randall Sparling. Rev. Shousei Hanayama, portraying Norm’s father, said, “Shikataganai, Norman. It can’t be helped.” Others (L-R) are: Jeanette Otsuji Hager and Hank Cardona of WCCA, Police Chief Peter Chelemedos, and reporter J. P. Johnson.
Photo at right of Mineta is from Japanese American National Museum.
A Remembrance of a Dear Friend, Norman Y. Mineta
By MAS HASHIMOTO
Norman Yoshio Mineta passed away of a heart ailment with his family by his side in Edgewater, Maryland at age 90 on May 3. He was born to Japanese immigrants in San Jose on Nov. 12, 1931, and was the youngest of five children. He was 10 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II.
In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 by which Norm and his family along with 120,000 others of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes to one of ten concentration camps around the interior West, taking only what they could carry.
Norman was wearing his Cub Scout uniform and clutching a baseball mitt and bat when he and his siblings boarded a train in San Jose. He recalled a U.S. soldier confiscating the bat, calling it a deadly weapon.
The Minetas were taken to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, a makeshift settlement surrounded by a tall fence and barbed wire. “Some say the internment was for our own good,” Norm later recalled. “But even as a boy of 10, I could see the machine guns and the barbed wire faced inward.”
In Wyoming, Norm struck up a friendship with a local Boy Scout named Alan Simpson, who came to visit the camp and later became a U.S. senator. Decades later, when Congressman Norm sought a reparations bill in the House, Simpson sponsored a companion bill in the Senate. “He came through all that with the camps by just rising above any kind of resentment or bitterness,” Simpson told The Post in 2000. “You look at the way he’s handled it and how hard he’s worked since then and you say, ‘There’s a person of depth.’ ”
They stayed at Heart Mountain for only 18 months. The Mineta family had to be removed for their safety. "No Nos,” pro-Japan, and others, broke the windows of their barrack room when it became known that Norm’s older sister Etsu was engaged to Mike Masaoka, the Executive Director of the National Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Their misguided anger blamed Masaoka and the JACL for the incarceration. The Minetas moved to the Chicago area, where their father — an insurance agent by trade — had volunteered to teach Japanese language courses to U.S. Army soldiers.
In Manzanar and Poston, JACL leaders were threatened and beaten. They, too, had to be removed for their safety.
Norman Mineta was a teenager when his family was able to return to San Jose. Norm graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1953 and then served for three years as an Army intelligence officer. He subsequently worked for his father’s insurance company in San Jose before being prepped by the city’s Japanese American community leaders for political office.
In his career, this insurance salesman served as Mayor of San Jose, a congressman for 20 years (Leon Panetta was elected at the same time. Some thought Mineta was an Italian), and as Commerce Secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration. He was the first Asian American Cabinet member. I asked Norm, “When you sold your first insurance policy did you ever think that you would …” He started to laugh because he knew my next words, ” … become Secretary of Commerce?”
During his tenure in Congress representing the Silicon Valley from 1975 to 1995, he championed civil liberties and played a key role in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of August 10, 1988, obtaining an official apology and compensation for Japanese and Japanese Americans who were forced from their homes during World War II when their ancestry made them objects of government suspicion. Other Japanese American congressional leaders at the time, including Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) and Sens. Daniel K. Inouye and Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii, played crucial roles.
President, George W. Bush, tapped him as Secretary of Transportation in January 2001. His career was most sharply defined by the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001. After the second plane hit the New York’s World Trade Center, Norm and his staff made an unprecedented decision to ground all 4,638 planes in U.S. airspace. No emergency protocol had been established to bring them all down at once. All planes were grounded within two hours and 20 minutes.
While some in the nation wanted all Arabs and Muslims in this country rounded up and placed in concentration camps, to his credit President Bush stated that we weren’t going to do to the Arab and Muslim Americans in this country like we did to Norm and his family. Norm was in the right place and at the right time.
He oversaw the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which took over responsibility for aviation security from airlines. The agency hired and trained tens of thousands of federal baggage screeners and implemented a set of strict rules that transformed the American airport experience. He was charged with restoring confidence in air travel after the terror attacks.
When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and other gulf states, the Transportation Department immediately went into action rebuilding roads and bridges so that fuel, food and supplies would aid those stricken.
George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, saying Mineta was “a wonderful American story about someone who overcame hardship and prejudice to serve in the United States Army, Congress, and the Cabinets of two presidents. As my secretary of Transportation, he showed great leadership in helping prevent further attacks on and after 9/11., Norm has given his country a lifetime of service, and he’s given his fellow citizens an example of leadership, devotion to duty, and personal character.”
San Jose’s airport had been named in his honor in 2001—Norman Y. Mineta International Airport. “What an honor I told him.” He replied, “Yeah, but this little old lady came after me at the airport. ‘You Mineta?’ she asked. ‘Yes.’ “Well, there’s not enough ladies’ room in this airport!”
The once Secretary of Transportation should have a highway named after him, and today there’s the Norman Y. Mineta Highway (a portion of Highway 85 in San Jose.) Light-heartedly, he told us not to call him if we get a speeding ticket on that stretch of the road.
When Norm was serving in Congress, a Los Angeles man sent him a token gift to make up for what he had lost as a boy. It was a bat that had belonged to and signed by Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron. It was worth $1,500 — more than the $250 a House member could accept as a personal gift, according to federal rules — and Norm had to return the bat to its sender. “The damn government’s taken my bat again,” he said at the time. Post script: when he worked briefly at Lockheed-Martin as a civilian before becoming Secretary of Transportation, the US Government returned the bat to Norm, saying they had no use for it.
During a quiet moment at the JACL Gala Dinner, Norm, Secretary of Transportation at the time, asked if he could meet the young man who played him in our re-enactment of the evacuation, “Liberty Lost … Lessons in Loyalty.” It was to be a memorable visit for Norm and Brandon.
When Norm was honored by the Panetta Institute for his service to this nation with the Jefferson-Lincoln Award and with Larry Oda’s help, we arranged a meeting at The Inn at Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach. Brandon was 13. The 15-minute meeting went on for 45 minutes, to the annoyance of the Secret Service agent protecting Norm. To the family’s delight, Norm signed Brandon’s Cub Scout cap: “Brandon: Thanks a million for your portrayal of me on the 60th anniversary. Norm Mineta, Nov. 8, 2003.”
Norm wanted to come to our reenactment but the 9/11/01, attack on the Twin Towers of New York, had taken place seven months before.
Norm and I were on the same frequency and at gatherings, dinners, and conventions, we would gravitate toward each other for we were both the youngest in the family, experienced “camp,” our families were threatened by the pro-Japan and No Nos, served in the US Army, worked for JACL’s basic mission, and became public servants. In my role as a public- school teacher, I, too, served the public.
One of the last remembrances that we have of our dear friend was when he stood up with our Watsonville-Santa Cruz JACL chapter at the National Convention in Salt Lake City, UT in support of our Nisei 100th/442nd/MIS’s opposition of an apology resolution to the Tule Lake No Nos. We lost that vote.
His first marriage, to May Hinoki, ended in divorce. In 1991, he married Danealia “Deni” Brantner. In addition to his wife, survivors include two sons from his first marriage, David Mineta of San Jose and Stuart Mineta of Redwood City, CA.; two stepsons, Robert Brantner of West River, Md., and Mark Brantner of Johnson City, Tenn.; and 11 grandchildren.
I asked, “Of all the assignments you’ve had, which did you enjoy the most?” Without hesitation, he replied, “Mayor of San Jose. I saw things getting done!”
Think of Norm when you’re at the Norman Y. Mineta International Airport in San Jose or at any airport, at the National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism in Washington, D.C., on the light rail in San Jose, on Highway 85, or when you think of our JACL mission for civil and human rights, for social justice and equality, and educational outreach on our Nikkei history.
Check Norman Y. Mineta and His Legacy Project: An American Story on DVD. Also, check, What Does It Mean To Be An American? The Mineta Legacy. It’s free. This curriculum is a great resource for teachers and students.
Norm help break the color-race-political barrier for Asian Americans in this country, for which we are eternally grateful. He had a big heart, and for 90 years it served all of us. Rest in peace.
Onward! “Hey, Uncle Mas” … oh, that’s how Norm greeted me, and that’s another story.
