Humble beginnings fuel Mineta's rise

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Norman Mineta was a 10 1/2-year-old in a Cub Scout uniform when he and his family were shipped off to California's Santa Anita Racetrack, en route to a Japanese American internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyo.

Norman Mineta helped get reparations for survivors of the Japanese American internment camps. Advertiser library photo

He was the secretary of transportation during a national crisis. And Mineta made sure that everyone understood that America would not tolerate the kind of thinking that sent 120,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In speeches and in letters he sent to the nation's airlines, Mineta reminded the country that "discrimination based on sex, racial, religious grounds are totally illegal."

"When these things started to happen in the post-September 11 attacks, I fell back on my own personal experience of 1942," said Mineta, who turned 70 last month. "What a person looks like ought not to be a factor as to whether they ride on an airplane or not. That kind of discrimination is intolerable, and we've just got to stop it. If you don't speak out, then people will think it's OK. Whether it's a swastika that gets painted on the side of a Jewish synagogue or some other kind of hate crime, these things have to be dealt with swiftly."

Sixty years after the Pearl Harbor attack launched America into war, Mineta's career as mayor of San Jose, congressman, corporate leader and secretaries of commerce and transportation represents the rise of Japanese Americans in society despite racism and intense cultural changes.

In a special section Wednesday, The Advertiser will focus on how the Pearl Harbor attack affected Japanese Americans here and on the Mainland — as well as soldiers, sailors and private citizens who look back on that day 60 years ago.

Overcoming glass ceiling

For Mineta, the experience of the internment camps offers lessons that he uses today in trying to balance civil rights with making America's airports and airplanes safer following the terrorist attacks.

Just his mere presence has sometimes served as a reminder that people need to be treated fairly.

At a Sept. 12 Cabinet meeting with House and Senate leaders, House Democratic whip David Bonior told President Bush about his concern for Muslims, Arab Americans and Sikhs.

"The president responded by saying, 'David, you're absolutely right,' " Mineta recalled. " 'We don't want to have what happened to Norm Mineta in World War II happening today.' "

	Coming Wednesday
•	Six decades after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, Pearl Harbor survivors share stories of courage, pride, triumph and hope in an Advertiser special report — Pearl Harbor Plus 60 Years.

Although most people in Hawai'i may not follow him closely, Mineta's rise through local and national politics is significant to many Japanese American advocates and scholars, said Jon Okamura, an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Hawai'i, who teaches a course on Japanese in Hawai'i.

They watched Mineta successfully push for a congressional apology and payment for the survivors of the Japanese American internment camps. Even the five-year break that Mineta spent as a senior vice president for defense giant Lockheed Martin Corp. is important for Japanese Americans, Okamura said.

"He's an example of someone who's breaking through the glass ceiling," Okamura said. "Those are the positions that Asian Americans have not had, those policy-making, decision-making positions. He's made the breakthrough."

High-profile figure

John Tateishi, national executive director of the Japanese-American Citizens League, calls Mineta "the Asian American and Japanese American with the highest profile in the United States.

"He was the first Asian American mayor of a major city, the first Japanese American from the Mainland elected to the Congress, the first Asian American to be appointed to the president's Cabinet (first under President Clinton and now under Bush)," Tateishi said. "Those are not small accomplishments. He makes possible for younger Asians to aspire to achieve these things."

Mineta is married to Danealia (Deni) Mineta, and has two sons, David and Stuart, and two stepsons, Robert and Mark Brantner.

Working-class start

Like many nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans, Mineta's success came out of humble beginnings.

Mineta's father dropped out of school at 14 and left Shizuoka Prefecture to meet his uncle in California to become a farmer. Instead of arriving in Salinas, he ended up 1,100 miles away in Seattle. It took 18 months, working from one labor to camp to the next, to finally get to Salinas.

"The first thing his uncle said was, 'You've got to learn English,'" Mineta said. "And he put my father into the first grade at the age of 16." His mother was a picture bride who emigrated from Japan.

Their working-class beginnings and treatment during the war taught the Minetas that their children needed to go to college to succeed. Four ended up at the University of California at Berkeley and the fifth went to San Jose State University.

"People would say, 'Mr. Mineta why are you sending your daughter to the university? She should get married or go to work,' " Mineta said. "He was dedicated to making sure we got a good education. He felt that was the way to get ahead."

For many Japanese Americans, life after the internment camps also meant trying to fit in.

"There's no question in that post-World War II period that people were trying to be ... American as much as possible," Mineta said. "They were in fact trying to shy away from their Japanese-ness. They didn't want to talk about the evacuation and their internment."

But the humiliation of the camps also bred a desire in some Japanese Americans to take a bigger role in mainstream society. Mineta was encouraged to attend a local Democratic party dinner and eventually ended up on the Santa Clara County human relations commission, which started his political career.

The power of apology

Nearly 30 years later, Mineta witnessed one of the political and personal highlights of his career with the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The act gave $20,000 to each person interned during the war and, perhaps more importantly, an apology from their government.

"That was the first time the niseis felt that yoke of shame being taken off of their shoulders," Mineta said. "Here was congressional legislation saying, 'On behalf of the nation, the Congress of the United States apologizes.' That's a powerful statement."

Reach Dan Nakaso at 525-8085 or dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.