hardboiled

asians in politics:
secretary norman mineta

A young Japanese American joined the United States Army in 1953. Despite being one of the 120,000 some Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during World War II, Norman Y. Mineta served for the United States as an intelligence officer in Korea and Japan.

Following his stint in Asia, Mineta returned to the states and began his political career in nearby San Jose. Here, he began as a councilman and went on to be the first Asian American to be mayor of a major US city. After his term as mayor, Mineta served in the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995. From there, President Bill Clinton appointed Mineta Secretary of Commerce in 2000, making Mineta the first Asian American to serve on a presidential cabinet.

After the Clinton Administration, President George W. Bush appointed Mineta as Secretaty of Transportation in 2001. Mineta thereby became the lone Democratic member of Bush’s Cabinet as well as the first person to maintain a Cabinet position under first a Democratic, then a Republican president, in successive administrations.

Following 9/11, Secretary Mineta served as a vital component to ensuring safety in the airline industry. Besides air transportation, he also sought to deliver greater levels of safety in automotive and rail transportation. Following Hurricane Katrina, Mineta was once again vital in the restoration of the area.

“Norm worked hard to help eliminate red tape and liberalize the commercial aviation market,” President Bush said in a statement. “After Hurricane Katrina, Norm and his team were able to rapidly repair and reopen the region’s major highways, airports, seaports and pipelines.” He also caused some much needed changes in fuel economy standards that currently save fuel, lives and jobs.

Despite his efforts, on June 22, 2006 Secretary Mineta stepped down from his position in the Department of Transportation and joined the international public relations firm Hill & Knowlton as vice chairman. Secretary Mineta was the 14th Secretary in the Department of Transportation and the longest serving member in the Department’s history.

“It is time for me to move on to other challenges,” Mineta said in a letter to President Bush. Nonetheless, as Transportation Secretary Mineta stood up to Republicans who criticized him for his tough stance against racial profiling. In fact, he issued a directive to airlines telling them it was illegal to discriminate passengers on the basis of their race, ethnicity or religion. He said, “A very basic foundation to all of our work is to make sure that racial profiling is not part of it.”

Indeed, Mineta always believed in his ideals and took them to the top of the administration. He argued, “Surrendering to actions of hate and discrimination makes us no different than the despicable terrorists who rained such hatred on our people.”