From the day he was born till the day he died, Norm Mineta was a job mannequin. The world can be a greater place if extra elected officers had his grace, integrity and want to enhance the lives of his constituents.
Few politicians had been extra beloved than Mineta, the previous Bay Space congressman who died Monday on the age of 90. He genuinely cared about each individual he got here throughout. Democrat or Republican. Younger or outdated. Wealthy or poor. And it confirmed when he was in informal conversations with every-day folks at eating places and their workplaces, or intense political debates at Metropolis Corridor, the U.S. Capitol or the White Home.
Who else would have been chosen — and as efficient — as a Cupboard member in each Democrat Invoice Clinton’s and Republican George W. Bush’s administrations?
Only for a second, take time to consider the expertise of a 10-year-old Japanese American boy on Could 29, 1942, the day he and his household had been ordered to depart their San Jose residence and board a prepare for an internment camp in Coronary heart Mountain, Wyo. Mineta was sporting his Cub Scout uniform and holding his baseball bat, ball and glove. As he approached the prepare, an MP took his bat from him, saying it could possibly be used as a deadly weapon.
It was maybe Mineta’s best achievement to not let the appalling injustice that he and different Japanese People skilled remodel him right into a resentful, disillusioned man. He as an alternative used it as motivation to do every thing doable to assist San Jose, the Bay Space and the nation dwell as much as its beliefs.
Mineta graduated from San Jose Excessive after which UC Berkeley earlier than serving for 2 years within the Military through the Korean Conflict. He returned to San Jose and labored at his father’s insurance coverage company earlier than being appointed to the Metropolis Council in 1967, making him the primary individual of coloration to serve on the council within the metropolis’s 117-year historical past.
He ran for mayor in 1971 and gained with 62% of the vote, at a time when the Asian American neighborhood made up lower than 5% of the town’s inhabitants. He turned the primary San Jose mayor to cope with the town’s unchecked growth and pushed laborious for the unsuccessful effort to steer Santa Clara County voters to hitch the Bay Space Speedy Transit District. That was the start of what turned a lifelong advocacy for mass transit and transportation infrastructure.
He was elected to Congress in 1974 and served for 20 years, ultimately turning into chair of the Home Public Works and Transportation Committee. He helped advance quite a few Bay Space transportation tasks, however his best achievement in Congress was possible profitable passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which offered an apology and reparations to Japanese-People despatched to internment camps throughout World Conflict II.
When Mineta served as Commerce Secretary underneath Clinton, he was the primary Asian American Cupboard member in U.S. historical past. Then, as Transportation Secretary underneath Bush, he remained calm on Sept.11, 2001, the day terrorist crashed passenger jets into the World Commerce Middle and the Pentagon. Mineta ordered the 4,638 planes flying throughout america to land instantly, and, as he recalled, “In 2 hours and 20 minutes, all these planes had been down safely and with out incident, but it surely was a harrowing two or three hours.”
He oversaw the creation of the Transportation Safety Administration to enhance aviation safety and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civil honor.
When Bush introduced the award, he stated of Mineta, “He’s given his fellow residents an instance of management, devotion to obligation and private character.”
Effectively stated. And a life well-lived.