Mineta, Norman Yoshio (1931-2022), was the first Asian American to be named to the United States Cabinet. From 2000 to 2001, Mineta served as U.S. secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton. In 2001, President George W. Bush, a Republican, named Mineta, a Democrat, U.S. secretary of transportation. Mineta served in the position until 2006.
Mineta, who was of Japanese descent, was born in San Jose, California, on Nov. 12, 1931. He was a boy in 1941, when Japan’s attack on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, brought the United States into World War II (1939-1945). During the war, the U.S. government confined more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in internment camps. Mineta and his family lived in a camp in Wyoming in 1942 and 1943. Mineta graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1953. He served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1956, then joined his family’s insurance business. He was mayor of San Francisco from 1971 to 1974.
From 1975 to 1995, Mineta served in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a member of the House, he helped pass the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The act called for a national apology and a payment to surviving Japanese Americans who had been in the internment camps. From 1995 to 2000, Mineta was an executive with Lockheed Martin Corporation, an aircraft manufacturer. After stepping down as secretary of transportation in 2006, Mineta joined a Washington, D.C., communications firm, becoming a vice chairman. Mineta died on May 3, 2022.
