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15 September, 2003
Heroes Worth Saluting
The Japanese American Citizens League over the weekend held a gala banquet in Los Angeles to honor leaders within the JA - and APA - community. The evening included tributes to four living lawmakers and a memorial to another, and it left me feeling empowered that such great people have walked in our midst, and have led the way for others hopefully to follow.
 Daniel Inouye |
The four who were there in person to accept the JACL's recognition were Rep. Mike Honda of California, Rep. Bob Matsui of California, Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta. The lawmaker honored in memoriam was Patsy Takemoto Mink of Hawaii, who passed away in 2002.
Each guest has a distinguished record as a lawmaker and a leader in civil rights and human rights, but also are regarded for their knowledge and experience in other areas.
Matsui and Inouye are regarded as the country's foremost experts in such topics as weapons (Inouye, the third most senior member of the Senate, sits on the power Appropriations Committee and is the ranking minority member of the Defense Subcommittee) and taxes and trade (Matsui serves on the equally powerful Ways and Means Committee and is the ranking minority member of the Social Security Subcommittee.
Mineta had solid experience in transportation issues before President Bush named him as Transportation Secretary (the only Democrat in the Bush cabinet) - he chaired the House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation, the Surface Transportation Committee and the House Public Works and Transportation Committee.
Honda, a young pup in Congress compared to the others, is starting his career by serving on both the House Committee on Science and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
OK, they're lawmakers and they're involved in a bunch of groups in Congress with long fancy-sounding names. That doesn't make them heroes.
 Mike Honda |
It's the extra effort that they put into their positions, and the fact that they stand up for what they believe in - sometimes against long odds - that make them heroes.
Honda was the first Congressman earlier this year who spoke out against the comments of Rep. Howard Coble of South Carolina. Coble said on a radio talk show that he believed that Japanese Americans were interned during World War II for their own protection; that some JAs were probably intent on doing harm to the US; and that President Roosevelt was right in signing Executive Order 9066 and evacuating 120,000 people of Japanese descent from the West Coast. All three points were refuted by Congress itself in the 1980s (Coble voted against redress for the Internment) of course, and President Reagan offered an apology to the JA community. When Coble made these statements, Honda was quick to respond and introduced legislation naming Feb. 19 (the date FDR signed EO 9066) as a national Day of Remembrance. When I thanked him for fighting Coble, he simply replied, "It's not over yet."
Matsui, the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - making him the first APA appointed to a leadership position within the party - helped enact HR442, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that acknowledged that internment was unconstitutional and allowed for reparation payments to JAs. He also was instrumental in securing land for the Japanese American World War II Memorial in Washington and in designating the internment camp at Manzanar in California as a national historical site. Matsui, like Honda, was incarcerated as a boy with his family.
 Norm Mineta |
Mineta was 11 when he was sent to Heart Mountain in Wyoming with his family. He's been a mentor to his younger fellow legislators, and gave Honda his political start by appointing him to the San Jose school board when Mineta was the city's mayor. When he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1975, Mineta was the first Asian American from the US mainland to make it to Congress. He's currently the only Asian to have served in two Presidential cabinets - as Secretary of Commerce for Clinton and Transportation for Bush. He was also instrumental, along with the other JAs in Congress, in passing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
Sen. Inouye's accomplishments were almost too long for the JACL's program. He's served Hawaii since 1954, first as a member of the Territorial House of Representatives and Territorial Senate, and then as Hawaii's first US Congressman when the territory was made the 50th state. He's been a senator since 1962. He's fought for recognition for Nisei veterans and for compensation for WWII Filipino veterans.
A pioneer as a highly visible APA leader, Inouye was the keynote speaker during the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention and part of the Watergate hearings that brought down the Nixon White House in the 1970s.
 Bob Matsui |
But it's as a veteran that he's best-known. He was part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team made up of Nisei soldiers during WWII, and he lost an arm fighting against enemy forces in Europe. He's a living symbol of the true heroism of the thousands of Nisei men who joined the US military - many signing up while their families were interned at home - to serve in the 442nd, the 100 Battalion out of Hawaii, and the Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific.
I know that younger Japanese Americans' eyes often glaze over when they read the word "internment" and "442nd," but it's important to remember both the appalling tragedy of internment and the efforts of those who fought to prove internment was wrong (both by joining the military and by protesting the injustice of the camps). Hearing the stories and seeing the likes of Inouye was a moving affirmation of our community's strength.
But in some ways the most moving tribute was the one given to the one hero who wasn't at the JACL gala: Patsy Takemoto Mink.
Each of the four men who were honored mentioned Mink and gave her credit for her awesome accomplishments, which were not related to the 442nd or to internment and redress.
Mink fought a battle against prejudice that wasn't about the color of skin, but about gender. When she graduated from law school she found that bar association rules were often discriminatory to women, and she wasn't allowed to join the Hawaii state bar. So she sued and won her case, becoming the first woman to practice law in Hawaii. She was a Hawaii state legislator in the 1950s and early '60s and was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1964, where she served until 1977, and then again in 1990.
 Patsy Mink |
But her lasting legacy - one that has had a more profound impact than any of the men at the dinner - was as the author of the Women's Educational Equity Act, better known as Title IX. The law forced all schools that receive federal money to open up athletics and academics to women. As Mineta pointed out in his tribute to Mink, without her efforts girls today couldn't dream of going to college on a sports scholarship and going on to become a professional athlete; without Title IX, the Women's National Basketball Association wouldn't exist.
It was nice to hear these men commending Mink, and each other during the evening. It didn't feel phony, and showed they felt both a kinship with each other as pioneers in the highest levels of American government, and a humility and awareness of the awesome job still before them.
Their inspirational lives made me wonder how many more Japanese Americans would be ready and willing to step into the breach and become heroes for the next generation.
Learn more about
there lawmakers and their accomplishments by clicking to these sites:
Mike Honda home page
Bob Matsui home page
Daniel Inouye home page
Norm Mineta US DoT
Patsy
Takemoto Mink Foundation