In Chap­ter Twen­ty-One titled “Nor­man Mine­ta,” we explore the resilience and jour­ney of Nor­man Mine­ta fol­low­ing the clo­sure of incar­cer­a­tion camps where Japan­ese Amer­i­cans had been detained dur­ing WWII. Upon their release, fam­i­lies were urged to dis­perse and assim­i­late into main­stream Amer­i­can life, striv­ing to prove their loy­al­ty to the nation—advice echoed by his father, Kay. After mil­i­tary ser­vice, Norm con­front­ed racial prej­u­dice when try­ing to rent an apart­ment, which fueled his pas­sion for pol­i­tics as he tran­si­tioned to his father’s insur­ance busi­ness.

Mineta’s polit­i­cal career took shape as he joined the San Jose city coun­cil and even­tu­al­ly became the city’s mayor—significant mile­stones for an Asian Amer­i­can in the 1950s. A con­nec­tion with child­hood friend Alan Simp­son, the delin­quent turned dis­tin­guished lawyer, exem­pli­fies their unlike­ly yet endur­ing friend­ship. They bal­anced their oppos­ing polit­i­cal views with mutu­al respect and affec­tion through­out their careers, laugh­ing and argu­ing in equal mea­sure.

As a Con­gress mem­ber along­side Daniel Inouye, Mine­ta advo­cat­ed for repa­ra­tions and jus­tice for Japan­ese Amer­i­cans wronged dur­ing the war. The Civ­il Lib­er­ties Act of 1988 passed due to bipar­ti­san sup­port, reflect­ing the ongo­ing strug­gle for recog­ni­tion and dig­ni­ty. Pres­i­dent Rea­gan acknowl­edged the injus­tices faced by Japan­ese Amer­i­cans dur­ing his sign­ing of the act, rein­forc­ing the impor­tance of these his­tor­i­cal cor­rec­tions.

Norm con­tin­ued to serve, becom­ing the first Asian Amer­i­can cab­i­net mem­ber, under both Pres­i­dent Clin­ton as Sec­re­tary of Com­merce and Pres­i­dent Bush as Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion. His tenure includ­ed imme­di­ate and deci­sive actions fol­low­ing the 9/11 attacks, where he ensured planes were ground­ed to pre­vent fur­ther tragedies, reflect­ing a com­mit­ment to jus­tice and safe­ty.

Through­out his life, Mine­ta served as a bea­con against racial pro­fil­ing, urg­ing a com­mit­ment to equi­ty that stemmed from his own expe­ri­ences of injus­tice. The chap­ter clos­es with reflec­tions on Mine­ta and Simpson’s found­ing of the Mine­ta-Simp­son Insti­tute, ded­i­cat­ed to remem­ber­ing the lessons of the past while cel­e­brat­ing their shared laugh­ter. As both fig­ures age, their lega­cy empha­sizes ser­vice to oth­ers and the fight for social jus­tice as the true mark­ers of his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance.