Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1217/

The last hurdle – President Reagan

There was a fellow by the name of Grant...

I*: Ujifusa.

Ujifusa, and Grant was an editor with the Reader's Digest. And we were talking about this, and I said, "You know, Grant, we're not over the hill yet on this thing." And he said, "Well, you know, Governor Tom Kean of New Jersey is going to be with President Reagan, and he's going to be in the car with him for about an hour. Suppose we brief Governor Kean about this bill and have him talk to President Reagan about it, and not veto the bill?" So I said that would be great, so we pulled all that material together, and Grant went to see Governor Kean and convinced him that in this conversation when he's in the President's car, that he should talk to President Reagan about it, so we did that.

Also, remember, when President Reagan was Captain Reagan, he was there when, when, was it Sergeant Masuda, couldn't be buried in his own hometown cemetery. And so Captain Reagan was at the burial of captain, I mean, of Sergeant Masuda even though it wasn't in his hometown grave. Wherever he got buried, Captain Reagan was there. So we had someone else remind the President of that occurrence. And in fact, I think there's a picture of him at that cemetery, or at the funeral service, and they even gave him a picture of that to remind him. But it was really Governor Kean who talked to President Reagan about why he shouldn't veto this bill.

* "I" indicates an interviewer (Tom Ikeda).


governments politics Redress movement

Date: July 4, 2008

Location: Colorado, US

Interviewer: Tom Ikeda

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Norman Mineta was born on November 12, 1931 in San Jose, California. He and his family were incarcerated at the Heart Mountain internment camp during World War II.

He began his political career when he was appointed to a vacant San Jose City Council seat in San Jose and was elected to the seat the following term, followed by vice mayor and then becoming Mayor of San Jose in 1971.

Mineta served in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995 and was a key figure behind the passage of H.R. 442, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for and redressed the unconstitutional, mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In 2000, he became the first Asian American to hold a post in the presidential cabinet when President Clinton appointed Mineta as his Secretary of Commerce. The following year, President George W. Bush appointed him Secretary of Transportation, the only Democrat in Bush's cabinet, where he served as the longest serving Secretary of Transportation since the position was created in 1967. (December 2011)

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