[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 147 (Wednesday, September 20, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                CELEBRATING THE CAREER OF NORMAN MINETA

                                 ______

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 20, 1995
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my good friend and 
distinguished colleague, Congressman Norman Mineta of California's 15th 
Congressional District. I will remember his service to this body as 
thoughtful, prolific, and endearing.
  After operating an insurance business with his father in the 1960's, 
he became increasingly active in the Japanese-American community of San 
Jose, and the Japanese-American Citizens League in particular. His 
passion for public service took off from there. He served as a member 
of San Jose's Human Relations Commission, then moved on to the city's 
housing organization. After some time with the city council, he was 
elected mayor of San Jose in 1971 at a time when the city's population 
was exploding. It was during these years that Mineta's command of 
substance and service to the common good made his destiny at the 
national level certain.
  Representative Mineta has served in Congress since 1974 and devoted 
himself to a sound economy through Government and the defense of the 
disadvantaged. There are several elements of his career as a legislator 
that I would like to highlight today, some of which are particularly 
timely in this Congress.
  In the 102d Congress, in the face of a hostile president. Congressman 
Mineta led the fight for the successful passage of the Intermodal 
Surface Transportation Infrastructure Act of 1991, the single most 
important piece of transportation legislation passed by Congress in 
decades. This 6-year bill authorized $151 billion for the construction 
of highways, for highway safety programs and for revitalizing mass-
transit throughout America. Committed to both an active Government and 
a responsible private sector, Mineta responded to proposed cuts in 
Government departments by declaring: ``What sense does it make to 
reduce transportation investments that build our economy?''
  Congressman Mineta's interests and concerns were truly broad. In 
1993, he authored a bill that designated may 1993 and May 1994 as 
``National Trauma Awareness Month.'' Two other bills he wrote expanded 
the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum of the 
Smithsonian. All of these became law. He also applied his energy and 
intellect to minority health issues. As Chair of the Congressional 
Asian-Pacific-American Caucus, he spoke for the Disadvantaged Minority 
Health Improvement Act Reauthorization last year. During that debate, 
he noted ``the problem of discrimination in our Nation's health care 
system is a major one,'' and outlined how the bill would remedy this 
crisis, especially for geographically isolated minorities.
  On matters related to the Judiciary Committee, we stood side-by-side 
often, supporting the assault weapons ban, and protecting access to 
abortion clinics last year. This spring, following his introduction 
with myself and Congressman Moorhead of a resolution urging China to 
enforce its intellectual property laws, Norman traveled through Asia 
with myself and others on a Judiciary Committee trip investigating such 
concerns. His wife Danealia's charm and style proved an asset too on 
that excursion.
  Some might list his ascension to the chairmanship of the Public Works 
Committee in the 103d Congress as the crowing achievement of his 
career; in fact, he was the first Asian-American to chair a major 
committee. But I would list a different accomplishment that I have a 
great admiration for, and that I think he has a sound sense of pride: 
his legislation providing reparations for Japanese-Americans held in 
prisons during World War Two.
  Rooted in his own traumatic experience as a child in an ``internment 
camp'' in Wyoming during the war, Mineta authored legislation that the 
100th Congress passed that provided $20,000 each to the 60,000 
surviving victims of those concentration camps, and even more 
importantly, a formal apology from the U.S. Government.
  I share his belief that institutional or governmental memory 
consisting of documents, archives, and transcripts cannot be the sole 
guardian of the past. I believe that history is too important to leave 
to this kind of memory because institutions can choose what they want 
to forget, like the internment camps of slavery of African-Americans. 
Institutions also have weak mechanisms for providing an element of 
moral reflection to history. Many people do not know that the American 
Government has never officially acknowledged slavery. Together, we 
sponsored a bill for reparations for African-Americans, H.R. 891, to 
have the Government do just that. In a way, this bill forces a moral 
judgment into an official history of something that has been forgotten 
and denied for centuries. Because of his work for reparations for 
Japanese-Americans, he was always enthusiastic about exploring the 
meaning and broad implications of reparations.
  I will miss his insight on reparations, intellectual property, health 
care and many other issues. I wish him the best of success in his 
private endeavors, and I feel honored to have served with him.


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