Patsy Takemoto Mink: Japanese-American Students at Wilson
Rep. Pat Schroeder leads delegation of congresswomen from the House to Senate to express concerns over Thomas nomination. With her are, from left, Louise Slaughter, Barbara Boxer, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Nita Lowey, Patsy Mink, and Jolene Unsoeld. October 9, 1991. Newsday.
Patsy Takemoto Mink attended Wilson during the first semester of her junior year with the class of 1948. She returned to the U. of Hawaii and then earned her law degree at U. of Chicago. Unable to find a position in Chicago, she opened her own firm in Hawaii. Patsy was elected to Congress in 1964, and was the first woman of Asian descent to serve in the House.
She was a staunch supporter of women’s rights, civil rights, and anti-poverty measures. She sponsored legislation including the Early Childhood Education Act and the Women’s Educational Equity Act. She co-authored the Title IX amendment to the Higher Education Act, which was later renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. She was appointed an Assistant Secretary of State in 1977 with responsibility for oceans, international environmental and scientific affairs.
“We must begin to change our entire attitude toward the roles of the sexes so it will not only be accepted, but expected, that women will become corporate board chairs, university presidents – even President of the United States! – Patsy Mink 1972
In interviews, Patsy described her family’s experience of Pearl Harbor. “We had been up late, the night before, Dec. 6, celebrating my birthday and we slept late that day. We didn’t know what was happening – we were 100 miles from the naval base – until the Boy Scouts came and told us to turn out our light. The cane fields were burning, and we might be considered ‘Jap spies’. She recalled the terrible uncertainty of worrying whether her family would be interned in one of the mainland camps. “They took 9000 without a trial.” She remembered how it was to be called ‘dirty Jap’ in school while nine of the men in her family fought in the U.S. Army.
President Havens was responsible for bringing three Japanese-American students from California to Wilson to complete their degrees after families were detained in internment camps. Havens provided scholarships and reported to the organizing committee, regarding any trouble with the town:
“The obvious difficulties in the academic and town communities we have not encountered. The College accepted the students as what they are: American citizens, who, through no fault of their own, are in an unusually difficult situation. We have had no complaints from the town of Chambersburg, possibly because their arrival was announced in the newspaper in a simple and straight forward way. We tried to make it quite clear that they were American Citizens and that their presence here was endorsed by the War Relocation Authority.”
Mink was disturbed by mass police actions against the Black Panthers in 1968, and torn about her feelings about the trial of the ‘Chicago Seven.’ “I find myself torn between my feelings as a lawyer and my feelings as an individual concerned about civil rights and liberties. I don’t condone all the behavior of the defendants and their counsel, but that’s not the issue. The trial should never have happened – to say “Because you’re an outsider, your thoughts are criminal, your free speech rights are revoked – that is appalling.”
