N|150 Patsy Takemoto Mink

Curt Bright Author

03/04/2019 Added

1999 Plays

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Hawaiian Congresswoman Patsy Mink was a trailblazer who overcame gender and racial discrimination, and she was a Husker.

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[00:00:00.434](uplifting music)
[00:00:02.220]Every girl in Little League.
[00:00:03.690]Every women playing college sports.
[00:00:05.550]And every parent, including Michelle and myself,
[00:00:07.640]who watches their daughter on a field
[00:00:09.973]or in the classroom is forever grateful
[00:00:12.990]to the late Patsy Takemoto Mink.
[00:00:18.350]Patsy Mink was a legislative trailblazer
[00:00:21.070]who overcame gender and racial discrimination.
[00:00:24.620]And, she was a Husker.
[00:00:27.340]As you probably know,
[00:00:28.250]Hawaii is located far out in the Pacific Ocean.
[00:00:35.940]Patsy Takemoto Mink was born in 1927 in Hawaii.
[00:00:40.100]She graduated from high school as class valedictorian,
[00:00:43.310]and started college at the University of Hawaii
[00:00:45.950]with the goal of a career in medicine.
[00:00:51.610]Mink transferred to the University of Nebraska in 1947
[00:00:55.210]where she faced racial discrimination.
[00:00:57.880]The University housed all students of color
[00:01:00.420]in a single dorm.
[00:01:01.960]It was a common practice in those days,
[00:01:04.110]but Mink knew it was wrong,
[00:01:05.940]so she fought against it.
[00:01:08.030]In a letter to the editor of the University's student
[00:01:10.750]newspaper, Mink called out the racist practice.
[00:01:14.360]She started a coalition of students, parents, employees,
[00:01:18.200]alumni and businesses, which successfully lobbied the
[00:01:21.110]Board of Regents to remove the segregation policy.
[00:01:24.310]After her win against segregation at Nebraska,
[00:01:26.930]Mink had emergency thyroid surgery
[00:01:29.180]and returned home to Honolulu to recover
[00:01:31.580]and finish her final year of college.
[00:01:34.040]Following graduation, she applied to 20 medical schools
[00:01:37.460]and was rejected by all of them,
[00:01:39.410]because she was a woman.
[00:01:41.230]Mink decided that the best way to
[00:01:43.130]make medical schools accept women,
[00:01:45.380]was by taking them to court.
[00:01:47.220]So she went to law school.
[00:01:48.910]It was really very difficult.
[00:01:51.280]I hate to say it, but I won't mention the name
[00:01:53.380]of the law school, but I got into my law school
[00:01:57.190]on the grounds that they considered me a foreigner.
[00:02:01.020]I got in on the foreign quota.
[00:02:04.130]Someone in the law school had not read up their
[00:02:06.910]American history and hadn't realized that Hawaii
[00:02:10.000]was annexed in 1898, and that we're all America citizens.
[00:02:15.540]After passing the bar exam,
[00:02:17.090]Mink continued to face gender and race discrimination.
[00:02:20.340]No law firms would hire her,
[00:02:22.550]so she created her own solo practice,
[00:02:25.240]and went into politics, becoming the first
[00:02:27.570]woman to serve in the Hawaii State Senate.
[00:02:30.380]In 1964, Mink became the first non-white woman
[00:02:33.760]and the first Asian American woman elected
[00:02:35.900]to the U.S. Congress where she served a total of 24 years.
[00:02:40.240]So we're just at the very beginning stages,
[00:02:43.950]I think, of this whole movement,
[00:02:46.050]to reawaken the stats of inequality in this country.
[00:02:51.560]Congress Women Mink introduced the
[00:02:53.330]Early Childhood Education Act,
[00:02:55.180]the first childcare bill establishing bi-lingual
[00:02:58.060]education, special education,
[00:02:59.990]student loans, and Head Start.
[00:03:02.610]She co-sponsored the Women's Education Equity Act,
[00:03:05.750]providing Federal protections against
[00:03:07.960]gender discrimination in education,
[00:03:10.360]and Mink co-authored the Title Line Amendment,
[00:03:12.970]which said that any educational program
[00:03:15.140]receiving Federal money can not exclude females.
[00:03:18.690]And so long as any part of our society
[00:03:23.660]adheres to a sexist notion that men should do
[00:03:28.430]certain things and women should do certain things,
[00:03:31.430]and then begin to inculcate our babies with these notions,
[00:03:35.820]through curriculum development and so forth.
[00:03:38.540]Then we'll never be rid of the basic causes
[00:03:41.800]of sex discrimination.
[00:03:44.230]Patsy Takemoto Mink died in 2002
[00:03:47.060]following complications from chicken pox.
[00:03:49.902](applauding)
[00:03:52.740]In 2014, President Barrack Obama awarded her
[00:03:56.080]a posthumous Presidential Metal of Freedom,
[00:03:58.580]the nations highest civilian award.
[00:04:01.710]Patsy was a passionate advocate for opportunity
[00:04:03.920]and equality and realizing the full promise
[00:04:06.450]of the America dream.
[00:04:08.480]When I have my contemporaries at home say
[00:04:10.520]oh my goodness, what you've done to politics at home.
[00:04:14.010]You know I wish we had never heard of Patsy Mink.
[00:04:16.520]I'll say, well it's because of all of your attitudes
[00:04:19.640]that drove me into to politics.
[00:04:21.240]If you'd given me a job when I came in from law school,
[00:04:24.310]I would have been very happy just
[00:04:26.478]drawing a paycheck each month.
[00:04:28.879](soft music fades)

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