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APIA Leaders Strive to Help Life Go On

File Photo of Norman Mineta.

By Sam Chu Lin

As the nation recovers from the tragedies at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Asian Pacific Islander American leaders work to keep the nation running, while dealing with their own loss.

This past Sunday, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta rehashed the incidents of the past two weeks. He flew to New York City where he participated in a memorial service at Yankee Stadium for the victims. He visited a Coast Guard station controlling sea traffic into the Big Apple, did a walking tour of ground zero and flew over the devastated area of Lower Manhattan in a Coast Guard helicopter.

“To look at the skyline without the twin towers is one thing,” he commented, “But to see this devastated area, the steel beams twisted like pretzels — the heat must have been so intense — is another thing.”

On Sept. 11, Mineta was having breakfast in a conference room and conferring with Belgium’s Minister of Transportation about aviation noise when his chief of staff interrupted their meeting and alerted Mineta a plane had crashed into the North Tower of the Trade Center about half-an-hour ago. Minutes later, when a second jetliner hit the second tower — The White House called Mineta. With sirens blaring, he quickly left his office and sped to a secure destination. Shortly after that, Mineta heard about the explosion at the Pentagon and that it was an American Airlines plane.

“Whenever one of something occurs, you think it’s an accident,” he elaborated. “When two of the same thing occurs, it’s a pattern. And when three of the same thing happens, it’s a program.”

At that point, Mineta told the FAA to bring every airplane down. There were roughly about 4600 airplanes in the air and in two hours they were all brought down safely.

On that same unforgettable day, former California State Treasurer Matt Fong was attending a national treasurer’s conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He received a telephone call telling him to turn on his television set in his hotel room. He watched a replay of the first jetliner slamming into one of the twin WTC towers, and then witnessed — in real-time — the other plane hitting its target.

Ground zero: National Guards in foreground with remains of the World Trade Center in the background. Photo by Corky Lee

But that shock and pain came closer to home. Fong also knew many people at the Pentagon. He often travels there as a reservist in the Air Force. He holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and until just last month, was nominee for Under Secretary of the Army. A few days after attacks, Fong discovered that the office he had been working out of as the Under Secretary designee was destroyed in the blast. The General and staff that he had been working with were all killed.

“It’s quite an eerie feeling. Had I still been in the process of becoming the Under Secretary of the Army, awaiting confirmation,” Fong said. “I could have been sitting there with those who were blown up in that group.”

Other APIAs found themselves responding directly to the attacks. Battalion Chief Chris Kawai and Rescue Specialist Tom Kitahata, both of the Los Angeles City Fire Department’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, flew to the East Coast just hours after the planes hit.

The two Asian Pacific Islander American fire fighters were among three USR teams dispatched from California to help out in the New York tragedy. Twenty-four hours later, led by a police escort, the team was on scene near the remains of the South Tower. A “surreal environment, like a scene from ‘Planet of the Apes’” greeted them. A gray powder dust filled the air. There was the smell of toxic fumes and the stench of death.

“My hope was that we were going to find some of the victims alive, but we didn’t,” Kitahata sadly stated. “One of my fellow fire fighters saw the picture of a victim that he had just recovered posted on a missing persons’ board. It hits home when you connect a name with a victim.”

Kitahata’s team has returned to Los Angeles, but he and his colleagues are keeping close contact with their New York comrades. He believes they will be going through the grieving process for a long time and his squad is trying to raise funds to help them. Kitahata also encourages other citizens to do the same. In the Asian Pacific Islander American communities, many churches and organizations have stepped forward to offer their assistance, raising more than an estimated one million dollars.

He added, “The image of Chinese Americans and other Asians hasn’t been perceived as the best in the last three years, with the Wen Ho Lee situation and the spy plane thing. We need to get together to try to show the country that we are part of it, that we care, and we are doing something.”

Fong says it is also important for Americans to demonstrate their patriotism with not only their words but with their actions. He is particularly angry with people who have confided in him that they are considering sending their children out of the country if the draft is re-instituted.

“If they’re not willing to be part of America and defend her, and if it’s okay for somebody else’s kid to defend America and not their own kids, then frankly I don’t think they deserve to be here in America,” he stated.

Thanks to terrorism, the American lifestyle has changed, and the Mineta family agrees. The Transportation Secretary now often works seven days a week, and frequently returns home at one or two in the morning. With a few hours of sleep, he is on the road again before sunrise.

“Normalcy is not what it was on the 10th of September,” Mineta declared. “In terms of the impact on me, on how we think about our families and loved ones, friends, our economy, our transportation system — whatever we think about, it’s just changed. Now we have to think about the element of security and everything that we do. People are going to have to be patient. In fact, patience is part of patriotism. Life is going to be different for everybody.”