The world changed on September 11, 2001. On that fateful day, Norman Mineta was the Secretary of Transportation and made the monumental decision to ground every one of the 6,438 planes flying over America.
Mineta was the first Asian American to serve in a presidential cabinet—in 2000, Mineta was appointed the Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton and in 2001, he was appointed the Secretary of Transportation under George W. Bush. WGBH sat down with Mineta in May ahead of the WGBH/WORLD Channel premiere of Norman Mineta And His Legacy: An American Story, which documents Mineta’s life from an early childhood in San Jose, California, to Japanese American internment, to his work during 9/11.
