Scope and Content Note
The papers of Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink (1927-2002) span the years 1883-2005 with the bulk of material dating from 1953 to 2002. The collection documents Mink's tenure in the House of Representatives as congresswoman from Hawaii from 1965 to 1977 and again from 1990 until her death in 2002. Extensive legislative files chronicle her advancement of gender equity, most notably through her authorship of Title IX and the Women's Educational Equity Act, as well as her legislative work on many other aspects of education and women's rights and her activities relating to welfare, the environment, United States territories in the Pacific, Asian-American affairs, consumer affairs, civil rights, labor, immigration, health care, Vietnam, and nuclear weapons testing. Also featured in the collection are papers concerning Mink's professional and political activities before her election to Congress in 1964, including her private law practice in Honolulu, her early involvement in Hawaii and national Democratic politics, and her service in Hawaii's territorial and state legislatures. Material between 1977 and 1990 relates principally to her activities as assistant secretary of state for oceans and international, nvironmental, and scientific affairs, president of Americans for Democratic Action, and chair of the Honolulu City Council.
The collection is arranged in nine series, the first four of which correspond to the major chronological periods of Mink's professional and political career: Pre-Congressional File (pre-1965), Congressional File I (1965-1977), Inter-Congressional File (1977-1990), and Congressional File II (1990-2002). The collection's remaining five series include Family Papers , Scrapbooks , Restricted , Classified , and Oversize .
The Pre-Congressional File series includes student papers, client files from her private law practice, material from her participation in Hawaii and national Democratic Party politics, campaign files from her Hawaii house and senate races, and legislative files from her service in the territorial and state legislatures. The earliest political material, dated 1953-1954, relates to Mink's role in organizing the Everyman Committee, a group of reform-minded young Democrats who later founded the Oahu and Hawaii state chapters of the Young Democratic Clubs of America in 1956. Many of the members of these clubs, including Mink, George R. Ariyoshi, and Daniel K. Inouye, later entered politics. Correspondence, minutes, and membership lists provide an overview of the clubs' activities and Mink's terms as president. Also in the series are files relating to Mink's cochairmanship of the campaign of John Anthony Burns for delegate to Congress in 1954 and her response to charges alleging his ill-treatment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii during World War II. Mink launched her own campaign for Hawaii's territorial house of representatives in 1956. The series includes files from her successful 1956 campaign as well as from her successful campaigns for the territorial senate in 1958 and the state senate in 1962, and her unsuccessful bid for the United States House of Representatives in 1959. Legislative files from her service in the Hawaii legislature include material on her opposition to nuclear weapons testing, her work on education, Hawaii statehood, and other issues.
Mink served as national vice president of the Young Democratic Clubs of America from 1957 to 1959, requiring her to travel extensively through the mainland United States to attend YDCA conventions and committee meetings. The national YDCA files and a separate speeches and writings file include speeches delivered by Mink on these occasions and at other Democratic Party events, often on the subject of Hawaii statehood. Mink's position in the organization drew her into national Democratic politics. The series includes correspondence between Mink and national party leaders, including Paul M. Butler, Hubert H. Humphrey, John F. Kennedy, and Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965). Mink attended the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles as a Stevenson delegate and a member of the platform committee. She was selected to deliver at the convention a civil rights plank speech, drafts of which are included in the series.
A large part of the Pre-Congressional File series is comprised of Mink's papers from her private law practice in Honolulu. Most of her cases involved divorce, adoption, property disputes, and personal injury. The earliest material in the series dates from Mink's student years in high school, college, and law school. Student papers document the leadership positions she frequently held, including her role in organizing a model state constitutional convention at the University of Hawaii in 1948 and the ethnic discrimination she experienced at two mainland colleges in 1947. Law school papers include her early writings on issues such as civil rights and immigration that she would later undertake as a legislator. Many events from Mink's school years and early career are also covered in the earliest volumes of the Scrapbooks series.
The Congressional File I series begins with Mink's election to the House of Representatives in 1964 and concludes with her departure from Congress following her unsuccessful campaign for the Senate in 1976. The series is arranged in nine subseries: Legislative Central File , Legislative Reference File , Hawaii File , Mainland File , Political File , Personal File , Public Relations File , Campaign File , and Administrative File .
The Legislative Reference File subseries provides an overview of Mink's first tenure in Congress. A personal accomplishments file chronicles what Mink and her staff regarded as her major legislative achievements. Assisting researchers in isolating details regarding her activities are her voting records and ratings by organizations, a bill file containing lists and file copies of bills sponsored and cosponsored by her, and card files that list committee assignments, bills, resolutions, amendments, votes, hearings, remarks and statements, testimony, speeches and speaking engagements, press releases, publicity, awards, and White House visits. The Legislative Reference File also includes an incomplete set of her congressional statements, testimony, tributes, and remarks. Other copies are located in the Legislative Central File under the topics to which they relate.
Mink's congressional activities are most thoroughly documented in the Legislative Central File , the largest of the subseries. A subject or topical file, it relates directly to her legislative activities, including the drafting and passage of bills, committee work, congressional hearings, testimony, congressional fact-finding trips, background research files compiled by Mink and her staff, and congressional correspondence including “Dear Colleague” letters, exchanges with committee chairs, and inquiries from members' offices. Also included in the subseries is material documenting Mink's non-legislative activities that reflected and supported her legislative interests and priorities. Such activities include lawsuits and complaints filed by Mink on issues relating to legislation; her attendance at meetings and conferences; casework; her correspondence with constituents, Hawaii state and local officials, organizations, and businesses; and her correspondence with federal agencies, national organizations, and citizens of states other than Hawaii. Mink wrote a relatively large percentage of her outgoing correspondence and many documents in the subseries contain her marginal notes, commentary, emendations, and instructions to staff.
A large education file in the Legislative Central File emanated from Mink's work on the Education and Labor Committee and reflects the emphasis she placed on education throughout her legislative career. Highlighted in this file is Mink's promotion of gender equity in education, including her testimony on behalf of the Omnibus Postsecondary Education Act of 1970 and her support of discrimination cases filed by women under Executive Order 11246, the presidential directive that barred sex discrimination by institutions receiving federal contracts. Mink is perhaps best known for her work in connection with Title IX, the 1972 law that outlawed sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funding. The Legislative Central File includes material relating to the law's introduction as Title X of the Higher Education Act of 1971, its eventual passage as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the drafting of its regulations between 1972 and 1975, and Mink's leading role in defending the law against amendments intended to limit its coverage. Researchers interested in the authorship of Title IX should also consult the Congressional File II series for remarks made by Mink during twenty-fifth and thirtieth anniversary commemorations in which she reminisced about authoring the bill with Edith Green. Also included in the education file are materials relating to the Women's Education Equity Act (WEEA), introduced by Mink in 1972 and enacted in 1974 as the program-based companion legislation to Title IX. Extensive WEEA files highlight her work with women's organizations and her legislative skills in moving the bill through Congress.
Featured in the education file is material relating to Mink's advocacy of gender equity in vocational education, career guidance programs, and overseas dependants' schools. Apart from gender equity issues, the education file also documents Mink's work on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, adult education, Asian studies, bilingual education, the East-West Center in Honolulu, school lunch programs, special education, teacher sabbaticals, and impact aid, for which she was recognized by fellow House members as a leading authority. Mink's child day care legislation is organized as a separate file in the Legislative Central File . Mink introduced her first child day care bill in 1967, and in 1971 key elements of it became the basis for the first child care bill to pass both houses. The child day care file traces the bill's evolution and its subsequent defeat by presidential veto. Mink continued to work on child day care legislation throughout her career.
Mink's legislation on behalf of women appears throughout the Legislative Central File and includes her promotion of equal access to credit; equal employment opportunities in the private sector, military, postal service, and civil service; consumer product safety and health care issues; equitable jury selection; and the end of discriminatory practices in regard to survivor benefits, retirement and pensions, social security, and taxation. The women's issues file at the end of the Legislative Central File pertains to the women's movement and women's rights on a broad scale. Featured in the file are efforts to secure passage of the equal rights amendment; Mink's own Equal Rights for Women Act, a civil rights bill for women; the establishment of commissions on the status of women; her attendance at the World Conference of the International Women's Year in Mexico City; her legislative support for the National Women's Conference; and her correspondence with women's organizations including the National Women's Political Caucus. Also included is a file containing many of Mink's statements, testimony, speeches, and writings on legislative imperatives for women and her perspectives on the women's movement.
The Interior files in the Legislative Central File reflect Mink's work on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, especially regarding United States territories in the Pacific that include American Samoa, Guam, and the Trust Territory. The Interior files document her travel to the region, her extensive correspondence with its inhabitants and governing officials, and her legislative initiatives regarding the political status of the territories, their eligibility for federal programs, and her opposition to nuclear weapons testing in the region. Also documented are her efforts on behalf of Native Hawaiians including her 1972 legislation that established the criteria for qualifying as a Native Hawaiian, her 1974 bill that included Native Hawaiians in Native American programs, and her work on Hawaiian native claims and home land issues. Mink's membership on the Interior Committee enabled her to play a key role in establishing national parks in Hawaii to preserve the islands' sacred and historical sites and unique environment. Most notable was her lead role in creating the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, an ancient Hawaiian site on the island of Hawaii.
In 1973, Mink accepted the chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Mines and Mining on the strength of her interest in the environment. In the Interior files are copies of official records detailing her role as chair and her controversial coal strip-mining legislation. The original subcommittee records are located at the National Archives and Records Administration. A personal file kept by Mink on the subcommittee includes warnings from the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning threats against her life in connection with her strip-mining bill. A landmark Federal Communications Commission fairness doctrine complaint filed by Mink over a West Virginia radio station's refusal to air her taped message on strip mining is filed in the Legislative Central File under communications.
Defense files in the Legislative Central File include material relating to Hawaii's numerous bases and military installations during the Vietnam War and their subsequent postwar reductions; Mink's concerns over the transportation and testing of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; her opposition to naval bombing of Kahoolawe island; her work to improve the status of women in the military; her position on selective service draft reform; and her interventions on behalf of the 29th Brigade of the Hawaii National Guard when it was mobilized following the Pueblo incident with North Korea. Most of the material on the Vietnam War is consolidated as a separate file toward the end of the Legislative Central File. The Vietnam files contain a large volume of letters received by Mink concerning the war; a file of her speeches, notes, and writings that traces her growing opposition to the war beginning in 1965; and files relating to her trip to Paris in 1972 following the breakdown in peace negotiations. Traveling with Bella S. Abzug, Mink met with North Vietnamese officials, United States negotiators, and Thi Binh Nguyen of the South Vietnamese liberation movement. Also in the Legislative Central File, filed under Amchitka Island, is material pertaining to Mink's opposition to nuclear weapons testing on the Aleutian island in 1971. The Amchitka files include the White House's refusal to allow Mink access to classified reports concerning the tests and court documents stemming from her subsequent lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The case, handled by law school classmate Ramsey Clark, was heard by the Supreme Court. The court's 1973 ruling was its first interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act and was cited later that year in Nixon v. Sirica.
The Legislative Central File contains extensive welfare files documenting congressional action on Great Society initiatives. Included are legislative files relating to the Economic Opportunity Act, Social Security Act amendments, and the Community Services Act; field hearings conducted by a special subcommittee on poverty in 1971; and congressional responses to the Poor People's Campaign in 1968. A large program file details the enactment and administration of individual programs including Head Start, Legal Services Corporation, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, and Children (WIC), Job Corps, and other youth employment programs. Some of the earliest correspondence, filed under war on poverty, contains letters from federal, state, and local officials that convey the enormous task of implementing recently established programs. Mink's response to the Nixon administration's efforts to abolish or scale back federal welfare programs is filed under welfare reform. In the file as well are many of her speeches, statements, and writings on welfare.
Included among immigration files is Mink's legislation on naturalization and visa eligibility, her work on behalf of Vietnamese orphans fathered by American servicemen, her efforts to assist Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon, and her New Americans Education and Employment Act, a bill providing federal assistance to gateway cities coping with large influxes of immigrants. Labor files concern agricultural workers, Davis-Bacon Act enforcement, equal employment opportunity and fair labor standards legislation, labor strikes, occupational safety and health, and manpower and training programs. Judiciary files include her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the Supreme Court confirmation of G. Harrold Carswell on the basis of his judicial record on sex discrimination. Internal security files contain material relating to American internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, including the repeals of the Emergency Detention Act and Executive Order 9066, internee compensation, and the plight of Latin American citizens of Japanese descent interned in the United States during the war.
Other topics of note are Mink's support of civil rights, including her protest of the seating of the Mississippi congressional delegation in 1965; her advocacy of House committee and seniority reform; and her involvement in United States-China relations as chair of a Members of Congress for Peace through Law subcommittee on China and her trip to China in 1975. White House files contain Mink's correspondence with presidents and vice presidents, particularly Hubert H. Humphrey and Lyndon B. Johnson, and her response to the Watergate scandal that culminated in her resolution in October 1973 to impeach Richard M. Nixon.
The Political File documents Mink's interaction with congressional and national Democratic leaders through the Democratic Caucus, Democratic National Committee, Democratic national conventions, and other venues. Also featured are materials relating to Mink's committee assignments; her membership in the 89th Democratic Congressional Club, a supportive network of members who entered Congress in 1965; her widely publicized conflict with Democratic National Priorities Committee member Edgar Berman over the suitability of women for high executive office; her participation in a televised Democratic response to the state of the union address in 1970; and her role in presidential campaigns, including her active support of Robert F. Kennedy for president in 1968. Much of the material concerning the 1972 Democratic National Convention pertains to reform efforts to increase the participation of women and minorities. Included are files relating to Mink's membership on the Commission on Rules, headed by James G. O'Hara, and complaints filed by her and other women regarding the under-representation of women in the Hawaii delegation. Also related to Hawaii politics is a survey of the Second Congressional District and a 1972 Ralph Nader Congress Report that focused largely on Mink's relationship with the Hawaii Democratic Party. Material on Mink's own presidential candidacy in 1972 is located in the Campaign File subseries.
The Hawaii File subseries consists of files designated by the letter “H” by Mink's staff. The file is arranged under the following headings: counties and cities, East-West Center, federal funding to Hawaii, general correspondence, individuals, organizations and businesses, schools and colleges, service academy appointments, state government, subject file, and University of Hawaii. There is considerable overlap between the Hawaii File and the Legislative Central File . The latter includes a large amount of information on federal education and welfare programs in Hawaii; legislative reapportionment; voting rights; the state's pineapple and sugar industries; the impact of gasoline shortages on the islands in the 1970s; shipping strikes that nearly crippled the state's economy; Hawaii's communication systems; maritime issues; fishing rights; immigration, most notably from the Philippines; and transportation, including Federal Aviation Administration aviation route cases, among other issues. The island locations of Hawaii institutions, national parks, and other sites on Hawaii, Kauai, Lanai, Maui, Molokai, and Oahu are noted in these subseries and throughout the finding aid.
The Mainland File subseries consists of files bearing the letter “M” in the office's filing system. The file largely concerns mainland institutions and national organizations, most notably Americans for Democratic Action. Files relating to the Japanese American Citizens' League include case files on ethnic and racial discrimination and efforts to secure a presidential pardon for Tokyo Rose. Additional material concerning Mink's involvement with national organizations and mainland institutions is in the events scheduling file in the Personal File subseries.
The Personal File subseries contains awards and honors, personal correspondence and Christmas card lists, photographs, memberships and sponsorships, donations and charitable contributions, an unpublished biography, letters urging a cabinet-level appointment for Mink in the Jimmy Carter administration, House administrative matters including her financial disclosure reports and her protest against discriminatory practices by the House gym, lists of her travel, questionnaires answered by Mink, recommendations written by her, and a scheduling file containing appointment calendars, an event file, and accepted invitations and appointments. In 1975 Mink discovered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency kept investigative files on her. The Personal File includes her demand to see the files, portions of which were made available to her in 1975 and to the Honolulu Advertiserin 2005. Also in the subseries is a master speech file and a writings file containing articles and a book proposal. Speeches and articles by Mink can also be found in the event scheduling file in this subseries and in the Legislative Central File under topics to which they relate where they are frequently foldered separately to highlight their presence.
The Public Relations File subseries includes biographical statements, interviews, magazine features, newsletters issued by Mink's office, news clippings, press releases, and information relating to radio interviews and television appearances. In addition to a large news clipping file located in this subseries, the Scrapbooks series contains volumes of mounted clippings assembled by Mink's staff.
The Campaign File subseries documents each of Mink's campaigns for the House of Representatives from 1964 to 1974 as well as her unsuccessful campaign for the Senate in 1976. The campaign files reveal the dynamics of Hawaii state politics, the challenges of campaigning on each of Hawaii's islands, the network of Mink's local supporters, the issues she chose to emphasize, and the way in which her positions, particularly her opposition to the Vietnam War, resonated in the state. The Campaign File also contains material from Mink's run for the presidency in the Oregon Democratic primary in 1972. The campaign highlighted her position on the Vietnam War, her opposition to nuclear weapons testing, and her advocacy of women's rights. Also in the campaign subseries are files maintained by Gretchen M. Kafoury who coordinated Mink's Oregon campaign. Other files discuss the possibility of a Mink candidacy in Maryland, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
A small Administrative File subseries contains an office manual, routine constituent correspondence and requests, communications between Mink's Washington, D.C., office and Hawaii offices, mailing lists, notes and staff communications, and file copies of outgoing telegrams and telexes.
The Inter-Congressional File series documents Mink's activities following her departure from Congress in 1977 and before her return to the House of Representatives in 1990. Mink was appointed assistant secretary of state for oceans and international, environmental, and scientific affairs by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Files relating to her State Department service document her appointment, confirmation, and resignation in 1978; her daily schedules and speaking engagements; and departmental administrative and personnel affairs. Matters pertaining to the conflict between native rights and environmental concerns over the hunting of bowhead whales predominate among the issues covered by the file. Mink served three terms as president of Americans for Democratic Action from 1978 to 1981. ADA files document Mink's attendance at board and executive committee meetings, national conventions, and other events; her speaking engagements on behalf of the organization; and the formulation of ADA policies during her presidency.
Mink was elected to the Honolulu City Council for a four-year term from 1983 to 1987. The series documents Mink's chairmanship of the council from 1983 to 1985 and her work on a wide variety of issues including child day care, housing, land use and zoning, and transportation. Covered extensively in the series are Mink's efforts to recall three council members whose midterm shift in party affiliation placed the council under Republican control. An organizations file chronicles her work with advocacy groups as well as many Asian-American, education, and women's organizations, including Women USA Fund, Inc., founded by Mink, Bella S. Abzug, Yvonne B. Burk, and Gloria Steinem. A subject file reveals other aspects of her involvement in Asian-American affairs, education, environmental issues, health care, nuclear weapons testing, the Trust Territory, and women's issues. In 1975 Mink was informed that she had been enrolled without her knowledge in a diethylstilbestrol (DES) clinical trial at the University of Chicago during her pregnancy in 1951-1952. Included in the series are legal files from her lawsuit against the university that employed a novel use of the tort of battery. Also featured are records concerning her founding of the Public Reporter, an organization that issued a newsletter on the Hawaii legislature; her campaign for the Honolulu City Council in 1982; her unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 1986 and Honolulu mayor in 1988; and a personal file containing biographical material, correspondence, news clippings, a scheduling file, speeches and speaking engagements, writings, and teaching files from the University of Hawaii.
The Congressional File II series documents Mink's second tenure in the House of Representatives from her election in 1990 to complete the unexpired term of Daniel K. Akaka until her death in office in 2002. The series is arranged in eight subseries: Legislative Central File , Legislative Reference File , Hawaii File , Mainland File , Personal File , Public Relations File , Campaign File , and Honolulu Office File .
The Legislative Reference File provides an overview of Mink's legislative work and priorities during her second tenure and can be useful in navigating the voluminous legislative files contained in the series. Included are file copies and lists of Mink's bills, statements outlining her record on select topics, voting records and ratings, and reference binders for each Congress containing biographical statements, important letters sent, Hawaii delegation letters, other joint letters, press releases, statements, testimony, speeches, and articles.
The Legislative Central File subseries is arranged by Congress and topically thereunder in alphabetical headings from aging to White House. Although the topical headings remain the same throughout the subseries, some of the terminology used to describe the files they contain varies slightly from Congress to Congress. Mink returned to the Education and Labor Committee in 1990. Included in the subseries is her work on behalf of elementary and secondary education; child nutrition programs; Head Start; impact aid; student financial aid, particularly for part-time students; vocational, job training, and adult education; Native Hawaiian education programs; national community service; and gender equity through her efforts on behalf of Title IX and Women's Education Equity Act funding and through the Gender Equity in Education Act cosponsored by Mink in the 103rd Congress. Other legislation in support of women includes her Ovarian Cancer Research Act, enacted in 1991; her opposition to legislation that would limit damages awarded in sex discrimination cases in the workplace and product liability suits; and her bills concerning displaced homemakers, pay equity, violence against women, women's reproductive rights, and full-coverage for medical screening tests. In 1991 she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Labor-related issues include her participation as ranking minority member on the American Worker at a Crossroads Project and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters election investigation; her defense of the Davis-Bacon Act; her support for the Family and Medical Leave Act, occupational safety and health programs, and increases in the minimum wage; and her opposition to striker replacement legislation. Other major topics include Mink's opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement; her support for a comprehensive, single-pay universal health care system; her opposition to Republican immigration reform bills and her support for federal benefits for legal immigrants; her efforts on behalf of the Civil Rights Act of 1991; her opposition to French nuclear testing in the Pacific and her boycott of Jacques Chirac's address to Congress; and her work on behalf of the environment and endangered species.
A major part of Mink's legislative work during her second tenure involved welfare reform, including her advocacy of federal safety nets for families and children in poverty, her opposition to the elimination of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and her support for funding the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. In 1995, her substitute welfare reform bill, Family Stability and Work Act, was one of two Democratic alternative bills voted on by the House.
Legislative files can also be found in the Personal File subseries. Included in the subseries are records from Mink's personal office in the Rayburn House Office Building at the time of her death. This material has been kept together to preserve the significance of its retention by Mink. A legislative file contains material from the 101st through the 107th Congresses and is organized topically in files ranging from aging to the White House. A political file documents Mink's committee assignments, her association with Democratic Party organizations and groups, and her participation in caucuses, including the Democratic Caucus, the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC). Mink was a founding member and chair of the latter. Material related to the CAPAC includes documentation on the caucus's founding and its position on bilingual education and voting, birthright citizenship, discrimination and violence against Asian Americans, English as the official language, health care, confirmation of Bill Lann Lee as assistant attorney general for civil rights, and espionage indictments of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born American nuclear scientist. A Hawaii file includes, among other material, files pertaining to assistance provided by Mink's office during Hurricane Iniki and following the bankruptcy of the Hamakua Sugar Company. A small amount of casework features Mink's support of Terri Taylor who was jailed under mandatory sentencing guidelines. Miscellany in the office file is comprised of awards, Christmas card lists, financial disclosure reports, House administrative matters including the calculation of Mink's tenure, interviews, memberships and board affiliations, photographs, a large file of Mink's notes to and from her staff, and files containing Mink's speeches and writings. A large scheduling file completes the Personal File subseries.
Among the other subseries in the Congressional File II series are the Hawaii and Mainland files kept by Mink's Washington, D.C., staff. A Public Relations File contains biographical material, media requests, news clippings, Mink's newsletters, and information regarding radio and television broadcasts. A Campaign File documents Mink's campaigns for the House of Representatives beginning with a special election in 1990 and ending with Mink's 2002 reelection campaign during which she became ill and died. A Honolulu Office File maintained by her staff in Hawaii consists of four subgroupings: legislative file, Hawaii government file, Hawaii issues file, and a scheduling file concerning events and appointments attended by Mink or her staff in Hawaii. These files have been maintained in their original order according to a numerical filing system used in the office.
A small Family Papers series consists in large part of get-well and condolence letters received by Mink's family during her last illness and subsequent death. Included are letters from congressional colleagues, George W. Bush, national civic leaders, state and local officials, former staff, constituents, friends, and family. Memorial resolutions, memorial events, tributes, and obituaries are also included in the posthumous file. The remainder of the Family Papers relates to Mink's husband, John F. Mink, and her daughter, Gwendolyn Mink, and to her maternal Tateyama and paternal Takemoto relatives. John F. Mink's papers include correspondence with his wife, academic records from college through graduate school, and military records from his World War II service in the Army Air Corps. John Mink's diaries record his war experiences, his courtship with Patsy Mink, and events related to her political career. Correspondence, photographs, family history albums, and family reunion and genealogical material related to the Takemoto and Tateyama families reveal many facets of Japanese-American family life in Hawaii. Particularly insightful is a Tateyama family history produced by Patsy Mink that details her maternal grandparents' immigration from Japan and the lives of subsequent generations of the family. Also included in the family papers is material relating to Mink's maternal uncle Haruyoshi Harold Tateyama who was killed in Italy in 1943 as a member of the Japanese-American 100th Infantry Battalion.
The Scrapbooks series spans the years 1943 to 1988. Most of the volumes contain news clippings about Mink. Also included are photographs and memorabilia including letters, speeches, event programs, invitations, school mementos, and campaign ephemera.