Family and Early Career
While at law school, Mink met hydrologist John Mink (1924–2005), who was to become her husband and lifelong partner.
Newly married, Mink settled in Honolulu soon after, where she began practicing law. In 1952, Patsy gave birth to her daughter Gwendolyn, who later became a prominent author and educator on labor and women's issues.
As the Territory of Hawaii debated statehood in 1956, Mink was elected to the Hawaii Territorial Legislature representing her district in the territorial House of Representatives. She then served in the territorial Senate. In 1959, Hawaii became the 50th state of the Union. From 1962-1964, Mink served in the Hawaii State Senate.
At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, a speech by Hawaii delegate Mink persuaded two-thirds of the party to keep their progressive stance on the civil rights issue.
Read more about this topic: Patsy Mink
Famous quotes containing the words family, early and/or career:
“In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)