Mink in the running to be featured on U.S. currency

In five years, you are getting new money. Who knows if you will have more money, but definitely you are getting new money, because the 2020 version of the $10 bill will feature the picture of a noteworthy American woman.

The question is whom to honor.

Hawaii's U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono is looking forward to the debate. Earlier this month, Hirono joined fellow women senators to write President Barack Obama, asking for the U.S. Treasury to start the process to put a picture of a woman on the $20 bill.

Last week, the Treasury announced it will put a woman's likeness on the $10 bill in time for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Hirono had the perfect candidate: former U.S. Rep. Patsy T. Mink.

"I would like to see a woman of color on the $10 bill," Hirono said in an interview.

"I think it is great to put a woman on it, and Patsy stands for equality," she said.

A nonpartisan grassroots group, Women on 20s, started the campaign, which featured an online poll to suggest candidates.

Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave who became one of the country's leaders against slavery, even leading a raid in 1863 that freed 700 slaves in South Carolina. Tubman had the most online votes — 118,328 — but other prominent American women also placed high in the scoring, including Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Wilma Mankiller. Mink garnered 11,676 votes.

The campaign's description of Mink noted: "She was the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and the first Asian-American woman to serve in Congress. Later she was the first Asian-American to run for U.S. President."

Hirono, writing in Politico Magazine, said Mink's passage of the federal Title IX legislation "has given millions of female students and athletes a fair shot to compete in school and on the playing field, and it has fundamentally transformed our society by creating a fair and inclusive education system."

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