Mazie Hirono is a United States Senate serving the people of Hawaii. She has been serving since 2013.
To give a little background on her life, she grew up on her grandparents’ rice farm in Fukushima, Japan. She didn’t live with her parents, and in general, her family was in a bad situation, financial-wise. When she was 8 years old, she and her mother secretly escaped to Hawaii by boarding President Cleveland. As an immigrant in Hawaii, living was still hard. Her mother worked at a Japanese-language newspaper for minimum wage. Her mother also worked at another job at the same time. Eventually, she was able to go to public schools and attend the University of Hawaii at Manoa as well. Here was where her interest sparked in public service and advocacy. Later, she also went to law school at Georgetown University.
In 1980, with the encouragement of her peers in law school, she successfully ran for Hawaii House of Representatives chair. In 1994, she was elected lieutenant governor, where she led many efforts including improving early childhood education and revamping the workers’ compensation insurance laws.
In 2006, she was elected to Congress, where she focused on preserving Hawaii’s pre-paid health care law. Then in 2013, when Senator Daniel Akaka retired, she was elected as the U.S. Senate to serve the people of Hawaii. She was the first Asian American woman to serve in Senate.
