Profile Text
Birth Name: Mazie Keiko Hirono
Place of Birth: Koori, Fukushima, Japan
Date of Birth: November 3, 1947
Ethnicity: Japanese
Mazie Hirono (広野 慶子) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served as a U.S. Senator from Hawaii, since January 3, 2013. She was previously Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, from December 2, 1994 to December 2, 2002, and a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii, from January 3, 2007 to January 3, 2013. She is the first Asian-American woman, and the first Buddhist, elected to the U.S. Senate.
Mazie was born in Koori, Fukushima, to Laura Chie (Satō), a typesetter and newspaper proof reader, and Hirono Matabe, a veterinarian. Her father was Japanese. Her mother was born in Hawaii, to Japanese parents, who ran a picture house in Honolulu; her maternal grandparents, who were barred from U.S. citizenship and land ownership, moved back to Japan with her mother in the late 1930s.
After Mazie’s parents’ separation, her mother moved her children to Honolulu in the 1950s. Mazie became a U.S. citizen in 1959, the year of Hawaii’s statehood. She is married to Leighton Kim Oshima. She is a non-practising Buddhist.
Mazie’s maternal grandfather was named Hiroshi Satō. Hiroshi moved from Japan to Hawaii to work on a sugar plantation, at sixteen.
Mazie’s maternal grandmother was named Tari Shinoki. Tari immigrated to Hawaii as a picture bride.
Source: Genealogy of Mazie Hirono (focusing on her mother’s side) – https://www.geni.com