HONOLULU — Former Hawaii Governor George R. Ariyoshi — the country’s first Asian American governor — has died at the age of 100.
Ariucci, a Democrat who led the state from 1973 to 1986, died peacefully while surrounded by his family Sunday night, according to a statement Monday from current Gov. Josh Green.
“Governor Ariyoshi dedicated his life to Hawaii with humility, discipline and an unwavering sense of responsibility to the people he served,” Green said. “He led our state through a pivotal moment with quiet strength and integrity, and his legacy as a pioneer and public servant will last for generations.”
Ariyoshi was a three-term governor, first rising to the position in October 1973. Three years ago, he was elected lieutenant governor, then became acting governor when Gov. John Burns fell ill with cancer.
Ariyoshi won office outright in 1974, and was re-elected in 1978 and 1982. Hawaii’s governors are now subject to a two-term limit. His political career coincided with the rise of the Democratic Party to power in Hawaii.
Democrats wrested control of the legislature from Republicans in 1954, the year Ariyoshi won the first of two terms in the territorial House of Representatives. He won a territorial Senate seat in 1958, and became a state senator the following year when Hawaii became a state.
Ariyoshi won three more state Senate elections — in 1964, 1966 and 1968 — before becoming lieutenant governor.
George Ryuichi Ariyoshi was born on March 12, 1926, in a two-room tenement near Honolulu Harbor to parents who had immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. He grew up in the Kalihi neighborhood near downtown Honolulu.
His father, Ryozo, a sumo wrestler from Fukuoka Prefecture, became a longshoreman and dry cleaning store owner in Hawaii. His mother, Mitsuo, came from Kumamoto, Japan.
In his 1997 autobiography, With a Commitment to All, Ariyoshi wrote about growing up with a lisp.
“The fact that we had no money did not seem to be a barrier, but I had a barrier of a different kind,” he wrote, describing how he wanted to grow up to be a lawyer if he could learn to speak properly.
After graduating from McKinley High School in 1944, Ariyoshi served as an interpreter with the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service in Japan at the end of World War II.
After the war, Ariyoshi attended the University of Hawaii before transferring to Michigan State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science in 1949. Ariyoshi earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1952.
While going to school in the mainland United States, Ariyoshi had no sense of being treated differently. “On the contrary, I enjoyed the fact that Hawaii had a good reputation, even at that time, for people of different backgrounds coming together and living in harmony,” he wrote in his book.
He began practicing law in Hawaii a year after graduating from law school. Ariyoshi withdrew from private practice and resigned from management positions at several companies after his election as lieutenant governor.
He said that his decision to run for office was influenced by the desire to break the minority barrier.
“The new state of Hawaii has produced representatives and United States Senators of Caucasian, Chinese, and Japanese descent, reflecting our diversity,” he wrote. “But only Caucasians were rulers.”
Ariyoshi’s time as governor was marked by Hawaii becoming a tourist destination and a population boom. “I was convinced that our infrastructure and environment would not support this rate of growth,” he wrote.
In 1975, Ariyoshi and his wife, Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi, attended the first National Governors’ Conference in Washington, D.C., where they were invited by President Gerald Ford to a state dinner at the White House.
As the couple tensed on the dance floor, she stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear: “Look at the little girl from Wahiawa dancing in the White House,” Jean Ariucci wrote in her book, “Washington Place: The Story of a First Lady.”
He replied: She is dancing with the boy from Kalihi.
John Waihi, who became Ariyoshi’s lieutenant governor in 1982, was elected as the first governor of Native Hawaiian descent in 1986 with Ariyoshi’s support.
In addition to his wife, Jane, Ariyoshi leaves behind his daughter, Lin, and his sons, Don and Ryuzo.