George Ariyoshi, first US governor of Asian American descent, dies aged 100

Ariyoshi, a Democrat who led the state from 1973 to 1986, died peacefully while surrounded by family on Sunday night, according to a statement Monday from the current governor, Josh Green.

“Governor Ariyoshi devoted his life to Hawaiʻi with humility, discipline and an unwavering sense of responsibility to the people he served,” Green said. “He led our state during a pivotal moment with quiet strength and integrity, and his legacy as a trailblazer and public servant will endure for generations.”

Ariyoshi was a three-term governor who first rose to the position in October 1973. Three years earlier, he had been elected lieutenant governor, and he then became acting governor when John Burns fell ill with cancer.

Ariyoshi won the office outright in 1974 and was reelected in 1978 and 1982. Hawaii governors are now subject to a two-term limit. His political career coincided with the Democratic party’s rise 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, becoming a state senator the following year when Hawaii became a state.

Ariyoshi won three more state senate races – in 1964, 1966 and 1968 – before becoming lieutenant governor.

Ariyoshi was born on 12 March 1926, in a two-room tenement near Honolulu Harbor to parents who immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. He grew up in the hardscrabble neighborhood of Kalihi, near downtown Honolulu.

His father, Ryozo, a sumo wrestler from Fukuoka prefecture, became a stevedore and owner of a dry cleaning shop in Hawaii. His mother, Mitsue, came from Kumamoto, Japan.

In his 1997 autobiography, With Obligation 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 become a lawyer if he could learn to speak properly.

After graduating from McKinley high school in 1944, Ariyoshi served as an interpreter with the US Army’s military intelligence service in Japan at the end of the second world war.

After the war, Ariyoshi attended the University of Hawaii before transferring to Michigan State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history and political science in 1949. Ariyoshi earned a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1952.

Going to school on the US mainland, Ariyoshi didn’t feel a sense of being treated differently. “On the contrary, I enjoyed the fact that Hawaii had a reputation even then for people of different backgrounds coming together and living harmoniously,” he wrote in his book.

He began practicing law in Hawaii the year after he graduated from law school. Ariyoshi withdrew from private practice and resigned various corporate directorships after he was elected lieutenant governor.

He said his decision to seek the position was influenced by a desire to break the barrier for minorities.

“The new state of Hawaii had produced United States representatives and senators of caucasian, Chinese and Japanese ancestry, reflecting our diversity,” he wrote. “But only caucasians had been governor.”

Ariyoshi’s time as governor was marked by Hawaii becoming a tourist destination and a booming population. “I was convinced that neither our infrastructure nor our environment would support this rate of growth,” he wrote.

In 1975, Ariyoshi and his wife, Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi, attended their first National Governor’s Conference in Washington DC, where they were invited by Gerald Ford to a black-tie dinner at the White House.

Jean Ariyoshi wrote in her book, Washington Place: A First Lady’s Story, that as the couple jitterbugged on the dancefloor, she stood on tip-toe and whispered in his ear: “Look at the little girl from Wahiawa dancing at the White House.”

He replied: “And she’s dancing with the kid from Kalihi.”

John Waiheʻe, who became Ariyoshi’s lieutenant governor in 1982, went on to be elected the first governor of native Hawaiian ancestry in 1986 with Ariyoshi’s support.

In addition to his wife, Jean, Ariyoshi is survived by daughter Lynn and sons Donn and Ryozo.