(theme music playing) GRAHAM: Welcome to "P&P Live."

I'm Brad Graham, the co-owner of Politics and Prose along with my wife, Lissa Muscatine.

We have a great event for you this evening featuring Senator Mazie Hirono, and her new memoir, "Heart of Fire."

She's become one of the most frank and fiery advocates on Capitol Hill.

Well, she hasn't always been that way.

The book takes readers back to when, uh, as a child, uh, she left Japan and crossed the Pacific on a ship in steerage with her mother and one brother arriving in Hawaii and growing up poor there.

Her own experiences with economic insecurity, lack of healthcare access and family separation have influenced her views over the years as she's risen in politics beginning in 1980, with her election to the Hawaii House of Representatives.

In 1994, she was elected Hawaii's Lieutenant Governor.

In 2006, she made it to the US House of Representatives.

And six years after that was elected to the US Senate becoming Hawaii's first female Senator, and the first Asian-American woman to serve in the US Senate.

Hers is an inspiring story, "An Immigrant Daughter's Story," as she calls it in the book subtitle, and she tells it quite movingly.

Senator will be in a conversation this evening with Nina Totenberg, NPRs legal affairs correspondent.

And Nina has been with NPR since the mid-1970s and over the years has won many broadcast journalism awards, not only for her scoops, but also for her exceptional analysis.

"Politics and Prose Live," welcome Senator Mazie Hirono and Nina Totenberg.

TOTENBERG: Well, thank you so much for that very kind introduction.

Uh, let me say just a few words about how I first got to know Senator Hirono.

Um, I, as you all know, cover the Supreme Court and the judiciary in general and all things legal as much as one human being can.

And, uh, I was sitting in a Judiciary committee hearing room when for the third or fourth time, Senator Hirono asked a nominee for a judicial appointment or an executive appointment.

I don't remember which, uh, whether they've ever been involved in a sexual harassment complaint or the target of a sexual harassment complaint.

And eventually she said that she was going to ask that of every nominee, male or female for every position that came before her.

And that was in 2018, I think, and it prompted me to wanna do a profile of her.

I didn't know her before then.

Um, and I came to, you know, I look back at the piece that I wrote, uh, as a result of that, both broadcast and digital and the headline, which I remember writing is "The Quiet Rage of Mazie Hirono," which is born out by this book.

It's not a bitter book.

It's a, it's a very, uh, heartfelt book and it's called of course, "Heart of Fire."

And the "Heart of Fire" I think that she's talking about actually is her mother's, but she might've called, as well have called it "Parts of Fire."

So I'm very pleased and was very pleased when she called up and said, would I interview her for this, this event at Politics and Prose?

So welcome everybody.

Nice to see you, even from a distance Mazie.

HIRONO: Aloha, Nina.

It's great to see you once again.

TOTENBERG: It's great to see you.

The Senator once tried to teach me how to make one of those paper, what do you call them?

HIRONO: Cranes.

TOTENBERG: Paper cranes.

HIRONO: Origami cranes.

TOTENBERG: Yeah, origami cranes.

It was an almost hopeless proposition.

She's not only a Senator and she is a really artistic human being.

And this is a beautifully written book about Hawaii and her upbringing there.

But as Bradley said, it starts really with your mother's background and her why she came to Hawaii escaping really, uh, your father.

HIRONO: My mother married my father when I, she was only 21, I think.

And he hid the fact that he was a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic two terrible, um, more than habits.

And when that all emerged, she just at, after three children, really a terrible existence living with her in-laws who treated her like a slave and a chattel.

She determined that the only thing she could do to create a better life for herself and her children was to escape him, but she had to do it.

Um, she had to plot to get away from him because if he had found out, he would have stopped us.

So tremendous courage to bring us to a new country that she knew, but her children had absolutely no idea.

Hawaii, America, what?

TOTENBERG: So how old were you and your brother then?

HIRONO: I was almost eight.

My brother was nine and she brought the two older kids and I left my younger brother, Wayne.

His name was Shigeki.

He was only three years old.

He would have been too young to go to school.

There would be nobody in Hawaii to take care of him, so she brought her older children who could start school.

TOTENBERG: So describe the first, the number of years and how she supported you and how you lived.

HIRONO: And she worked a couple of jobs, and we lived, uh, in a rooming house and one room, a rooming house with one bed where we basically slept sideways and we shared a kitchen area.

Was it even a kitchen at the end of the hallway with all these rooms off the side of the hallway.

So we didn't have healthcare.

Growing up, my greatest fear was mom would get sick and she wouldn't be able to go to work and there'd be no money if she didn't go to work.

And so the idea of healthcare is so fundamental and is a right not a privilege, certainly was something I experienced growing up, but we were poor and we didn't know anything about a social safety net, by the way, we had no idea.

My mother just knew that she had to work hard and low paying jobs with no benefits to take care of us.

TOTENBERG: So what were her first jobs?

HIRONO: She worked... TOTENBERG: She worked two jobs.

She worked two jobs, right?

HIRONO: She worked as a typesetter at the "Hawaii Hochi" which is a Japanese language paper.

Uh, she had never done that kind of work before, but she taught us, she taught herself, I should say.

And then she also worked for a catering company, uh, and she would you know, do that kind of work.

She had a uniform and they would serve people at different parties.

So then that was her evening job.

She wasn't, uh, home that early that many nights a week, and my older brother and I were latchkey children.

It's really, before that term was coined, I think.

TOTENBERG: Yeah, but she, she would, she had just one uniform, right?

HIRONO: Yeah, yes.

TOTENBERG: So after she got home every night.

HIRONO: She would have to make sure it was clean.

Uh, she would work.

Um, I think she worked at least three nights a week doing that.

And so she had to make sure her white uniform, she had another one that was sort of like a mumu, but that was only on special occasions that she would wear that with catering.

But basically yes.

And we would have to wash it by hand.

TOTENBERG: What time did she leave in the morning?

HIRONO: Oh, she would leave really early in the morning because you have to catch the bus.

And the "Hawaii Hochi" was way off, the, past downtown.

So she got up really early and she would come home late.

And that's what I, one of my recollections of waiting with my older brother, Roy at the bus stop waiting for her to get off the bus.

TOTENBERG: Hmm.

But she, you know, there was no doubt that she loved you passionately.

I think you can say, and, and did everything to take care of you?

HIRONO: Yes.

She was very devoted to us and how much more devotion could be shown then that she brought us to a whole new country to create a better life for ourselves, to give us a chance because I was raised on my grandparents farm from the time I was three till just before I came to this country, so I did not know my father at all.

And so to, um, to bring us from that environment, which was a very, uh, I had a peaceful childhood with my grandmother who I loved very much, but she wanted us all to be together and, and to, um, uh, such devotion, such courage.

And that's the, that's the "Heart of Fire," Nina.

TOTENBERG: That is the "Heart of Fire," but she imparted that to you, you know.

There's a, um, there's a scene fairly early in your book.

You are going to a grammar school, but oddly enough, even though you lived in very poor circumstances was populated principally by quite middle-class Japanese.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: Uh, Hawaiian American children who as, you put it, wore "closed shoes."

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: And there was a kid named Robert.

HIRONO: Robert, yeah.

TOTENBERG: So talk about that a little bit.

HIRONO: He was a blonde, skinny kid, I remember him.

I can still see his face.

He had blonde hair, he had a chipped tooth and, uh, he always wore a clean white shirt, but basically that was the one shirt that I remember him wearing.

And often he wouldn't have lunch.

And those days it was a, it was a quarter for lunch and he would often not have lunch.

And the reason we would know is that we would have to bring our lunch from the cafeteria to the classroom and he wouldn't have lunch, but I do remember a teacher asking him, "Why aren't you having lunch?"

When I knew full well why he wasn't having lunch.

We didn't have a free lunch program back in those days.

TOTENBERG: So apparently you, you didn't, you didn't chat with each other, but there came a time when the teacher went through the class saying there was gonna be some sort of a party and making assignments.

HIRONO: That was one of the most mortifying things.

After all these years, I still remember how I felt at the end.

We were gonna have a class party and she just went around.

I was saying, "Can you bring this?

Can you bring that?"

And she told me to bring bread.

Why, I knew a bread was, but she didn't say sandwich.

So I took it very literally.

I went home and I said to mom, my mother, "I have to bring a bread."

And she said, "What?

I mean, could she mean a sandwich?"

I said, "I don't know.

She said bread."

HIRONO: So my mother compromised and cut the bread into four, like little sandwich, finger sandwiches.

And when I took my little package to school and they were all piled up and the teachers opening up everybody's food and she came to mine.

And by this time I knew that I had gotten it all wrong.

I just, I still remember how mortified I felt.

And then she opened mine up and she said, "Who brought this?"

And a little voice piped up, "Oh, I like plain bread."

And I think that was Robert.

TOTENBERG: So you, you connected that, those moments to the school lunch program that you tried to expand, right?

HIRONO: Well, I did.

I figured out for myself and I think maybe the teachers 'cause one thing was that I was a good student and they kind of played some favorites at that school I have to say.

And although I obviously was poor kid, but I caught on.

I, I mean, remember I didn't speak any English at all when I came to this country and there was no such thing as English language classes, you just have to learn how to speak.

And I was totally discouraged from speaking Japanese at all, which is yet another reason that I believe, uh, one's cultural, one's language is an important part of cultural identity, but I have to get myself acculturated.

And so, uh, it was clear I didn't have much money.

Uh, and they, the school decided that I should be a school lunch cashier so that they could give me a free lunch every day.

So I made my own little school lunch program.

TOTENBERG: But later on, um, you work very hard to expand the school lunch program.

HIRONO: Well, certainly I still do that by the way, because nutrition is so foundational.

Um, and so, um, both in the state legislature and clearly in the Congress that when we start talking about support for our schools and enabling our agriculture products to be in our schools, those are all things that I continue to work on.

TOTENBERG: Um, you know, uh, I look back at this article that I wrote a couple of years ago, and I said that you were actually no stranger to bad-assery.

Even, even way back in the beginnings of your larger, uh, ambitions.

When you decided you were going to run for Lieutenant Governor and you have lunch with then Governor, I guess it was Cayetano.

HIRONO: He was Lieutenant Governor at the time.

He was running for Governor.

TOTENBERG: Yes.

HIRONO: And he... Go ahead.

HIRONO: He knew that this was my first statewide race.

And very few people even had heard of me and he was gonna have a hard time himself.

And so he decided I wasn't the partner that he needed to get himself elected.

And in Hawaii, the Lieutenant Governor has to run his or her own race.

And so he came, I knew that he wanted to talk me out of running.

So we had coffee and he went into this whole long thing about why I shouldn't run.

And at the end of which I just said, "You know, Ben, this is just such bull (bleep).

I am running.

And by, by the, by the time the primary election comes, people will know who I am."

And I got 10,000 more votes in my primary than he got in his.

So there.

TOTENBERG: There are many traits you learned from your mother about how to just sort of move forward.

HIRONO: Mm-hmm.

TOTENBERG: Um, and one of them that really struck me was when you were actually editor-in-chief of your school paper in high school.

HIRONO: Yes.

And so I have been in news writing.

I am, for three years, I worked myself up to become the editor and chief of the school paper, which was a, uh, it was an award-winning paper.

So, you know, there was a lot of work involved.

We put it out every two weeks.

And so when I, in the start of the year, when I was trying to become editor and chief, the adviser announced that there's gonna be some guy who's gonna come into news writing never been a part of news writing before, and he was going to be my co-editor and chief.

And I said, "What?"

She said, "Well, there's this person named Allison Lynde.

And he is gonna come in and he's gonna be your co-editor."

And back then, you don't talk back to your teachers.

Let's face it.

I certainly didn't accept a little bit later on.

And so I accepted it.

And then I ended up as is the case for so many women, I ended up doing most of the work because he was deemed the, the better writer, and he was gonna make sure that we have put out of the kind of paper that was gonna continue to be award-winning, but he would, he wouldn't hardly, he would never stay late to do the paste ups and all that, because we used to put out a very professional school paper, which went to a regular printer and all of that to be printed up.

So there would be paste up and, you know, everything that I had to do, and I would be there every day, late at night.

And finally, one night I couldn't take it anymore.

I called him.

I said, "Why aren't you here?"

He said, "I'm doing my homework," as though I didn't have any homework.

And I just said homework on my eyeballs.

Uh, I mean, I didn't swear back then as I do now.

And I say, "You better, get over here."

And so he did, but that's the kind of thing that a lot of women have to experience that.

You know, Barack Obama's grandmother was the first Vice President of the largest bank in Hawaii.

And she would train all of these college educated men, uh, and, and they would get promoted ahead of her because she didn't have a college degree.

She did the work.

So this is kind of typical for a lot of women.

That's why we have to stand up for ourselves.

TOTENBERG: You knew her, you knew her because.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: And Barack Obama didn't know until his.

HIRONO: No.

TOTENBERG: Inauguration but you, you tell the story.

HIRONO: Well, I, I didn't know that I was doing part-time work for his grandmother.

Her name was Madelyn Dunham.

And I didn't even know that he was her much loved grandmother who helped to raise him just as my grandmother raised me until he was running for president.

And again, I have to think, wait a minute, was that the woman that I did part-time work for every time the bank needed, or her part of the bank needed more workers, she would call on me because I was signed up at a temp agency, uh, during that time.

And so I... TOTENBERG: She knew you were a hard worker.

She knew you were a hard worker, but the... the other thing that was interesting about your newspaper experience, other than that, you didn't become a reporter, um, is that, is that your teacher, the advisor for the paper.. HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: Sort of every day, sort of mildly, I don't know if the word is harassed, but I think... HIRONO: I would use that word.

TOTENBERG: So, and you use your, your, you use something your mother taught you.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: About that too.

HIRONO: So I was in the news writing room every single day because it took that much work.

But I, in the morning I would go in, I would do my homework, you know, and I'd be minding my own business, doing my homework.

And the advisor would come, let's say my advisor who said, "This guy is gonna be your editor-in-chief."

And she would stand over me as I was working, I was doing my homework at a desk.

And she'd ask, "Are you, did you do this?

Did you do that?

Is page one ready?

Are you pasted up."

She would just ask me all these things and she never once ever bothered Allison at that time.

And it really pissed me off.

I didn't use that word then either, but I went home.

I said, "Mom, you know, every single day she bothers me like this, what should I do?"

I was so shocked when my mother said, "What you should do is just ignore her, just ignore her."

And I'm thinking I'm a student.

We don't do that to teachers.

But I actually just decided to try, because my mother is a very wise person.

And so the next day, the very next morning I'm there.

And, and the teacher is, uh, over, you know, standing over me and all that.

And I just refused to even look up.

I didn't talk to her.

I just kept working until finally she said, "Talking to you is like pulling teeth."

And she walked off in a huff," but she never, she never bugged me after that.

And the fact doesn't matter she didn't have to bug me, I always got the paper out.

TOTENBERG: Passive aggression works sometimes.

HIRONO: Oh, there's a lot of that.

You know, women, I tell you, sometimes we have to go through that and that is a form of aggression, but that was pretty over to not pay attention to my teacher.

TOTENBERG: You, um, you know, as I'm going through this book, you always had a man in your life.

For a long time it was Allison.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: Then for a while, it was your current husband who's but I'll get you, I'll get to that later.

Um, and then it was other people, uh, because that, that relationship ended.

But, but there, you did have a light bulb moment, right?

HIRONO: Yeah.

Yes.

That was in college.

And although I had a very fierce mother who took control over her life, although she didn't have to be vocal about it or anything, but I had such a different background from everybody else that I, I thought, but you can't escape the, the sort of the dominant culture's expectations incorporated into yourself.

And so while I was in college freshman year or so, I thought I would get my degree, I would get married, I would be this middle-class person with children, then I read Betty Friedan's, "Feminine Mystique."

I literally, a light bulb went on my head and I thought, "How is it that I don't even have a father?

My mother just works all the time to support us.

Why do I think some guy is gonna take care of me?"

And it really was a light bulb moment.

I think it's part of the reason that I did not think about getting married or having children for a long time, especially the getting married part.

That was not high on my list of priorities.

TOTENBERG: No.

And, and you were with Allison on and off, but for a long time, and he eventually did ask you to marry him.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: And you decided to say no.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: Why?

HIRONO: Allison throughout our, our time together, I realized that, uh, every once in a while he would show me that, that he really was the superior one.

Uh, so he would, uh, compete with me, uh, in subtle or not so subtle ways.

And, uh, and, uh, he also had some health issues that was hard, but I just decided that, that this is probably not a good thing for me to marry him after 18 years being together off and on.

Now, both of us were raised by mothers, so he didn't have a father and his father died very tragically and that, and I had a lasting, lasting impression on him, but be that as it may, I decided that I was not going to be the sort of the helpmate.

TOTENBERG: Mm-hmm.

HIRONO: To him, that I would have to make my own way, and the way to do that was not to marry him, and so I said, no.

TOTENBERG: So you started to get involved in politics at, uh, at the completely grassroots level.

I think it was in college, right?

HIRONO: Yes, mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I did various things to broaden my horizons.

And at one point I worked in a rural community called Waimanalo to work with nine other University of Hawaii students to create a teen program for, uh, mainly the native Hawaiian, young people who were there, and Waimanalo was deemed a, uh, economically depressed area, so off we went.

And, uh, all the other eight university of Hawaii students who were picked to be these counselors, they all had protested the war, they had all gotten themselves arrested at Bachman Hall, which was the main administration hall, except for me.

Um, so there I was.

I became friends with, um, a person named Steve Carter whose roommate was one of the leaders, local leaders of anti-war movement on the University of Hawaii campus.

I got to know him and I began to question the Vietnam War.

And, uh, we would be talking about, you know, the war and what was going on and the Tet Offensive, all of that.

And I decided I'm gonna protest the war.

This is, this is not, this is not the war that we should be fighting.

And so that was my political awakening.

Up to that point, I thought I'd become a therapist, a counselor, or give back in that way, but that was my political awakening protesting the Vietnam War.

And I still, you know, I still remember my first protest march and singing "We Shall Overcome," um, that is still a hugely meaningful anthem to me, "We Shall Overcome."

TOTENBERG: You know, I think people, uh, imagine, especially younger people who weren't there and you and I were, you were in these demonstrations.

I was actually covering them.

HIRONO: Mm-hmm.

TOTENBERG: Um, that everybody was, they, they imagined that everybody was more or less the same, but in fact, you were the "good girl" at the same time, you were very fierce.

HIRONO: Yes I was always very determined, but my vocalization of a lot of things, uh, I did not really come up until much later because in the state legislature, every once in a while that a, what I would call the terse confrontational side of me would come out because, you know, I did have the nickname that the guys call me behind my back, the Ice Queen.

So anyway, um, yes, I, uh, in the culture that I was brought up in confrontation, vocalizing was not particularly rewarded.

And so I figured out other ways to get to my goals.

TOTENBERG: But you were not, you were not about to flirt or play girly.

HIRONO: No.

TOTENBERG: Even though the numbers of women were so tiny, that's why you became known as the Ice Queen.

You didn't do that.

HIRONO: Yes, every once in a while that the back of the day, you know, sadly women have had to go through this kind of, uh, harassment and propositions too since time in Memorial, so I had my share, but, um, I never, I mean, I would just look at them and if looks could kill, they would have chopped it.

So it was like that, and I just went about my work.

Yes.

TOTENBERG: You know, there's a chapter in your book.

Um, I'm hopping back and forth.

HIRONO: Mm-hmm.

TOTENBERG: Because it seems appropriate, but there's a chapter in your book, it's quite short, uh, but it's very powerful, um, about your, your brother, um.

HIRONO: Wayne.

TOTENBERG: Wayne, who got left behind, uh, and who, uh, because he, you know, to bring him in steerage, to have him where you at your mother couldn't take care of him was just not feasible, it was a Sophie's Choice for her, but it was not.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: Feasible.

And she left him behind with, with her mother who was.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: Your beloved grandmother.

And, and, and she eventually was able to bring everybody, your grandmother and grandfather and Wayne three years later, I think to the states, but this was really hard on him.

And you described that in the book and then later, but describe how, how hard it was on him that he, he may have been teeny, but he, he knew he'd been left behind.

HIRONO: Well, yes, we, we didn't realize the trauma that the separation would have on Wayne at the time.

And yes, we came to understand it, uh, because he just had difficulties all through school, that separation anxiety, which I understand now, and the trauma was so painful.

And, uh, to know that he would look at the picture of his family, me and my older brother, my mother, and he would ask my grandmother every night, when are we coming home?

Just kind of tears your heart up.

TOTENBERG: So there's this chapter in the book where your, your mother used to take him fishing all the time and would drop him off to go fishing.

And I guess you can describe the rest better than me.

HIRONO: My brother always had, um, a major struggles with, uh, school.

Uh, the schools were not set up to take care of people like him.

I would say that he would be diagnosed as having learning disabilities.

And if there were, now there would be additional help for him, but back then no.

And so he, the, the way the school dealt with him was to just avast him, and then finally in 10th grade, he got kicked out of school.

He finally found a job working at uh, intermittently at, uh, uh, auto repair shop.

But when he, there wasn't enough work, he would go to a place called Lanai Lookout and fish.

That was his love.

That was the thing that he loved to do, and he was good at it.

He would fish from the cliffs.

This place called Lanai Lookout, is very familiar to people who live on Oahu.

And, um, so I rarely talk about my family, Nina.

Um, there, there are people who, for the longest, longest time didn't even know I was an immigrant, but I hardly talked about my brother.

But, um, uh, one day when I was visiting Allison in New York, he was at NYU Law School.

And I had another good friend who from Georgetown there, and I was talking about Wayne.

It was the first time I had ever talked about Wayne and how much he loved fishing.

And my friend, who remains a good friend, uh, Mark, Mark Borenstein, who's a judge now in California.

He said, "Isn't it dangerous for him to be fishing off the cliff like that?"

And I said, "No, my brother does it all the time.

He loves that."

And that, that was the day we lost him.

TOTENBERG: So this is.

HIRONO: So the wave took him and we lost him.

TOTENBERG: So there's this moment when your mother, and mother is out in the yard, and working.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: In a shed.

And describe what happened and what happened.

HIRONO: That day... TOTENBERG: Yeah.

HIRONO: That was the day.

So in Honolulu, she was working out in the yard.

She loved gardening.

So she was outside in the yard watering and doing things.

And she had a tool shed, um, and that she had built herself.

And then suddenly there was this loud bang on the tool shed, and she thought somebody had thrown a rock or something.

She walked all around the tool shed, and there was nothing there.

And so she went back but, back into the house after she finished, but she just had a vague sense of unease.

And by this time there were, um, ambulance sirens going, you know, our house then was in the back of a colonial in Honolulu high, which is on a big, big highways, and it was on the way to Lanai Lookout.

And she heard all of that and it wasn't until she got to work, although she did, she did drive to Lanai Lookout to see if Wayne needed a lift before she went to work at four, 4:00 PM, she had lobster ship.

But she didn't see him, so she just went to work and it wasn't until she got to work that, that she found out that Wayne had drowned, but you know, that was Wayne telling her goodbye.

TOTENBERG: Hmm.

You, it.

HIRONO: So these kinds of moments, uh, have occurred in my life.

The day I talked to about Wayne was the day we lost him.

TOTENBERG: Oh my goodness.

So, but it also was part of the reason you were so incensed by the Trump administration's separation policy.

HIRONO: Yes.

Knowing how traumatic it is for children to be separated from their parents.

Like we saw these children just crying and all of that.

We have, I mean, how, you know, but in my own life, my lived experience and my own family and the trauma of Wayne being separated from his mommy was tremendous.

He never got over it.

And so this is what Trump was doing.

It was mindless cruelty, and he didn't care that he, obviously, they didn't even care.

And they didn't even keep records of who the parents were.

So when a judge in California told them, "You will restore these children to their parents," they didn't have, the whereabouts of their parents.

How cruel can it get?

And I remember a fifth grader from Hawaii who came to visit with me with his parents, and we were sitting talking story, as we say, and I just asked the child, "How would, how would you feel if your parents were, if you were taken away from your parents," and he's this little fifth grader, and he just looked at me, he said, "I would wanna die."

His parents were shocked.

I was shocked.

TOTENBERG: Hmm.

HIRONO: That is how this kind of separation trauma.

And so we know that there are psychiatrists and therapists who say that this is an ongoing trauma, and that as far as I'm concerned, our country has a responsibility to do more than restore them to their parents.

We have, I would say additional responsibility we will have to figure out what that would be.

But thankfully we now have an administration that wants a humane immigration policy hard as that is going to be to achieve.

TOTENBERG: You spoke on the floor of the Senate uh the day, I think it was the day.

It was the day of the vote on the, on Obamacare.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: And revoking Obamacare, it was also the day of the speech of Senator McCain, very famous and wonderful speech that Senator McCain gave.

About, about the duty to do things the right way.

HIRONO: Hmm.

TOTENBERG: And um, he got a lot of coverage, you got none.

But I remember hearing, I went back and I, to refresh my recollection, as they say, and I pulled a piece of tape from it when I was doing that little profile of you.

And you could, I could hear you pounding the table, but you were not just like any other senator on that particular day, and not even like any other senator who cared passionately about that issue, so describe it.

HIRONO: I have been diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer.

And so, um, uh, the first surgery I had was removal of my kidney.

Uh, shortly thereafter I was on the floor and that's when I gave my, uh, remarks.

And it's the first time that I spoke without prepared remarks, because most senators don't do that.

I certainly don't do that, but that night I, um, I thought I had a few more things to say, I had already spoken at rallies.

I had given so many speeches about the need to retain the Affordable Care Act.

But I thought that night, um, I had something more to say, but I didn't want, I didn't use a podium.

I didn't have prepared remarks.

That is why I could pound on the table because I didn't have a podium, but it's the first time that I spoke about my baby sister Uniko, who had passed away in Japan.

And so I said that this is how important healthcare is that in my own family, I think if my younger sister had had access, she died at home of pneumonia.

I said, "If we had had access, maybe she could have lived."

And that's what we're doing when we take away healthcare from 20 million people, all in one fell swoop.

So I said, "Where are you?"

And then I also talked about, you know, a lot of my colleagues, my Republican colleagues have sent me notes and letters saying that they wished me well, and then they shared their own health issues.

Um, and so they showed me a lot of compassion and I didn't see that that night, and that is why I pounded the table.

I said, "Where's that compassion?

Where's that care that you showed me?"

I know it's there, you see, how hard it must be for them I tell you to, to, to vote in a way that they have to know is not right and yet they do it, and yet they go down that path.

TOTENBERG: You had just gotten out of the hospital and you had had, I think they had to crack your ribs or take out... HIRONO: One of my ribs is out.

I have a nine inch plate in there, a titanium plate to hold my ribs together.

It's very painful.

I found out rib surgery is really, really, really painful.

Cutting out a kidney was like nothing compared I mean, it was, it was, compared to my rib surgery, it was like nothing.

TOTENBERG: I, we can't repeat what she said to the nurse when she woke up and realized how much pain she was in.

HIRONO: Oh my gosh, I have been forewarned, but it was more pain than I had ever endured, so they had to give me more painkillers.

TOTENBERG: I know there were, there are a lot of moments in your book, uh, where you're very angry.

You don't, you try not to, there's only one place where you say you were shaking with rage, and I think.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: That was a political, your first political betrayal.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: A total political betrayal.

And, uh, but, but beneath that really quite calm exterior that most people see most of the time, you have really, um, the "Heart of Fire" is in you too.

Uh, and... it is in you too.

HIRONO: Yeah, I got some of that from my mother.

Yes.

TOTENBERG: And you learn to sort of walk two paths, the public face to some extent and the private face, but in the last few years, you've, um, you've abandoned that relatively calm public face.

Uh, what finally tipped the balance?

Was it Trump?

Was it you?

What was it?

What was it?

HIRONO: I was always a very determined person.

So in all my political, uh, life, I think everyone knew what a, what a, determined person and some people used to call me a hard ass, but it wasn't very obvious.

Um, Trump certainly brought that to the fore because vocalizing my opposition to him became very important, and I decided that I was going to do that.

It was not comfortable for me to talk to the national press.

It was not, it's not part of the comfort zone of an Asian woman, um, from Hawaii where, you know, being vocal and confrontational and all that aggressive is not particularly rewarded, but, uh, he was a bully and, uh, there are other... Basically I, I hate bullies and I will stand up to them, um, when given the chance, and this was the biggest bully of them all.

And so there was a moment when I decided to speak to, what's known as a spray of all of these reporters, they kind of positioned themselves at the end of the hallway as I'm going through the judiciary committee hearing, and there they all were, I was on my way to a hearing and there they all were, and that was a day that I was really upset with what Trump has said about my friend, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, where he had described her coming to see him and, and the innuendo was so atrocious, obnoxious.

And, uh, uh, I was just ranting about it to my staff.

And so as I was walking to the hearing, uh, Will, who is my communications director said, "Well, you know what?

This would be a good time for you to say something if you feel like."

And so I said, "Okay, sure."

So I get up and I just said, you know, he, he's a misogynist, he's a liar.

I think I am the first senator to have called him a liar.

This is in just 2017.

And that he's an admitted, admitted sexual predator and that he should resign.

And then I walked off.

I, I think the press was kind of shocked too, because nobody ran after me with questions.

It was like, "huh?"

TOTENBERG: Well, it was a...

It was a bit of a double-take because you don't, you didn't expect that from you.

HIRONO: Yeah, definitely not.

TOTENBERG: So everybody kind of went, "What, what just happened?"

HIRONO: Yes, I think there was that.

And then I, I, uh, I came to understand that it was really important when you have a president like Trump, where he's assaulting, he and his administration are assaulting the body politic every single day with some new atrocity as far as I'm concerned that, that there be people who speak up, and what I would call speak very plainly.

I never learned what I would call Senate speak, you know?

And, and, and I'm really fond of all my colleagues who can do all that, but I never did that.

So when I finally did start speaking, I was very plain.

I would just say, "This is bull (bleep)."

I would say this, this, he's a liar.

I didn't sugar coat anything.

I called on Bill Barr to resign on that, to his face.

And so I, people would come up to me.

I didn't do this for the attention.

It was freeing.

You asked me what, you know, the, the external stimulus of this big bully sitting on the White House.

Also my cancer diagnosis, I think that came together because I, I would have never even been hospitalized in my entire life.

Suddenly I have stage four cancer.

And so that I think is a combination of the need to speak out and my internal, uh, flames that just came out.

And, um, it's very freeing, Nina and I, I became more, uh, uh, uh, total myself and more, completely, more completely myself.

TOTENBERG: It's interesting because when I was younger, I, in my 40s, I actually did lose my temper a couple of times at people who, I believed, mistreated me in some way.

Um... HIRONO: Mm-hmm.

TOTENBERG: And I learned to suck it up and not do it.

HIRONO: Mm-hmm.

TOTENBERG: Because reporters really shouldn't do that, and if you're a professional, you don't wanna make enemies of people.

HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: And that's, that's partially true for politicians.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: But you really, the fire finally came out.

HIRONO: Yes, I'd say so.

It was always there.

You know, it was like embers and it's just going.

But, uh, that's why I say I became more completely myself when I could be very plain in my vocal, vocalization of what I saw happening around me.

TOTENBERG: Um, you know, you had, you've had a very long political career that went from being a state legislator and not for just one district, but two districts and then running for lieutenant governor.

And you were an amazing organizer, grassroots organizer.

And from what I could tell from the book, frankly, grassroots organizing in, in Hawaii is incredible, at least at that time was hugely important and is incredibly personal.

I mean, it's not just, you didn't just go up to people's doors, you took notes so that you would know the names of their dogs when you return.

HIRONO: I had shoe boxes full of little three by five cards that I would use.

I, I knew the names of the registered voters, but a lot of times they would move, so I have to write it all down.

And even things like the, the color of the coloring of their pets, because sometimes that pet would be gone and there'll be another pet and it would be horrible if you said, Where's Buster and, you know, Buster died or something.

So I was very meticulous.

So this whole thing of I'm a copious note taker, yes.

TOTENBERG: You worked for five years between college and law school and you got into Georgetown, uh, and went to Georgetown.

And when you left to go, you had met this very different man.

And were, and you, so you can pick up with how you met, you met him and how that relationship ended.

It's a kind of it's... (inaudible) more.

HIRONO: Well, before I went off to law school and the period when I had broken up with Allison, because we had an off and on kind of thing, but it went on for 18 years with Allison, but before I went off to law school, I met this, this very funny lawyer, he was the first lawyer that I met, who was my age, by the way, his name is Leighton Oshima.

And so we were together and we had a really high old time.

And I, I had this notion, Nina that I would actually, if I ever got married, I would get married to somebody really serious and all that, you know, I have these notions, we all have these notions I have to get rid of them.

But I go off to law school and he was supposed to wait for me in Leighton, and he didn't wait for me.

So one night I remember Christmas time, first year of law school.

And I just asked him, "Are you seeing this person?

I, yeah, I'm hearing that you're doing that."

And he said, "Yes."

And I said, "That's the end of our relationship."

I hung up the phone and we really didn't talk to each other for another, probably like 13 years.

I burned all the pictures that I had of him and all that.

And I went on my way and Leighton got married and has a daughter.

And, you know, he had his life, he had a very successful law practice, but, um, as chance would have it, I suppose, uh, after Leighton got divorced, he decided he should resume a friendship with me.

And so we got back together and I tell you.

TOTENBERG: That was 13 years, 13 years later.

HIRONO: 13 years, yes.

And he basically had broken my heart.

That's why my mother who knew him, who knew of him when I said, "You know, mom, I'm going to have dinner with Leighton," the first words out of her mouth was, "That guy?

Why do you want to have anything to do with that guy?"

But fast forward, eight months later, we were married.

My mother and my grandmother both came to live with us when I became Lieutenant Governor and my mother and Leighton in particular, they just had such a lovely, lovely relationship.

And we're just, and my mother, um, Nina, sadly passed away a month ago.

And so we have many, many memories of mom living with us.

I'm really grateful for that.

And my grandmother who lived with us, um, until just before she passed also.

TOTENBERG: Um, this is, you said in the book that he was incredibly considerate of you as a husband and there's this, and you told a Sunday story, which I thought was hilarious.

HIRONO: Yes.

When we were first married and he would often be, watch TV of the sports, he's like a total sports nut.

And he was watching one of his beloved football, football games with the sound turned down.

And I walked by, I said, "Why don't you put the sound on?"

And he says, "Oh, I don't wanna disturb you."

And I said, "You're not disturbing me."

I thought that was just, just really, um, very, very considerate.

But on the other hand, you know, his goal in life has said is to make me happy.

So, you know, hold that thought.

TOTENBERG: Hold that thought and... HIRONO: And lived up to that.

TOTENBERG: And when you lost the, you ran for governor ultimately and you lost, and it was, it was a really tough blow.

HIRONO: Yes.

TOTENBERG: And he had a sort of a plan too, and you were out of politics for... HIRONO: Yeah.

TOTENBERG: A short time, but he had a plan to get you back in, but to make you happy in the interim.

And it's, uh, it was a wonderful plan.

So I'll let you describe it.

HIRONO: The governor's race is still the hardest race I ever ran emotionally, psychically in every other way was really the hardest race.

And so when I lost it, uh... the thing that, that enabled me to deal with it was the fact that I had done everything I could.

I felt that I had done everything I could to win that race, and I just couldn't, uh, I did not win.

And I said at that point to my mother and to Leighton that I, I think I have one big race left in me.

I just don't know if I'll ever have the opportunity, but I have one big race left in me.

So that's when things start to put aside some money for that one big race, should it turn up.

And then, um, he said, um, I said, "Uh, you're not expecting me to, uh, suddenly cook and do all this stuff."

He said, "No, no, no, you should, you should just relax, you've been, you've been doing politics for over 20 years and I just want you to restore your, your restore yourself."

So I did.

For three years, I would travel with him and for the first time I would be the, uh, non-working spouse, it was great.

You know, he would be on his depo trips and all that.

And I very importantly, that he gave me that space because he's that kind of a person.

Uh, and I also returned to my love of art during that period.

And I began to do ceramics with one of my best friends who lives in California, her name is Norma Yuskos.

And so I continue to do art with her.

I used to spend at least a week or so every year with her.

But that is a really important part, Nina of what keeps me going is a creative expression.

And right now I can't just ceramics in my little apartment in DC, but I make, uh, I make cards, which is very much also in line with the cards that my mother used to make out of pressed flowers.

And I make my own paper and I, I, I do my, my cards look very different from my mother's but it is the same kind of idea.

And so it is a creative expression.

A lot of people who got my mother's cards they still, they keep her cards, and the people who get my cards, you know, it's a part of me that I'm sending to people to thank them.

TOTENBERG: So I'm going to ask you a, there's, there's a lot more we could talk about, but we have a time limit, so I'm going to ask a few questions that were submitted.

Somebody asks, "What do you think about smaller immigration fixes like Amy Klobuchar's Conrad 30 for phys, for physicians bill.

Are you supportive of the legislation?

And will Congress take up bills like this on their own or is there, is the only hope to be included in broader immigration reform?"

And I should say for anybody who didn't see, uh, "Sunday Morning" this morning, um, George Bush has a new book out of paintings, his paintings of immigrants.

And he used because he wanted people to know how important they are to the country, and to the development of the country, and the kind of country we are.

So I'm gonna give you a chance to answer this question about the physician's bill, or does there have to be a broader immigration bill?

HIRONO: I think we need comprehensive immigration reform.

When I first got elected to the Senate, Republicans and Democrats both said we have a broken immigration system.

And at that time in 2013, we worked on a bi-partisan comprehensive immigration bill.

That's all we need to do.

We certainly have to protect the DACA, uh, participants, 800,000 of them still facing potential deportation.

We needed to have passed that bill when Trump said he'd give me a bipartisan bill and then I'll sign it which he reneged on, not surprising.

So there are the, the visa issues that need to be addressed.

There are, there's a huge visa backlog particularly with Asian countries where people wait for decades to come to our country.

They're the work visas that need to be reformed.

So I personally, I would like to see comprehensive immigration reform.

And now that we have the House, the Senate and the presidency.

I would think that we would come up with a, an immigration bill that is humane, uh, and that will address so many of the immigration issues that we have.

Now at the same time, I will, I have no objections to some of these smaller bills, but what, my concern would be that as we start doing these smaller bills, that we're gonna forget about the fact that there are 11 million undocumented people in our country who should have a path to citizenship, why?

Because they are working in our country, many of them pay taxes into the social security system, to the billions, they will get zero for that, they're living in the shadows.

There should be a path to citizenship and I don't wanna forget all of those people who make up our America.

TOTENBERG: "Do you have any advice," asks one person, "for young women leaders in our country, especially those hoping to enter politics?"

HIRONO: The advice is to get going.

There's nothing like, uh, well, my path was to work on other people's campaigns to, to get involved in the grassroots, to sign people up for voting, whatever it is you're gonna do, find candidates that you can work uh, work for at grassroots level.

That's where you can get a real taste of what you can do because I think a lot of local races throughout our country can still be won through grassroots organizing.

Look at Georgia, that was writ large.

You have Stacey Abrams and others who, uh, who registered hundreds of thousands of voters.

Grassroots got them to the polls.

You can do it, so the thing is to do it.

TOTENBERG: What's it like to represent a state that's so far removed geographically and culturally from the rest of the US, and where popular perception of the state is so different, um, from many people's experience living there?

HIRONO: I think the popular perception of Hawaii is that it's a very lovely place, which it is, and that is very culturally diverse, which it is.

Uh, I'm grateful to represent a state like Hawaii where we have ideas like aloha, which is that we welcome everyone, Ohana, which means we care for more than just our own families and we take care of each other.

The, the, those are the kinds of people that, and the kind of aspirational behaviors that I'm glad, um, survived and thrived in our state.

And so I'm grateful to represent the Aloha State, the State of Hawaii.

And I wish that there were more places like Hawaii where we are appreciative of other cultures, we are not threatened by diversity, and that's what I'd like to see happen because we are still in a very divisive time in our country.

And of course, uh, the, the, uh, hate crimes against Asians, AAPIs, Asian American Pacific Islanders on the rise, the systemic racism against the, the black community, these are all issues that our country needs to face up to and do something about.

In Hawaii, it's not perfect, but there's a lot of intermarriage, we, um, we eat everybody else's food.

There's a thing called the mixed plate and that's the plate lunch that all of us are familiar with eating, and mixed plate because usually there's a kalbi, Korean, there's rice, there's, you know, um, uh, Hawaiian, the Lau Lau and Filipino adobo, all of these things are all put together in one plate and that is what we thrive on, that is called a mixed plate, that is Hawaii.

I wish more places could be like that.

TOTENBERG: So Mazie, why did you write this book?

It's, as I said, it's beautifully written, it's almost like a novel in places, so... HIRONO: Leighton had been encouraging me to write a book for a long time, but, uh, this was a, a time for me to do it because my mother had suffered two strokes.

She was, uh, not able to, uh, articulate, she was not, uh, I just thought this is a time for me to write her story and I'm, I'm really grateful that I did because the day that, uh, my, uh, early hardcover version of the book came to my home in Hawaiian, I was going to read from it to her is the day she passed.

And so I, uh, got a special, uh, I requested that my book be cremated with my mother.

And I said, as she laid there, that I said, "Mom, I wrote a book for you, and you're going to take it with you."

So it's a comfort to me to know that my book is, my mother's book is with her.

TOTENBERG: Well, Mazie Hirono, thank you so much.

I raise book subscriptions for anybody who writes a good book and this is a good book.

Whether you agree with Mazie Hirono or not, it's a good book.

HIRONO: Mahalo.

Thank you, aloha.

TOTENBERG: Aloha.

GRAHAM: Great moderating, Nina.

What a, what a remarkable life, senator that, that you had an, uh, uh, a truly epic journey as I think Oprah called it and.

HIRONO: Very unlikely journey.

GRAHAM: Yeah, and it's so well narrated in your captivating book.

To everyone watching, thanks for tuning in.

From all of us here at Politics and Prose, stay well and well-read.

NARRATOR: Books by tonight's authors are available at Politics and Prose bookstore locations or online at politics-prose.com (music playing through credits)