[4] After finding plantation work difficult, the couple opened a bathhouse on River Street in Honolulu in 1928.

In 1939, Tari returned to Japan with the teenage Laura and Akira; Hiroshi remained in Hawaii to run the bathhouse for two more years before joining his family in 1941.

Laura felt out of place in Japan as one of the many Nisei Japanese Americans who emigrated with their returning Issei parents (barred from US citizenship or land ownership) before World War II and during the Great Depression.

Despite such feelings, although her brother returned to Hawaii after the war, she remained in Japan and married a veterinarian, Hirono Matabe, in 1946.

[5] Mazie's father, Matabe, was a compulsive gambler and alcoholic who pawned even his wife's possessions for gambling money.

Laura later recounted her point of decision: "My brother sent money to buy a school uniform for my son.

Selling her clothes to pay the rail fare, she and the children moved back to her parents' home.

Thus the family was separated, with three-year-old Wayne staying behind with his grandparents and Laura returning to Honolulu alone with Mazie and Roy in March 1955.

"[4] Laura began working for the Hawaii Hochi as a typesetter and also three nights a week for a catering company.

She graduated from Kaimuki High School, which had a predominantly Japanese American student body at the time.

[15] She won the general election and served only one term in the 22nd district before retiring in 1994 to run for statewide office.

[17] Hirono ran for lieutenant governor of Hawaii and won the Democratic primary, defeating fellow State Representative Jackie Young 65%–26%.

[20] In the general election, Hirono defeated Republican State Senator Stan Koki, 50%–49%, a margin of only 5,254 votes.

During her tenure as lieutenant governor, Hirono was president of the National Commission on Teaching, America's Future, and the Hawaii Policy Group.

But due to internal controversies, Harris dropped out of the gubernatorial election and remained mayor for another two years.

Hirono worked to gain the support of Hawaii Democrats in her primary against former State House Majority Leader Ed Case.

[22][23][24] In the general election, Republican nominee and Maui Mayor Linda Lingle defeated Hirono 52–47%, becoming Hawaii's first female governor.

[32] In 2008, the national preschool advocacy organization named Hirono "Pre-K Champion" for her efforts to pass pre-kindergarten legislation.

[34] The ABP Act also ensures that customers seeking birth control can obtain it without being submitted to unwanted harassment or breaches in patient confidentiality.

The Republican nominee was former Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle, who had defeated Hirono a decade earlier in the gubernatorial election.

[49] In the wake of the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Hirono called for the resignation of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley for their opposition to certifying the 2020 presidential election Electoral College count.

[50] She also called for the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to be invoked to remove Donald Trump from office.

[51] In April 2021, Hirono sponsored a bill attempting to decrease hate crimes against Asian Americans due to xenophobia associated with COVID-19.

Hirono expressed disappointment when the Democrat-proposed Feinstein Amendment (banning the sale of firearms to individuals on the terrorist watchlist) and the Republican-backed background check expansion and alert system (regarding guns being sold to terrorist watchlist suspects) both failed to pass the Senate.

[62] On July 28, 2017, two months after undergoing surgery for stage-four kidney cancer, Hirono spoke on the Senate floor and voted against the so-called "skinny repeal" of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

[64] In January 2019, during the 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown, Hirono was one of 34 senators to sign a letter to Commissioner of Food and Drugs Scott Gottlieb recognizing the efforts of the FDA to address the effect of the government shutdown on the public health and employees while expressing alarm "that the continued shutdown will result in increasingly harmful effects on the agency's employees and the safety and security of the nation's food and medical products.

[69] In January 2024, Hirono voted for a resolution, proposed by Bernie Sanders, to apply the human rights provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act to U.S. aid to Israel's military.

[70] In April 2019, Hirono was one of seven senators to sponsor the Digital Equity Act of 2019, legislation establishing a $120 million grant program that would fund the creation and implementation of "comprehensive digital equity plans" in every state and a $120 million grant program to support projects developed by individuals and groups.

The bill also gave the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) the role of evaluating and providing guidance for digital equity projects.

[76] In 2021, Viking Press published Hirono's autobiography, Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story.