courage. I always tell my mom there is nothing I can do—hard as it is to be in politics...harder than what she did." After first living with Mazie's uncle Akira, the family moved into a rooming house on Kewalo Street in Honolulu with one room, one table, three chairs and one bed. Laura recalled, "Mazie and Roy slept on the bed. I slept on the floor with a futon. The landlady was so nice. The rent was $35, but she charged us less because I didn't have a job." Laura began working for the Hawaii Hochi as a typesetter and also three nights a week for a catering company. Mazie worked in the school cafeteria and had a paper route. Though money was tight and the family was forced to move often, Laura kept them together. Mazie recalled that she and her brother used to get a dime once or twice a week from their mother. "We both had baseball piggy banks. My older brother spent all his dimes but I saved mine. But one day I came home and the dimes were gone. My mother had to use it to buy food." Hirono never saw her father again, and he has since died. Laura became a newspaper proofreader in 1961 and retired from the Hawaii Newspaper Agency in 1986; Roy became a Hawaiian Electric supervisor. Wayne drowned in 1978, aged 26. Mazie's grandfather Hiroshi died in 1989, and her grandmother Tari died in 2000 at age 99. Raised in Honolulu, Hirono became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1959, the year Hawaii became a state. She attended Kaahumanu Elementary and Koko Head Elementary Schools. She graduated from Kaimuki High School, which at the time had a predominantly Japanese American student body. Hirono then enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in psychology in 1970. She later attended Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where she obtained her J.D. degree in 1978. Hirono then returned to Honolulu, where she practiced law. Hawaii House of Representatives (1981–1994) Elections In 1980, Hirono was elected to Hawaii's 12th House district in a multi-member district with Democratic State Representative David Hagino. Hawaii eliminated multi-member districts, and after redistricting she ran for Hawaii's 20th House district and won. After redistricting again in 1984, she ran for the newly redrawn Hawaii's 32nd House district and won. In 1992,