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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. With us now, an increasingly important member of the United States Senate, Mazie Hirono from Hawaii, a member of the Judiciary Committee, as you may remember from her questioning in the Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch hearings, also a member of the Armed Forces Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She's on all three of those big ones.

She's been outspoken about the anti-Asian hate crimes bill that passed last week, with only one "no" vote. Maybe no coincidence that it was from a Republican hoping to run for president. We'll talk about that. Senator Mazie Hirono has a new book called Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story. Senator Hirono, it's so great to have you with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Good morning, Brian. Aloha.

Brian Lehrer: Aloha to you. We'll get to the stories in the news, but tell our listeners not from Hawaii, more about you, for example, your book is your political memoir, but it's also an ode to your mother. I'll tell her listeners that as a single mother, she left your father and his abusive family in Japan, as the book tells it, to take you and eventually your two brothers to create a better life in Hawaii. Why did you choose to write this book about not only your story, but your mother's story at this time?

Senator Mazie Hirono: Mainly, it was an homage to my mother because she had suffered two strokes recently, and was not able to speak very well or tell her story, and my husband who had been encouraging me to write a book, I decided this is a good time for me to do this so that I could tell not only her story but my grandmother who raised me that story, because she was a picture by, so she had a really interesting life also.

Brian Lehrer: You want to tell us a little about her life?

Senator Mazie Hirono: My grandmother was a picture bride. I don't know if people know that, but in the sugar plantations, where all these Japanese immigrants came to work in the plantations. My grandfather was 16 years old when he started doing that. There were thousands of Japanese women who came to the plantations to marry these people, basically, sight unseen as picture bride, and my grandmother was one of them. She was about 22 when she did that, and her struggles in life. Eventually, they went back to Japan, taking my mother, who was born in Hawaii at age 15 back, to Japan, a country that my mother didn't know anything about.

Then, my mother, through her life and the horrible marriage she made to my father who I never got to know, she brought her three children, two older ones first, to a new country that we didn't know anything about. Hawaii, America, what?

Brian Lehrer: Right. Technically, your mother was not an immigrant, but you were.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Yes. Fortunately, she kept her US citizenship, she had a dual citizenship, otherwise, she would not have been able to bring her children to this country.

Brian Lehrer: How do you think any of it--? Go ahead.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Children born in Japan basically belong to the Father, so we were all Japanese citizens. I did not have dual citizenship, I became a naturalized citizen.

Brian Lehrer: How do you think any of the story that you just told inform your politics?

Senator Mazie Hirono: Very much so. If I had been raised in what I would call a traditional middle-class family with both parents and living in a pretty conformist kind of culture, and I think that's that, but there you have it, I don't think I would ever have thought about doing something that would make things better for other people. As an immigrant, I really did have a sense of wanting to get back to a country that changed my life. My mother basically changed my life, but this country gave me opportunities I never would have had in Japan. I wanted to get back.

I did not live a comfortable kind of a life at the beginning, and I think that's part of what set the stage for the kinds of decisions I made and the experiences I had that eventually led me to think about politics as a way to make social change. I still believe that in spite of everything.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, in spite of everything, and we'll talk about some of those things. You successfully land for a seat in the Hawaii House of Representatives, that's at the state level back in 1980, where elected lieutenant governor of Hawaii in 1994, joined Congress in 2006, but after the 2016 election when Trump was elected, you write in the book, "I found I could no longer censor myself." Were you censoring yourself previously in that long political career?

Senator Mazie Hirono: I didn't vocalize very much. I was a very determined person always, but I managed to do a lot of things by being what I would call a workhorse without a show horse. Combined with my cultural background, and the fact that in Hawaii we tend to be very cooperative with each other, and being vocal, aggressive, and confrontational are not rewarded in Hawaii, especially coming from a woman. For a long time, I did not vocalize very much, which is definitely outside of my comfort zone, but with Trump, he's such a big bully that I began to speak out. I felt the necessity to do so at a time when he was going after just about everybody who didn't agree with him.

Brian Lehrer: I see you've said recently that Trump is responsible in no small measure for the anti-Asian hate in the country right now, that led to the anti-Asian hate crimes bill that passed the Senate. What would you say about that?

Senator Mazie Hirono: I say that there is definitely a correlation between Trump calling that the virus, so the Chinese virus, and members of his administration calling it "the kung flu." I think it created an environment where the animus against Asians who are always seen as the other and the perpetual foreigners, that came to the fore, and you saw the huge rise in anti-Asian American Pacific Islander crime.

We've all seen that in the news, and just recently, in New York, there was a totally unprovoked attack, where the person stopped on an Asian person's face. I think he has to be in serious condition. We've seen all of that happening in our country, and it's vicious, unprovoked. We need to stand up against this kind of racist actions that hurt people. If I just say APIs, any minority group, we're not talking about the onset of the systemic racism against the Black community, that has been something that our country has not faced up to, ever.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you think it works that way with respect to hate crimes against Asian-American or API individuals? If Trump would say, I'm sure he would say, "I didn't say anything against Asian Americans, I said the government of China unleashed this virus on the world. That's why I call it the China virus."

Senator Mazie Hirono: It's totally predictable that people would take that to mean that it is against Asians, and that's exactly what's happening. This is the kind of thing that leads to the Chinese Exclusion Act that leads to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans and the hatred that spewed forth during World War II. If you see the newspapers and just the horrible attacks on Japanese Americans, you didn't even have to be Japanese to be attacked. You can see that there is an animus toward what people considered foreigners, and that is APIs, perpetual foreigners.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. Her new memoir is called Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story, and you can ask her questions about her life. You can ask questions about current senate politics, the anti-Asian wave of hate crimes that we've seen in this country, or anything related. 646-435-7280. You can call in with a question for Senator Hirono at 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a question @BrianLehrer.

October 26th, 2020, was the confirmation vote for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, as you well know and you write in your book. Even though I knew the Republican majority would carry the day, my thumbs down vote on her appointment was accompanied by a firm "Hell no." It was the "hell no" that reverberate hid around the internet as it went viral. Do you want to talk about that moment? Of course, you had been through Gorsuch, you had been through Kavanaugh, very publicly, people will remember some of your questioning there. How did it feel? How was the Coney Barrett one different for you?

Senator Mazie Hirono: All of them were a part of the Republican's efforts and entities like the Federalist Society to continue to pack the courts with over 200 Trump nominees who share a very conservative ideological agenda. Gorsuch, and then you had Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who was pushed through by the way. She was just fast-tracked during the middle of a pandemic, and they had a "superspreader" event at the White House, John Allison, so totally hypocritical, the Republicans, but the word "hypocrisy" does not land on them at all.

She was pushed through when Merrick Garland was up, and Mitch McConnell took the position that we should let the voters decide who the next president is, and therefore who should be the nominee, but that was so totally out the window.

We were on the eve. In fact, people were already voting in the presidential election when he pushed through Amy Coney Barrett and she went along with it. That was particularly- how should I say? aggravating, and it is not as though I said, "Hell no" from the rafters, I went up to the clerk and my "Hell no" was an exclamation point to my "no" vote.

Brian Lehrer: The only "no" vote on the anti-Asian hate crimes bill was Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the leaders of the bid to not accept the results of the presidential election back on January 6th.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see his opposition to this bill, as related or unrelated to that? Because maybe the other way to look at this is, "Wow, you got almost every Republican on board for an anti-discrimination bill, that doesn't happen every day, and Ted Cruz and the other ones who want to run for president voted with you."

Senator Mazie Hirono: Josh Hawley is a person who has a desire to stand out, and in my opinion, not in a good way, but obviously to the base that gives him millions of dollars. He gave a really lame excuse for why he voted against the bill. Not only was it lame, but it's not even true.

He has a need to stand out in the worst way, because the man wants to run for president. Now, even Ted Cruz, who also wants to run for president, after he tried to, with one of his amendments, kill the bill or gut the bill, he ended up voting for it.

Hawley has the distinction of being the most-- I have no words. As far as I'm concerned, the less we talk about Josh Hawley, and whatever the heck he thinks he's ready to do to our country, the better I like it.

Brian Lehrer: We'll move on, can the bill make a difference?

Senator Mazie Hirono: Who cares Hawley?

Brian Lehrer: Can the bill make a difference?

Senator Mazie Hirono: For the first time the senate took a position against this kind of discriminatory crimes and incidents against a racial group, so that is significant. Certainly, it was hugely significant to the AAPI group, and then from a practical sense, we have no federal way to determine the extent and breadth of these kinds of crimes taking place in every state.

To have a person being appointed by the attorney general to review these kinds of crimes and to work with state and local law enforcement to create an online way for these kinds of crimes and incidents to be reported will give us a database from which to make informed other decisions and take other steps. It's one bill, it doesn't change hearts and minds, so there's obviously a lot more we have to do.

Brian Lehrer: Mary in Manhattan, here on WNYC with Senator Mazie Hirono. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking my call. I'm just curious, my mother actually immigrated, she is a Japanese American, having immigrated through the military. Her father was a US military serviceman and her mother was a Japanese citizen. She met with a lot of discrimination as a child when she came over to the US. I'm curious if you had the same experience and how that may have shaped things for you?

Senator Mazie Hirono: In Hawaii, there are a lot of Japanese Americans, so I didn't face the kind of overt racism that I know Asian Americans on the mainland, as you call it, experienced. Thankfully, that was the case because Hawaii is very much a culturally diverse place with no one racial group having the majority. That helps a lot in terms of how we treat each other and how we view other cultures. Racial discrimination in Hawaii is fair, but I would say that if people have those kinds of tendencies, they tend to keep it to themselves.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Mary. Senator Mazie Hirono with us. her new book is called Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story. Nancy in Queens, you're on WNYC with Senator Hirono. Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Hi, Brian, just adore your show. You are my heartbeat for New York.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Nancy: Anyway, I wanted to know when the senator referred to the opportunities that she was given in the United States when she came here as an immigrant, that she never would have gotten in Japan, what specifically do you mean, senator? Because, I think, here in the United States, we often take for granted the opportunities that we do get, but it's always spoken about in broad terms. I would love to know some specific things that happened because of your residency here. Thank you.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Thank you, very definitely educational opportunities, I would never have had the chance to go to college. I was raised on my grandparent's small rice farm in a very rural part of Japan, and so the educational opportunities, definitely that a girl growing up in Japan would not go to college, I certainly wouldn't have a graduate degree.

Then, running for office, my goodness. The tendency in Japan is, if you're a woman running for office, usually it's your father, generally your father, who had been a cabinet member or something like that. It's not the easiest for women to do things in Japan. We still have gender discrimination, that's for sure in our country, but it's gotten a little bit better, I'd say.

Those are two things that come to mind. I would never have thought about running for office had I continued to live in Japan, I never would have gotten the kind of education that I got when I left that country.

Brian Lehrer: Related to the caller's question, I see in the book, while you were in college, you volunteered with the YWCA, and one summer, the YWCA posted a notice inviting students to help develop a summer program for indigenous at-risk youth. As you detail, you grew up poor, living in rentals with your single mom and siblings and moving every few years, but the summer experience really changed your thinking. You want to talk about that story briefly maybe?

Senator Mazie Hirono: Yes, I went to a community called Waimānalo, which has a lot of Native Hawaiian residents and all the youth there. It was determined that this group of University of Hawaii-- Yes, let's face it, we were pretty middle class, relatively privileged, even though many of them were against the war and got arrested, all that.

It was a huge cultural experience for me to go from pretty non-demonstrative Japanese culture, where you don't hug and all that, into a culture where all of that is part of the Native Hawaiian culture of Aloha. Also, there were huge challenges that so many of these young people faced, including exposure to drugs and being poor, and not really seeing very many opportunities to get out of that community.

I had thought of myself as having a tough experience, but I realized I really had pretty middle-class attitudes. While I had been heading toward becoming a social worker, or something of that nature, I thought, "No, I think there's got to be some other way that we can make some changes."

That's where I met anti-war activists, became friends with one of our men, got to be really good friends with one of the local leaders of the anti-war movement on the University of Hawaii campus, and it really was my political awakening to question my government for the very first time.

Brian Lehrer: Gabriel in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you're on w NYC with Senator Mazie Hirono. Hi, Gabriel.

Gabriel: Yes, hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hi, Gabriel. You're on the air.

Gabriel: Oh, how's it going? Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Gabriel: I was just wondering, the senator’s position regarding Asian Americans being discriminated amongst colleges and admissions?

Senator Mazie Hirono: Any kind of racial discrimination in admissions is already illegal, so that's--

Brian Lehrer: This is a wedge issue, right?

Senator Mazie Hirono: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: This is one where Trump was trying to take the side of Asian Americans as he tried to portray it because some of the colleges were giving too much preference to Black and brown people over the "more qualified Asian applicants." Is that a tough issue for you?

Senator Mazie Hirono: For me? No.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Because, as I said, admission is based on racial discrimination, that's already illegal. Affirmative action where there are quotas, and so that's already illegal. However, one can take into consideration certain factors. Race being one of the factors, it can't be the only factor. There is Supreme Court decisions. I know that Yale Law Students, so Asian, the Yale Law Students got the Trump administration to try and go after a Yale admissions policies, that the Biden administration is not pursuing that.

I have a very little doubt that there are going to be those very moneyed interests that will want to pursue these kinds of cases, as they are pursuing, finding all kinds of plaintiffs to challenge a woman's right to choose, to challenge voting rights, you name it. They are there, and they think that in this Supreme Court they have a group of six justices who will go their way, and that is why some of the most conservative kinds of laws are being enacted at the state level to test all of these kinds of cases, including, by the way, LGBTQ rights.

Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go in a minute. There are so many ways we could talk about how the Senate is broken, just the structure itself, which gives too much power to senators per state to small, mostly white rural states, or the filibuster, or the nature of this size and lifetime appointment of a Supreme Court, which benefits Republicans in America in the same way because of the Senate, what would you most focus on trying to fix in the short term?

Senator Mazie Hirono: I don't think that we're going to be able to enact any of the major priorities that the Biden administration and the Democrats have unless we do something about filibuster reform. I am for eliminating filibuster because that is a remnant of Jim Crow, control over the decisions that are made in the Senate and Congress. That's what needs to happen.

I think that, as the Republicans continue to stymie all efforts, for example, on getting sensible gun legislation or passing the George Floyd, a real reform to policing in our country that the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, least things will not happen as long as Mitch McConnell says his goal is to take back the Senate. That is his goal. I feel a sense of urgency to get all these other things done. We won't be able to do that without, in my view, filibuster reform.

Brian Lehrer: Even though once Republicans get--

Senator Mazie Hirono: Getting rid of filibuster will be good. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Then when Republicans take control of the Senate again someday, the Democrats wouldn't have it to stave off the worst of the worst legislation. How do you know it comes out your way in the long run?

Senator Mazie Hirono: We had filibuster during the time where we were in the minority and we hardly ever got to exercise that filibuster because Mitch McConnell hardly ever brought bills to the floor, that would require a number of Democratic votes. He was too busy packing the courts with over 200 judges, including 3 supreme court justices, and passing 1.5 trillion, and the 4 tax breaks to the richest people. That's what he was bringing to the floor. If he wants to bring to the floor because we have changed the filibuster rules, then it is up to us, the Democrats, to tell the country who's actually screwing them over, and it's not the Democrats.

Brian Lehrer: Outspoken again, Senator Mazie Hirono, whose new book is called Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story. Thank you so much for coming on with us. I know you have a lot of fans-

Senator Mazie Hirono: Thank you very much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: -in the New York area after some of the national television exposure you got during Trump. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Senator Mazie Hirono: Thank you. Aloha, everyone. Take care. Be kind.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, more to come.

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