He was a Kalihi-born entrepreneur of such enormous drive that he rose from poverty to a seat in the U.S. Senate. In Hiram Fong — a lawyer, tycoon and statesman under five American presidents — Hawai'i's immigrants could always see a shining example of possibility. To them he was a legend.
The son of uneducated Chinese immigrants, Fong was only a boy when he started working odd jobs to help support his family. He picked kiawe beans, shined shoes and caught crabs he could take to market.
But his keen intellect, sense of humor and belief in hard work set Fong apart. He graduated from McKinley, the University of Hawai'i and in 1932, received his law degree from Harvard.
Fong endeared himself to voters over a 14-year tenure in the Territorial Legislature. Although a Republican, he supported laws that helped organized labor and ordinary people. In 1945, he worked to pass the landmark "Little Wagner Act," which allowed agricultural workers to unionize. It would earn him the respect and unwavering support of the ILWU, the union that represented plantation workers.
When Hawai'i gained statehood, Fong ran for one of the two new seats in the U.S. Senate and became the nation's first Asian-American senator. He held that seat until retiring in 1977. For Fong, the job represented as much responsibility as possibility.
"I was very, very careful," he would say. "I knew that if I did anything that was in the line of dereliction of duty, why it would shame me or shame my family. It would shame those of my ethnic background and it would shame my people of Hawai'i."
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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