Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story

Mazie Hirono is one of the most fiercely outspoken Democrats in Congress, but her journey to the U.S. Senate was far from likely. Raised on a rice farm in rural Japan, she was seven years old when her mother, Laura, left her abusive husband and sailed with her two elder children to Hawaii, crossing the Pacific in steerage in search of a better life. Though the girl then known as "Keiko" did not speak or read English when she entered first grade, she would go on to serve as a state representative and as Hawaii's lieutenant governor before winning election to Congress in 2006.

In this deeply personal memoir, Hirono traces her remarkable life from her earliest days in Hawaii, when the family lived in a single room in a Honolulu boarding house while her mother worked two jobs to keep them afloat, to her emergence as a highly effective legislator with a determination to help the most vulnerable. Finally, it chronicles Hirono's recent transformation from dogged yet soft-spoken public servant into the frank and fiery advocate we know her as today.

This is the compelling and moving account of a woman coming into her own power over the course of a lifetime in public service — a woman who is the first Asian-American woman and the only immigrant serving in the U.S. Senate. It's also the story of the mother whose courageous choices made her life possible. Heart of Fire explores a uniquely American journey, told by one of those fighting hardest to ensure that a story like hers is still possible in this country.