Lee Cataluna: Hawaii’s next first lady brings career experience and life lessons to role

Hawaii’s new first lady has an impressive resume and a history that would make a compelling memoir, but there’s nothing pretentious about her. She comes across as warm, sincere and “down-to-earth”, the term she uses to describe herself.

Jaime Kanani Ushiroda Green is mixed race (Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, White) and an Ivy League, UH Richardson Law graduate. She has an undergraduate degree in international relations from Brown University, studied Latin, Japanese and French, focused on family law as a lawyer and loved the job. child protection policy.

When she talks about her accomplishments, she talks about all the people who have helped her along the way.

“I really appreciate that it takes a village,” Green said. “It’s the story of my life.”

She grew up in Kaneohe, the little sister of two much older brothers. She was 9 when her mother died of stomach cancer in 1987. She recalls that only about a year passed between the diagnosis and the end of her mother’s life.

“My mom kept saying she wasn’t feeling well, but the doctor said it was an ulcer,” she said. Her mother tried chemotherapy, but when there were no other treatment options, she came home to die. Green still has tears in his eyes talking about losing his mother. “He was the nicest, kindest person,” she said. “The kind of mom who would get up early to cook her famous chicken for a potluck. That kind of mom.

Because of her mother’s illness, she said, “My father was really good. He was totally there the whole time.

But after her mother died, her father broke down. He left the family and Green went to live with his mother’s sister, a single woman who made a modest living as a telephone operator at Hawaiian Tel.

She was admitted to Iolani School, her father’s alma mater, in the seventh grade, but her aunt was unable to cover the tuition. Her father’s former classmates heard about her situation and came together to raise money to keep her in school. “I think they organized a golf tournament for me,” she said. “They really took me on as a project.”

In high school, Iolani awarded her a Stone Scholarship, a full tuition package for students with good academic standing and significant financial need.

With this support, she excelled in school, taking honors in Latin and Japanese language and becoming a National Merit Scholar. She graduated from Iolani in 1995 and went to Brown University in Rhode Island. Scholarships carried her through to graduation in 1999. She then returned to Hawaii to attend the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii Manoa. She graduated in 2002 and passed the bar exam on her first try.

“I had to decide, ‘Why am I going to use my law degree?’ “recalls Green. She didn’t feel drawn to defense or criminal prosecution and didn’t want to use her degree to look into contracts. The only area of ​​law that called for it was the defense of children’s rights. “No matter what, I knew I could always stand up for children’s rights,” she said.

She worked in a nonprofit called Project Visitation, which helps siblings placed in different foster families stay in touch with each other. She served as clerk for State Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland, who was chair of the Social Services Committee, doing policy work for children and families. It was at the State Capitol in 2005 when she met Josh Green, who was elected governor on Tuesday. At the time, he sat in the state House of Representatives.

They married in 2006 and their daughter Maia was born in 2007. Their son Sam was born four years later. She stopped working after the first baby and focused on being a mother and a partner in her husband’s plans and ambitions. She has also served on the boards of non-profit social service agencies such as Pacific Gateway Center and Hale Kipa.

She doesn’t step into the role of Hawaii’s first lady with a big, pre-determined to-do list. She is more deliberate and observant than that. She talks about growing in the role and finding the best way to use her skills and education to serve.

“We can make the first lady role whatever we want it to be, the same way Josh was LG. Everyone used to ask, ‘What is the Lieutenant Governor even doing?’ He knocked it down and made it what he wanted it to be. He wasn’t going to wait for the governor to give him a project,” Green said.

“As people get to know us, they’ll know that Josh wouldn’t have a pet project for me. Whatever political issue I’m interested in, he’ll be like, ‘Go for it.’… He really likes me as a partner, I’m the one he talks ideas about.

She intends to be an active and involved first lady. She hopes to open Washington Place to more events and leverage her experience in children’s issues and advocacy. She is eager to understand the role and mold it to her strengths. The socializing of the cocktail and the “show face” nature of the campaign was exhausting. She says she hasn’t been home to cook dinner in months.

That may not change now that the campaign is over, but she hopes it will calm down a bit. She describes herself as more introverted, although she enjoys meeting people and hearing about their lives. “One-on-one, I can relate to people. I’m not good at all for superficial talk. When I go to an event, I think, “Who do I know in this crowded space?” I had to be out of my comfort zone during the campaign because people want to talk to me.

Josh Green is Jewish. Jaime Green grew up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their children were baptized in the LDS temple but went to a Jewish preschool. The family celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas.

“The mix of religion and culture, and being a family with school-aged kids — — as a family, I think we represent a lot of what Hawaii is today,” says -she.