By Cleo Brown

Patricia Fukada Saiki was born Patricia Fukada. She was born on May 28th, 1930 in Hilo, Hawaii. Her parents, named Kazuo and Shizue Fukada were first generation Japanese in Hawaii. The Japanese first came to Hawaii in 1885 as contract laborers for the sugar cane and pineapple plantations. As a Japanese American, Patricia Fukada graduated from Hilo High School in 1948. She attended The University of Hawaii at Manoa, receiving a Bachelor of Science Degree from The University of Hawaii in 1952. She married Stanley Saiki in 1954. Stanley Saiki was an obstetrician with whom she gave birth to five children.

The children’s names are: Stanley, Stuart, Sandra, Margaret, and Laura. (Women in Congress – Patricia F. Saiki, Representative from Hawaii, 1987-1991) Surprisingly, despite her husband’s occupation and the joy with which she embraced motherhood, Patricia F. Saiki is a strong supporter of a woman’s right to choice in issues concerning birth and abortion.

According to Wikipedia, Plantation owners and “key capitalists” maintained control of Hawaii through Hawaii’s financial institutions for at least sixty years from 1895 to 1954. These wealthy businessmen were called “The Big Five.” (Wikipedia, Hawaii, pp.9-10) Through “The Big Five’s” control of Hawaiian politics they were able to determine immigration and the wages paid to cheaper foreign labor. During the 1950’s, however, this cycle of economic abuse and poverty was broken by “The descendants of immigration laborers” who were United States Citizens. The Hawaiian Republican Party, which had been strongly supported by the plantation owners, was voted out of office. The Democratic Party of Hawaii, therefore, dominated Hawaiian Politics for Forty Years. (p.10) This Democratic domination of Hawaiian Politics is the climate which Patricia F. Saiki found herself thrust into. Rather than to cave-in under the weight and the pressure of Democratic domination, however, Pat Saiki led a revitalization of the Hawaiian Republican Party which resulted in her election to Congress in 1968.

Patricia F. Saiki was not always a politician. Once she graduated from college and her own children were securely embedded with-in the Hawaiian Educational System, Pat Saiki went to work as a teacher of History in Hawaii public and private schools for twelve years. Next, she worked as a Union Organizer and as a research assistant to Hawaii Senate Republicans. “In the mid 1960’s” Saiki served as a secretary and as the vice chair of the State Republican Party. (Women In Congress, Patricia F. Saiki, p.2) It was not until 1968, however, that Patricia Saiki tossed her hat in the ring eventually winning election to Hawaii’s House of Representatives where she served for six years. According to Women In Congress: “In 1974, Saiki won election to the state senate where she served until 1982.(p.1) Unfortunately, she left the post to run for Lieutenant Governor in 1982. Although she lost the election, her work in revitalizing The Republican Party in Hawaii was obvious and unparalleled. For not only did she seek and win election for herself, but as the Party Chair she also managed to raise $800,000.00 in two-and-a-half years as well as expanded Party membership by three times the amount it had previously been. (p.1) She was also responsible for Ronald Reagan’s Hawaiian victory in 1984. (p.1) The only other Republican Presidential Candidate to carry the State of Hawaii had been Richard Millhouse Nixon in 1972.

Although Patricia Saiki lost her election to the 99th Congress to Democratic State Senator Neil Abercrombie (1985-1987), she won election to the 100th Congress (1987-1989). She won the general election to the 100th Congress with fifty-nine percent of the popular vote.(p.3) She became the first Republican to represent Hawaii in the House of Representatives since 1954. In 1988, Saiki, who secured the nomination of her party unopposed, comfortably beat her Democratic opponent named Mary Bitterman by a fifty-five percent majority.

Although Saiki is a conservative in most matters, but especially on economic issues; foreign policy; drug-related issues; and the death penalty she does support “women’s reproductive freedom”, or a woman’s right to choose the termination of a pregnancy(abortion) over the continuation of an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy. (p.2) Similarly, in 1987 Patricia Saiki sponsored a Bill asking for monetary reparations and an apology to those Japanese Americans who were interned at Concentration Camps within the United States during World War II. Although almost all GOP Members opposed the Bill, the measure passed The Senate. Pat Saiki was present when President Ronald Reagan signed The Bill into law.

In April of 1990 when Hawaii Senator named Spark Matsunga died of cancer, Patricia Saiki announced her candidacy to fill the position. Pat F. Saiki lost, however, to the Democratic backed Daniel Akaka by a fifty-four percent to forty-five percent margin. Patricia Saiki was appointed to the Small Business Administration by President George Herbert Walker Bush Sr. She served in this position from 1991 to 1993. In 1993 she taught at Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. (p.3) In 1994 she became the first woman to run for Governor in Hawaii . She lost the election to the Democratic Lieutenant Governor named Ben Cayetano. (p.3) According to Wikipedia:

“Until the election of Charles Djou on May 22, 2010 Saiki was the only Republican to ever hold a House seat from the state of Hawaii and one of only two Republican Members of Congress (the other being Senator Hiram Fong) to represent the state since it gained statehood. She is also the second woman to be elected to Congress from the state of Hawaii (the first being Patsy Mink, with whom Saiki served for two years).” (p.1)

Other issues which Patricia Saiki was interested in were Tourism, Commercial Shipping, Trade, Aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, and an end to the bombing by the Bush Administration on the island of Kahoolawe. She also worked to preserve the island’s beauty and its natural resources. Patricia Saiki also served on the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs; the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries; and the Select Committee on Aging. After her political career ended in 1994, Patricia F. Saiki returned to the profession of Teaching. She currently lives on Honolulu. She is eighty years old.

About The Author: Cleo E. Brown has a Master’s Degree in Contemporary African-American History from The University of California at Davis in Davis, California. She also has a B.A. Minor Degree in Political-Science and has completed course work towards a Ph.D. in Education from The University of San Francisco in San Francisco, California. She is a Free Lance Writer and a Senior Editor at HHR