The life of Hiram Fong, the first Asian-American to become a U.S. senator, was a genuine rags to riches story (Fong, in fact, was the first person from Hawai'i to receive the Horatio Alger Award, given to outstanding Americans).
Born into poverty in 1906, the Kalihi kid rose above his limited prospects to become a self-made man, multimillionaire, financial pioneer, influential local lawmaker and political dynamo.
The son of uneducated Chinese immigrants, Yau Leong Fong — who later renamed himself Hiram Fong — was driven from an early age to excel, inching his way up the economic ladder by working jobs from shining shoes to delivering newspapers.
Fong excelled in school, eventually earning a law degree from Harvard University in 1935. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps, reaching the rank of major.
As a territorial legislator, Fong was best known for his efforts to pass the "Little Wagner Act," which gave plantation workers the right to unionize.
He also co-founded a number of successful Honolulu real-estate, investment and banking firms, including Finance Factors.
After Hawai'i became a state in 1959, Fong successfully ran for the U.S. Senate, becoming the ranking Republican on half a dozen committees by the time he retired in January 1977.
Fong's storybook existence was marred in his later years by a series of financial missteps that seriously eroded his fortune, as well as a bitter public feud with his youngest son.
In March 2003, Fong filed for bankruptcy. The next year, on Aug. 18, he died at age 97.
