Even though Dawn Amano-Ige, the first lady to Hawaii’s outgoing governor, insists that she doesn’t know yet whether she really will seek an elected office herself someday, she already possesses that statesman’s ability to delicately deflect a news reporter’s questions with aplomb.
Asked in a phone interview Wednesday whether it’s possible that after her husband, Gov. David Ige, leaves office in December after two terms, Hawaii might gain a different “Gov. Ige” one day in the future, she chuckled.
“You know, being governor is a huge, huge responsibility,” Amano-Ige said in response. “And to even get to that point, it does require, as you know, much commitment in a campaign and to really organize all of that. That’s a huge commitment on the part of the individual and the family. So I will leave it at that.”
That sounds like you’ve at least thought of it, the reporter said.
“To be honest with you, no, I haven’t. I have not thought of the governorship,” she said. “I have spent these past eight years as first lady and as spouse to the governor. So that has been the focus.”
Then she diplomatically paused there and waited for the next question.
Amano-Ige revealed in a Nov. 16 Honolulu Star-Advertiser interview that she is considering a political run of some type at some point. David Ige also is not ruling out extending his political career.
But at least for the moment, Amano-Ige, a former business executive, public school teacher and vice principal, seems to much prefer discussing the work she intends to continue in education-related causes, with or without an elected position: “I came here as an educator, and I believe I’m leaving here still as an educator, just in a different way,” she said of her time as first lady, in a separate interview.
During a recent visit she also led a brief tour of the improvements she ushered in for Washington Place, the historic residence of Hawaii’s governors, and expressed hopes for their continuation.
Amano-Ige says she and her husband of 40 years will take it easy for a month or so for the holidays. She looks forward to continuing to relearn to play the piano, possibly running for exercise again, settling back into their home in Aiea and reconnecting with their three grown children, who live on the mainland.
“I think they’re looking forward to just spending more time and having that more casual time with their dad,” she said Wednesday during a separate interview on the Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program. “I think they’re anxious to see how he’s going to function as a resident out in Aiea, where he has to probably mow the lawn himself.”
Then the work begins anew.
Child hunger
Amano-Ige has been busier than many people realize during her husband’s two terms as governor, leveraging her position as first spouse and her experience as an educator and executive in such passion projects as creating solutions to child hunger and promoting literacy, and she says she plans to keep going.
Having seen firsthand how keiki who are hungry have a tough time focusing in school, for instance, Amano-Ige spearheaded the 2018 launch of the public schools’ Jump Start Breakfast program, with grab-and-go food, “breakfast in the classroom” and other morning meal formats.
When COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns struck, Amano-Ige developed a campaign to connect families to free meals through the schools. When it turned out that families living in far-flung areas weren’t willing or able to commute to school daily just for one meal, she worked with the Department of Education and nonprofits to create meal kits with a week’s worth of food.
She continues to serve on the national No Kid Hungry Leadership Council and says she hopes to see Hawaii eventually follow some other states in offering “universal free breakfast” regardless of a student’s financial need. “Then everybody can start their day with a good breakfast,” she said.
Moving forward, Amano-Ige said she’d also like to work in supporting Hawaii’s growing early childhood learning system, as the 2020 Legislature’s Act 46 calls for giving all 3- and 4-year-olds access to early learning by 2032, and this year’s Legislature made its first major investment in preschool facilities at $200 million.
This month Amano-Ige also announced the latest expansion of the Ohana Readers program, a literacy program she launched in 2019 with support from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, the Hawaii State Public Library System and other partners. Families that have children under 5 years old and live in certain remote areas can sign up to have a free, age-appropriate book mailed to them each month. The program began with Molokai families, expanded to Lanai and parts of Kauai, and now Naalehu and Pahala on Hawaii island are recent additions.
Directing renovation
But some of Amano-Ige’s most prominent work has been invested in Washington Place. While much of the first floor of the 1847-vintage building has long been maintained like a museum and accessible to the public, when the Iges arrived in 2014, she recalls, the second floor was largely unsightly and unsafe — water-stained walls, some broken furniture, an unstable floor that allowed only up to a half-dozen visitors at a time. Amano-Ige has directed its renovation while pulling in experts such as historian DeSoto Brown.
Now a gleaming second-floor gallery dubbed The Queen’s Foyer pays homage to Queen Lili‘uokalani, Hawaii’s last reigning monarch, who made Washington Place her private residence from 1862 until she died in 1917. A replica of one of the queen’s tea dresses is the gallery centerpiece, while gift bowls and other artifacts from the era shine in glass cases, and the queen’s story is told in hangings on the walls.
“In line with education, I wanted people to be able to come to this home, as freely as possible, to learn about where the queen lived, her legacy. And that is why the effort for the gallery upstairs,” Amano-Ige said.
Amano-Ige also created the landmark’s elaborate website, washingtonplace.hawaii.gov, mustering her background as an educator and journalism major to research and write about the building, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973, a National Historic Landmark since 2007.
The website features a scrupulously footnoted history of the home, and narratives about its residents over generations and their contributions to its preservation. A virtual tour shows not only the architecture and furnishings, but such fine details as the continuing tradition of draping the queen’s favorite armchair with lei, and the way the clock in the queen’s bedroom still ticks, and chimes on the hour.
For Washington Place’s 175th anniversary this year, Amano-Ige led a series of celebrations, tours, educational forums and a tele- vision special. She also helped to to orchestrate a celebratory keiki hula by 100 children at Washington Place and more than 2,000 children online, one of her favorite memories there.
Still the building is a work in progress. Some second-floor corridors still hold spare furniture. As the Iges prepare to vacate the Washington Place compound (they live mostly in the residence behind the historic mansion), already the room that has served as the first lady’s office is being transformed into what’s been titled the Queen Lili‘uokalani Library.
“We’re going to have literature on the queen here, and some of her books. … I hope that they’ll be able to develop this into a library with the Hawaiian language being shared in this house,” Amano-Ige said. “It was one of her wishes.”
When Amano-Ige is asked whether she’ll miss the place, her expression grows wistful.
“I love Washington Place. I learned to love this place because it was the queen’s home,” she says. “There’s a very calm spirit here, a very positive spirit, that in the worst times you come here and you feel a lot better. … She lived with so many responsibilities and so many sacrifices she had to make that it’s just reassuring to be here, and that ‘It’s gonna be OK’ kind of feeling. This is what a home is, right?”
Unexpected challenges
When Amano-Ige is asked what she hopes people will remember most about the Iges’ eight years at Hawaii’s helm, she hesitates.
“I don’t know if I have an answer to that,” Amano-Ige said. “I think we served in a very unusual time, very unexpected, largely, of course, due to the pandemic and the many natural crises that he (the governor) had to deal with. I would like to think that we were able to be able to address those issues with calm and thoughtfulness, all with the goal of keeping the community safe, and then at the same time, remaining uplifting.”
As of last week she hadn’t yet had the opportunity for extensive conversations with the next first lady, Jamie Green, or her husband, Gov.-elect Josh Green, who will be sworn in Dec. 5. But Amano-Ige already has some hard-won advice for them, especially when it comes to dealing with the challenges, hard decisions and criticism that come with leading the state.
“You have to really be true to yourself and know what your values are, because that keeps you grounded,” Amano-Ige said.
But that should be tempered with an openheartedness, she said. While holding a belief, “you have to be able to listen at the same time. Leadership is quite an art. One thing that remains is for you, for any individual, to be true to themselves, and to remember the people that they’re serving.”
PROFILE
Dawn Amano-Ige
>> First lady to Gov. David Ige; married in 1982
>> Born and raised in Ewa; Aiea resident
>> Education: Chaminade University, master’s degree in business; University of Hawaii, professional diploma in elementary education; UH, bachelor’s degree in journalism; James Campbell High School
>> Awards/positions while first lady: Chair of the Spouses’ Leadership Committee for the National Governors Association; First Spouse Steering Committee of Pathways to Resilience; Dream Maker’s Award, from Kristi Yamaguchi’s Always Dream Foundation; School Breakfast Hall of Fame, by No Kid Hungry
>> Prior positions: Vice principal of Kanoelani Elementary School, vice principal of Moanalua High School, third grade teacher at Waimalu Elementary School, marketing director of Kapiolani Health Care System, account executive for Stryker Weiner Associates
>> Family: Children Lauren, Amy and Matthew, who live on the mainland
>> Information: To request Washington Place tours and research sessions, email wpinfo@hawaii.gov.
