Kristen Nemoto Jay
Commentary
Politics have always played a big role in my family’s life. My late maternal grandfather, a 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran and Honolulu city councilman, was apparently very “progressive” in his days in office. I hardly knew him, since he and my grandmother divorced before I was born and then he moved to Arizona where he started a new family and life. What was left of his legacy were stories of how he was a Purple Heart recipient, how he fought for gay rights before it was “popular” for elected officials to do so, and that he was a staunch admirer of the Kennedy family (a velvet portrait of JFK hung in my grandmother’s house for so long, I thought he was a distant uncle before learning about him in my ninth grade history class).
It was like watching the Olympics, for my family and me, whenever each political season came upon us. Who was running, what they stood for, where was their upbringing, and could we imagine that person representing our values were the main points in what we looked for in a candidate.
While we, at The Hawai‘i Herald, know that you, reader, are probably already well-versed in who’s who and more than already leaning towards who you’d vote for anyway, we thought we’d collect some unique questions for our political candidates to answer to better get to know them and who they are as human beings.
Whether you’re Republican, Democrat, Non-Partisan or just undecided at the moment, take a look at our running politicians’ answers and perhaps learn something new about them that you didn’t think you’d know about before. Take a look through and most importantly, go out and (or mail in your) VOTE!
