Senator Mazie K. Hirono was elected to the United States Senate in 2012 and sworn in as Hawaii’s first female senator and the country’s first Asian American woman senator. She serves on the Armed Services, Judiciary, Energy and Natural Resources, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Veterans’s Affairs committees. She is also the ranking member of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks.

Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga was the lead researcher for the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). She discovered the tenth and only existing copy of the original printing of the 1942 Final Report on Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, which provided proof that the army had seen no military necessity to deprive 120,000 individuals of their rights. The CWRIC report was the foundation for legislative redress.

Singer-songwriter Judith Hill, along with her musician parents, Michiko and Pee Wee Hill, will be the featured performers at the 2018 Gala Dinner. Judith Hill has been a background singer for such legends as Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Ringo Starr, and the late Michael Jackson. It was while competing during the fourth season of the The Voice that Hill began to cement her identity as a solo artist. Shortly after, Hill partnered with Prince and he co-produced her debut solo album, Back in Time.