Profiles
Wakako Kimoto Hironaka, MA '64
Tokyo, Japan
A chance meeting in her native Tokyo back in 1958 led Wakako Kimoto Hironaka, MA ’64 across the globe to Waltham, where she became one of the first Wien Scholars at Brandeis.
Now serving her fourth term as a member of the House of Councillors, the Upper House of the Japanese National Diet, Hironaka looks back with deep gratitude to Lawrence and Mae Wien for establishing the program in 1958.
“I can’t thank the Wiens enough,” Hironaka said. “My experience as a Wien Scholar taught me to view things from a global perspective and to value concepts such as democracy, fairness, freedom, gender equality, foreign policy, and much more. I really appreciated the opportunities given to me at that early age.”
After graduating from Ochanomizu Women’s University in Tokyo with a bachelor’s degree in English, Hironaka was looking to study abroad on a scholarship. “America had a strong influence on Japan after World War II. I thought it was wonderful, and wanted to see America with my own eyes,” Hironaka recalled.
While she was looking for opportunities, she met a tourist who happened to be a member of the Brandeis Board of Trustees. “She told me about the Wien International Scholarship Program and said, ‘Why don’t you apply to Brandeis?’ ”
The first class of Wien Scholars consisted of 30 students, mostly from Europe. Hironaka was the only one from Japan. On the day of the program’s inauguration, then-Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy came to the campus to receive an honorary degree, along with former Ambassador George F. Kennan. “I happened to be wearing a kimono, so they chose me to be in their picture,” Hironaka said of the famous group photograph.
During her time at Brandeis, Hironaka remembers attending lectures by Leonard Bernstein, Max Lerner, and founding Brandeis president Abram Sachar, whose “dramatic voice made history very interesting.”
Married in 1960 to a mathematician who happened to start his teaching career at Brandeis, Hironaka returned to Brandeis in 1961 to pursue a master’s degree in anthropology. After graduating from Brandeis, she continued to audit courses at some of America’s best universities, all while raising two children.
Thrilled to have a chance to be a “participant observer” during the 1960s and 1970s -- a time of great social change in America -- Hironaka began writing about American trends for a Japanese audience and translated such best-selling works as “Shifting Gears” by Nena and George O’Neill, and “Japan as Number One” by Ezra Vogel.
Hironaka’s varied interests have guided her life, personally and professionally. She has always been committed to the study of women’s roles in American and Japanese society, environmental issues, and global economic development.
Once she returned to Japan, she joined several scholarly friends to establish the International Group for the Study of Women. The group invited Betty Friedan for a lecture tour in the 1980s, and it remains active today.
In 1986, she was elected to the House of Councillors, where she has served ever since. Currently, she is chair of the Research Committee on Economy, Industry, and Employment and is a member of the Committee on Education, Culture, and Science. In 2005-2006, she served as the vice president of the Democratic Party of Japan. From 1993-1994, she was state minister, director-general of the Environment Agency in the Hosokawa Cabinet.
She is active internationally as well, having served as vice chair of Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), co-chair of Micro Credit Summit Council of Parliamentarians, and was a member of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, Earth Charter Commission, and International Senior Advisory Board of UNESCO.
Hironaka remains moved today by comments made by Lawrence Wien at the 30th Wien anniversary celebration back in 1988, just months before his death.
“He said he had deprived himself of nothing by establishing the Wien International Scholarship Program, but rather had used his money in a way that brought him much more pleasure than any material acquisitions could ever,” she remembered. “He was a great and generous philanthropist whose vision changed a lot of lives.”
