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Hawaii’s World
I could entitle this column, "The Making of an American." Thai woman immigrant
has come farOpassi Sae Jiong grew up in Ubon, Thailand, in a family of 14, including 10 half brothers and sisters. She helped her father send other children through school. Then, at 29, she was beyond the age at which a Thai college would accept her.
She saw an ad for Cannon's Business College in Honolulu, where her age was no barrier. She applied, was accepted, and got a student visa to enter the U.S.
On arrival here, Cannon's helped her find a place to live. That was 1970. The place they found was the Smyser household in Makiki Heights.
My late wife and I wanted a student to live in a little room we had under the main house who would be a "mother's helper" for our daughter and son, who were just entering their teens. We went out a lot of evenings to functions related to my Star-Bulletin editorship role or Betty's role as a TV hostess.
It worked out fine. Opassi became a part of the family until she graduated from Cannon's in 1972. She then moved into the Fernhurst YWCA residence and became an accountant for Cannon's parent company.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service told her she would have to leave the U.S. since she no longer was a student. She learned, however, that she could stay if she married an American.
It happened that she had become acquainted with a widower, Edward White, who was director of the electronics institute that was a part of the Cannon group. He was enough older than Opassi that my late wife and I were at first dismayed. We shouldn't have been.
She took him to Thailand to meet her family and was a devoted wife until he died in 1994. He constantly praised what a wonderful helpmate she was.
In 1976, the bicentennial year, she became a U.S. citizen. Since 1992 she has held an accounting position with the state Department of Public Safety.
For her, employment is not enough. She became active in Central Union Church and in the Republican Party. Conservative views brought with her from Thailand made our GOP a good fit, she says.
In 1996 she was an alternate delegate from Hawaii to the GOP National Convention in San Diego. As one of the few Asians there, she got national media exposure an alternate delegate ordinarily would not have had .
SHE lost out for a Hawaii seat in the 2000 convention that nominated George W. Bush, her personal presidential choice. He had been sending her Christmas cards for several years.
In December she got three personal invitations to attend the Jan. 20 presidential inaugural -- one from the Committee for the Presidential Inaugural, a second from the Bush organization and a third from the GOP leadership of the U.S. Senate. This also invited her to become a member of the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle.
As her invited guest she took a sister who is a school superintendent in northern Thailand. They stopped first in Perkasie, Pa., for three days with her late husband's son.
In Washington, from the Hilton Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, they got to the inaugural on time via the Metro underground system. Hawaii's Republican state chairwoman, Linda Lingle, took a cab, got stuck in traffic and heard the ceremonies via the cab radio.
Now Mrs. White wants to see more of Washington. Next year she will be a Republican challenger for the congressional seat held by Democrat Neil Abercrombie. She is a very, very dark horse but also a very determined person.
America is richer for having accepted her as a citizen.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.