HONOLULU — Former Hawaii Governor George R. Ariyoshi, the nation's first Asian American governor, died peacefully while surrounded by family on Sunday night. Ariyoshi, a Democrat, served as governor of Hawaii from 1973 to 1986.

Ariyoshi first rose to the position of governor in October 1973, becoming acting governor when Governor John Burns fell ill with cancer. He had been elected lieutenant governor in 1970, at which point he withdrew from private practice and resigned corporate directorships. He won election to governor in 1974 and was reelected in 1978 and 1982. Hawaii governors are now subject to a two-term limit.

"Governor Ariyoshi devoted his life to Hawaiʻi with humility, discipline and an unwavering sense of responsibility to the people he served. He led our state during a pivotal moment with quiet strength and integrity, and his legacy as a trailblazer and public servant will endure for generations." Governor Josh Green said.

George Ryoichi Ariyoshi was born on March 12, 1926, in a two-room tenement near Honolulu Harbor to parents who had immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. He grew up in the neighborhood of Kalihi near downtown Honolulu. His father, Ryozo, was a sumo wrestler from Fukuoka Prefecture who became a stevedore and owner of a dry cleaning shop in Hawaii. His mother, Mitsue, came from Kumamoto, Japan.

Ariyoshi graduated from McKinley High School in 1944 and served as an interpreter with the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Service in Japan at the end of World War II. After the war, he attended the University of Hawaii before transferring to Michigan State University, where he received a bachelor's degree in history and political science in 1949. He earned a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1952 and began practicing law in Hawaii in 1953.

Democrats wrested control of the Hawaii Legislature from Republicans in 1954, the same year Ariyoshi won the first of two terms in the Territorial House of Representatives. He won a territorial Senate seat in 1958 and became a state senator in 1959 when Hawaii became a state. He won state Senate elections in 1964, 1966 and 1968. In his 1997 autobiography "With Obligation to All," he wrote that before his election only Caucasians had been governor.

In 1975, Ariyoshi and his wife Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi attended their first National Governor's Conference in Washington, D.C., and were invited by President Gerald Ford to a black-tie dinner at the White House. "Look at the little girl from Wahiawa dancing at the White House," Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi said. Her husband replied, "And she's dancing with the kid from Kalihi."

John Waihe'e became Ariyoshi's lieutenant governor in 1982 and was elected the first governor of Native Hawaiian ancestry in 1986 with Ariyoshi's support. Ariyoshi is survived by his wife Jean and children Lynn, Donn and Ryozo.