Mariko Terasaki Miller

Mariko Terasaki Miller is the first woman appointed Honorary Consul-General of Japan. She is the daughter of Hidenari Terasaki, a Japanese diplomat, and Gwen Harold Terasaki, a native of Johnson City, who met at the Japanese Embassy in Washington and were married in 193. Mrs. Miller was born in Shanghai, and spent her early childhood with parents in various posts, including Havana, Peking, Washington, and Tokyo. In 1941, her father was again posted to the Embassy in Washington, where he played an important role in desperate, last minute efforts to avert war between Japan and America. Mrs. Miller returned with her parents to Japan after Pearl Harbor, where they spent the war years. At war’s end, her father was appointed advisor to the Emperor and official liaison between the Palace and the Supreme Allied Commander, General Douglas MacArthur.

 

Seared by her observations of poverty, hunger, and brutality as a child in China, and the realities of war in Japan, Mrs. Miller became a political activist while raising her four sons in Wyoming. She served on the steering committee of the National Women’s Political Caucus, the board of Americans for Democratic Action, the Wyoming Commission for Civil Rights, and the Wyoming Commission for Women, and in 1976, was elected to the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee. 

 

She has embarked on numerous speaking tours of Japan over the past 17 years, some of which were sponsored jointly by the American Embassy and the Japanese Foreign Ministry. In April of 1996, the Foreign Ministry invited her to Japan to speak at a luncheon hosted by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in honor of President and Mrs. Bill Clinton.