71-year-old Nancie Caraway, she is the lovely wife of current Governor of Hawaii and former First Congressional District U.S. Representative, Neil Abercrombie. According to online reports, her husband; Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed the bill, which will allow gay couples living in the Rainbow State, as well as tourists, to marry starting Dec. 2.
“In Hawaii, we believe in fairness, justice and human equality,” Abercrombie said Tuesday after the state Senate passed the gay marriage bill. “Today, we celebrate our diversity defining us rather than dividing us.”
Nancie is formally known as Dr. Nancy Ellen Caraway. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gene Caraway of Houston.
According to her staff profile from the University of Hawaii-manoa, she is an award-winning political scientist and feminist scholar/ activist with twenty years of leadership experience in human rights and social justice initiatives. Her 1992 book, Segregated Sisterhood: Racism and the Politics of American Feminism, received the American Political Science Assn.’s Schuck Award for best book on women and politics. An experienced journalist and reporter as well, Dr. Caraway has served as a public intellectual, writing on topics such as: multicultural identities and politics, post-colonialism and Native Hawaiian rights, the nature of power and privilege in a globalizing world, and the challenge of political activism within postmodern frames.
Dr. Caraway is an international expert on globalization and human trafficking, having participated in major UN global and Asian fora on the topic: Women Waging Peace, Harvard Kennedy School 2000; Asian Regional Initiative Against Trafficking, Manila 2000; The Second World Congress against Child Commercial Exploitation, Yokohama 2001; Freedom Network conference “Is the New Human Trafficking Law Working?” New York 2003; served as expert consultant at the Seminar on Cross-Border Trafficking, Centre for Feminist Legal Research, New Delhi, January 2004.
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She is a native of Alabama, Nancie moved to Hawaii in the early 1970s after living in Houston, Texas, where she worked for Texaco, Inc. and Delta Airlines. An authority on international human trafficking, Ms. Caraway currently serves as a consultant to U.S. Ambassador Luis C. de Baca in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. She also serves as a mentor at the East-West Center’s Asia-Pacific Leadership Program.
Ms. Caraway earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in political science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She also holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
The first lady and her husband, Governor Neil Abercrombie, were married in 1981 in Palm Springs, Calif., On Nelson Mandela’s birthday July 18, 1981, in honor of the great South African leader whom they greatly admired.
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