Tosiwo Nakayama

Who is Tosiwo Nakayama?

Tosiwo Nakayama was born on November 23, 1931, on Piherarh in the Namonuito Atoll, in what is now Chuuk State, the son of a Japanese father and a native Chuukese mother, during the period when the islands were administered under the Japanese South Seas Mandate. Awarded a Trust Territory scholarship, he studied at the University of Hawai'i from 1955 to 1958, then returned home and rose steadily through local government, serving as President of the Truk District Legislature and later as a member of the Council of Micronesia. Elected to the House of Delegates of the Congress of Micronesia in 1965, he became President of the Senate and, more than any other individual, is credited with steering the difficult political negotiations at the 1975 Saipan constitutional convention that united the disparate island districts of the former U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands into a single federation. When the Federated States of Micronesia was established, Nakayama was elected its first President, serving two terms from 1979 to 1987 and overseeing the orderly transfer of governmental authority from the United States and the negotiation of the Compact of Free Association, ratified in 1986. After leaving office he worked as Vice President for Governmental Affairs at the Bank of Guam's Chuuk branch until 2003. He died in Honolulu on March 29, 2007.

Sources: David Hanlon, "Making Micronesia: A Political Biography of Tosiwo Nakayama" (University of Hawai'i Press, 2014) · U.S. Department of State, "Background Notes: Micronesia" (1996)