Board Member
Pronouns: she/her
Elaine Shoji Ishihara’s commitment to social justice was influenced by her family’s experience and growing up during the civil rights movement. She is a Sansei, third generation Japanese American whose grandparents and parents were incarcerated at the Minidoka concentration camp during World War II. They later returned to Seattle, Washington where Elaine was born and raised in a multi-ethnic community.
Elaine is the director of the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition Advocating Together for Health (APICAT), a coalition she helped organize in 1997 to address tobacco control and health equity in the Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community. She was a founding member and first executive director of the Washington Asian Pacific Islander Families Against Substance Abuse (WAPIFASA), providing substance abuse prevention and outpatient treatment services for AANHPI youth and their families.
With over 40 years of community organizing and non-profit experience, Elaine values the relationships, mentoring and cross-cultural partnerships that have allowed her to fulfill her passion and commitment to social and health justice.
Elaine received a BA in Sociology from the University of Washington and later earned a Master’s in Public Administration as a National Urban Fellow from Baruch College, City University of New York. She and her husband Jon live in Seattle and are the proud parents of their adult children Derek and Brianna.
www.facebook.com/APICATforHealth/ www.instagram.com/togetherourvoices/
www.apicat.org