LOS ANGELES -- Irene Hirano Inouye, president of the U.S.-Japan Council and a longtime activist on behalf of improved Japan-U.S. relations, died in Los Angeles on Tuesday. She was 71.
The cause of death had not been made public, but Inouye had been ill for some time.
Inouye was a third-generation Japanese American. She was the first executive director of the Japanese American National Museum, which opened in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo area in 1992, and worked to pass on the history of Japanese Americans, including their forced internment during World War II.
Inouye led joint public-private operations that emerged to support reconstruction from the Great East Japan Earthquake, and also prompted youth and cultural exchanges between Japan and the United States.
She was the widow of Daniel Inouye, a leading U.S. senator with the Democratic Party.
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