Lawson Fusao Inada (born May 26, 1938) is a

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

poet. He was the fifth

poet laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

of the state of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Early life

Born May 26, 1938, Inada is a third-generation

(''

Sansei is a Japanese and North American English term used in parts of the world such as South America and North America to specify the children of children born to ethnic Japanese in a new country of residence. The ''nisei'' are considered the second g ...

''). His father, Fusaji, worked as a dentist, while his mother, Masako, helped run the family fish market in Fresno's Chinatown. In May 1942, at the age of three years, Inada and his family were

interned Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

for the duration of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

at camps in

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

, the

Jerome War Relocation Center The Jerome War Relocation Center was a Japanese American internment camp located in southeastern Arkansas, near the town of Jerome in the Arkansas Delta. Open from October 6, 1942, until June 30, 1944, it was the last American concentration camp ...

in Arkansas, and

Granada War Relocation Center The Amache National Historic Site, formally the Granada War Relocation Center but known to the internees as Camp Amache, was a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Prowers County, Colorado. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor o ...

in Colorado. After the war, the Inadas returned to Fresno and once again ran the fish market, having trusted the business to family friends who operated it on their behalf during their confinement.

Jazz influences

Following the war, Inada became a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

musician, a

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...

, following the work of

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...

, and

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

, to whom he would later write tributes in his works. Inada cites jazz and his time in the internment camps as his chief influences as a poet. He studied writing at the

Fresno State University California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bache ...

, the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

, and the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

Career highlights

Inada's first teaching job was at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

, from 1962 to 1965. He moved to Oregon and earned an MFA from the University of Oregon in 1966, beginning teaching poetry at

Southern Oregon University Southern Oregon University (SOU) is a public university in Ashland, Oregon. It was founded in 1872 as the Ashland Academy, has been in its current location since 1926, and was known by nine other names before assuming its current name in 1997.Kre ...

later that year. In 1994, Inada's ''Legends from Camp'' won an

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

, and he has received several poetry fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

. He also won the 1997 Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. In 2006 Inada was named Oregon's fifth poet laureate, the first person to fill the position since William Stafford in 1990. He was succeeded by

Paulann Petersen Paulann Petersen (born 1942) an American poet from the state of Oregon. A native of Portland, she was Oregon's sixth poet laureate. Biography Petersen was born in 1942 in Portland, Oregon, where she graduated from Franklin High School in Southea ...

in 2010.

Select works

* ''Three Northwest Poets: Drake, Inada, Lawder, Madison'': Quixote Press, 1970. * ''Before the War; Poems as They Happened'', New York: Morrow, 1971. * ''

Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers ''Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers'' is a 1974 anthology by Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, members of the Combined Asian American Resources Project (CARP). It helped establish Asian American Li ...

'', Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1974 (Coeditor). * ''The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99'', Mountain View: Buddhahead Press, 1978 (With Garrett Kaoru Hongo and Alan Chong Lau). * ''The Big Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature'', New York: Penguin, 1990 (Coeditor). * ''Legends From Camp'', Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1993. Winner, American Book Award. Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry. * ''In This Great Land of Freedom: The Japanese Pioneers of Oregon'', Los Angeles: Japanese American National Museum, 1993 (Contributor). * ''Touching the Stones: Tracing One Hundred Years of Japanese American History'', Portland: Oregon Nikkei Endowment, 1994 (Contributor). * ''Just Intonations'', Ashland, Oregon: Graven Images Gallery Press, 1996. * ''Drawing the Line'', Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1997. Winner, Oregon Book Award for Poetry. A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. * ''Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience'', Berkeley:

Heyday Books Heyday is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Berkeley, California. Heyday was founded by Malcolm Margolin in 1974 when he wrote, typeset, designed, and distributed ''The East Bay Out'', a guide to the natural history of the hills and b ...

, 2000 (Editor and author of introduction). * ''Unfinished Message: Selected Works of Toshio Mori'', Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2000 (Author of introduction). * ''A Matter of Conscience: Essays on the World War II Heart Mountain Draft Resistance Movement.'' Powell, Wyoming: Western History Publications, 2002 (Contributor).

Notes

References

* Leonard, George. (1999)
''The Asian Pacific American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts.''
London:

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa ...

. ; 10_ISBN 978-0-8153-2980-0 * Niiya, Brian. (1993)
''Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present.''
New York: Facts on File; Bonn: Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG.
OCLC: 26853950

External links

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

"Oregon Laureate Reflects on Japanese Internment,"

NewsHour ''Newshour'' is BBC World Service's flagship international news and current affairs radio programme, which is broadcast twice daily: weekdays at 1400, weekends at 1300 and nightly at 2100 (UK time). Each edition lasts one hour. It consists of ...

. October 3, 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Inada, Lawson Fusao 1938 births Living people Writers from Fresno, California American writers of Japanese descent Japanese-American internees Southern Oregon University faculty Writers from Ashland, Oregon American poets American poets of Asian descent Poets Laureate of Oregon American Book Award winners