Lawson Inada Biography

Lawson Inada is one of the few persons who can explain the Asian American experience as well as he can. His life and achievements are a touching testament to the human spirit's resiliency. Lawson (a third-generation American citizen) and his entire family were “relocated” from their home in Fresno, CA, to an internment camp encircled by barbed wire in Arkansas, and then to Colorado when he was a youngster during World War II. Despite the fact that such treatment has left many of us with a negative image of our country and culture, Inada maintains a positive outlook on life that is full of humor, love, and optimism. He has received numerous Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and is widely regarded as the father of Asian-American writing. Since William Stafford's retirement in 1989, Inada became Oregon's first Poet Laureate. For his book Before the War, with William Morrow, he was the first Asian-American to publish his own collection of poems with a major New York publishing firm. He has been lauded as a "poet-musician in the tradition of Walt Whitman and James A. Wright" after reading his compositions in the White House. His innovative lectures and seminars combine history with poetry in a unique way. He celebrates the things he enjoys, such as music, language, and the United States' rich diversity. More significantly, he strives to teach mankind lessons, from the Sand Creek Massacre to the Japanese-American internment by their own government barely 50 years ago. Legends from the Camp and Drawing the Line, two of his works, have received widespread recognition. He's also the editor of Only What We Could Carry, a compilation of Japanese-American internees' essays. Lawson is presently an emeritus professor of writing at Southern Oregon State College, where he has taught since 1966.

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