Lawson Inada

There are few people who can articulate the Asian American experience quite the way Lawson Inada does. His life and work are a moving testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. When he was a child during World War II, Lawson (a third-generation American citizen), and his entire family were “relocated” from their home in Fresno, CA, to an internment camp surrounded by barbed wire in Arkansas, and subsequently, in Colorado. Though such treatment may have left many of us with a bitter view of our nation and society, Inada maintains an approach to life that is filled with humor, warmth, and hope.

He is a multiple recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships and is considered by many to be the father of Asian-American literature. Inada is Oregon's first Poet Laureate since William Stafford retired from the post in 1989. He was the first Asian-American to publish his own collections of poems with a major New York publishing house, for his book Before the War, with William Morrow. He has read his works at the White House and has been hailed as a “poet-musician in the tradition of Walt Whitman and James A. Wright.”

His creative presentations and workshops are a rich blend of history and poetry. He celebrates the things that he loves: music, language, and the wonderfully diverse nation that is the U.S. More importantly, he tries to teach lessons of humanity, from the Sand Creek Massacre to the imprisonment of Japanese-Americas by their own government only 50 years ago. His books, Legends from the Camp and Drawing the Line have garnered national acclaim. He is also the editor of Only What We Could Carry, a collection of writings by his fellow Japanese-American internees.

Lawson is currently professor emeritus at Southern Oregon State College where he has taught since 1966 as a professor of writing.