Inouye’s story is the subject of a new documentary, out October 8, in PBS’ Renegades series of five short films telling the stories of underrecognized disabled figures in US history, like Inouye and Black Panther Party member Brad Lomax.
Mother Jones spoke with Renegades series creator Day Al-Mohamed, who has worked on disability policy in the Biden-Harris administration, and Tammy Botkin, who directed the short on the late senator, on Inouye’s relationship to his disability and more. (...)
In your work in disability policy, even decades later, do you see similarities in how many veterans may not view themselves as part of the disability community—like Daniel Inouye didn’t?
Al-Mohamed: I still remember, as one veteran explained it to me, “I don’t have a disability. I’m just busted out.” It’s very much a way of thinking about that. Veterans are a community in and of themselves and [had] a job, in many ways, that is based on your your body, abilities and capacity.
We all have different perceptions of what it means to be disabled, and we can even see that within the non-veteran community as well. There’s this general mainstream perception that disability is a wheelchair user, or it’s somebody who is blinded. I think that that has done a disservice to many folks who don’t see the opportunity to take advantage of the policies and politics that protect them, which is also, in some ways, at the heart of the episode.
It does seem there’s a generational shift, where younger people are embracing that identity more than in the days when more people were being institutionalized.
Botkin: It’s definitely related to generational views of disability. It is also related to the Senator’s identity as a war veteran, who has seen many other friends who died and were maimed far worse than he. It also has to do with his identity as a Japanese American. Then, his need as a politician to show himself as strong—and when he started in politics, to have a disability would have been a weakness.
Why was it important to explore multiple aspects of Inouye’s identity—including how anti-Japanese sentiment made it difficult for Inouye to enlist, and led to his being called a communist?
Botkin: First off, the senator being smushed into 12 minutes feels like an aberration. How do you do that? He [had] such a massive, massive life, and he himself was such a prolific storyteller and framer of his experience and our collective experience.
There were so many facets to him that to really even begin to understand him as an individual, to leave any of those out is to not be able to really grasp who he is—that he belonged to many communities. He’s Japanese American, yes, but also Hawaiian. Yes, he’s military. He’s a politician. He’s a man from a certain generation of Americanism. He would fight for people with disabilities, but for him to take the lead on it would be self-serving. He wouldn’t do that, and that leans a lot into his Japanese American heritage. We worked with Japanese American consultants to nail this in.
When you’re telling somebody’s story, it’s terrifying because I personally feel like I have to get it right. Luckily, in this case, the Senator’s best friend, who’s in the film, Jeff Watanabe, was incredibly pleased with the representation, so I can breathe.
Al-Mohamed: If you watch the film, you can see [Tammy’s] pulling strands of different labels. As you even highlighted, the discussion around communism, discussion about being Japanese American, discussion about disability, discussion about veteran, those are all labels. At the heart, it’s about the ones you choose to embrace, the ones you don’t, the ones society puts on you, and the ones that you choose for yourself.
by Julia Métraux, Mother Jones | Read more:
Image: via uncredited
[ed. Will have to look for this. The international airport in Honolulu is named after Sen. Inouye, and the one in Anchorage, Alaska named after Ted Stevens. Both were great friends and co-conspirators during their time in Congress (one Democrat, the other Republican), and were together extremely effective in getting the most they could for each of their small states. In the process both became legends, greatly shaping each state's destiny. See also: Grit, Courage: 2nd Lt. and U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, U.S. Army (Hawaii Reporter):]
"Kame and Hyotaro would not have dared to dream from their home in the Japanese-American community of Mo’ili’ili, a suburb of Honolulu, that the son born to them on September 7th, 1924 would one day be third in line for the Presidency of the United States. They named him Daniel K. Inouye.
Dan had a normal happy childhood, as it is today it was then, a neat place for a child to grow up. Dan was a senior at McKinley high school on December 7th 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. (...)
The following September, Dan – who had plans to become a doctor – enrolled in the University of Hawaii. Like many Nisei, Dan had tried to enlist but the War Department at first refused to accept Japanese-American volunteers after Pearl Harbor. Then they changed their minds. Dan put his plans to become a doctor on hold, quit school and enlisted. He was assigned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. During training in Mississippi, the unit found its motto: “Go for Broke!”
By the time the 442nd shipped out for Naples in May 1944, Dan was a sergeant and squad leader. As a matter of interest, the casualty rate was so high that it eventually took 12,000 men to fill the original 4,500 places in the regiment. (...)
On April 21, 1945, Dan’s company was ordered to attack a heavily defended ridge guarding an important road in the vicinity of San Terenzo. His platoon wiped out an enemy patrol and mortar observation post and reached the main line of resistance before the rest of the American force. As the troops continued up the hill, three German machine guns focused their fire on them, pinning them down. Dan worked his way toward the first bunker. Pulling out a grenade, he felt something hit him in his side but paid no attention and threw the grenade into the machine-gun nest. After it exploded, he advanced and killed the crew.
Dan continued up the hill, throwing two more grenades into the second gun emplacement and destroying it before he collapsed from loss of blood from his wounds. His men, trying to take the third bunker, were forced back. He dragged himself toward it, then stood up and was about to pull the pin on his last grenade when a German appeared in the bunker and fired a rifle grenade. It hit Dan in the right elbow and literally tore off his arm. He pried the grenade out of his dead right fist with his other hand and threw it at the third bunker, then lurched toward it, firing his tommy gun left-handed. A German bullet hit him in the leg. A medic reached him and gave him a shot of morphine. In his typical stoic manner he didn’t allow himself to be evacuated until the position was secured. In the hospital, the remnants of his right arm were amputated.
Dan left the Army and after a long period of recuperation, Dan finished college. Forced to give up his dream of practicing medicine, he decided to study law. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii in 1959—Congress’s first Japanese-American—and to the Senate in 1962."
