Inudo was probably the world’s tallest Japanese-American. Six-five-and-a-half barefoot, he also had extra measures of Oriental cunning and agility. He was good at basketball and paper folding. He honored his parents and got all As at Harvard where he majored in American history. He was twice voted the Japanese-American teenager of the year and went around the country giving after-dinner speeches to fourteen year olds who wanted, someday, to be like him. Young Japanese girls swooned as if he were Mick Jagger when he told them that their parents had been put in prison camps in California. They admired his silky complexion and his deep rich voice reading racist tracts of the ’30s and ’40s in which San Fernando Valley farmers accused the Japanese of pissing on their lettuce.
“You’ve got to be aware of the fact that some of your neighbors still think of you as the yellow menace,” he told the youngsters. They took notes and asked for his autograph.
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