Daniel Inouye wanted to serve the United States from a young age. Growing up in Hawaii, the attack on Pearl Harbor rattled him; in 1944, at the age of 19, Inouye deployed to Italy, then France, to fight the Nazis. War changes most soldiers’ lives, but Inouye, fighting in an all–Japanese American combat unit, also had to get his right arm amputated: A Nazi soldier struck him with a grenade launcher, partly destroying the arm and forcing him to pry the undetonated grenade out with his left hand. He threw it back at the Nazi—this time, it detonated.
After being rehabilitated, Inouye continued to serve the United States, first as one of Hawaii’s earliest delegates to the House of Representatives, then, in 1963, in the Senate, where he remained for nearly 50 years. Inouye supported civil rights, but he was not at the forefront of the disability rights movement; in fact, Inouye did not see himself as a disabled person, likely due to stigma at the time. By 2010, Inouye was president pro tempore of the Senate, making him the highest-ranking person of color with a disability in the presidential line of succession, ever.
“When he started in politics, to have a disability would have been a weakness.”
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.
As someone who worked in politics, Day, why was it important for you that a politician with a disability was featured?
Al-Mohamed: If you think about it, very much that shapes the the way the country operates, right? It actually, in some way, shapes the very look and feel of a country—that is, the politics and the policies and the laws. It would be remiss to not include a politician, and we specifically wanted Sen. Inouye to be a part of this because of his perspective on disability.
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.
What does Inouye’s story reveal about about how people’s lived experiences can help them push for justice?
Botkin: As a person who was never diagnosed as a child with neurodivergence, it started dawning on me in my 30s. I’m like, “Huh, you might have this thing.” I’m terrified of the label, to be honest. That’s the kind of the stance that I feel like that the senator was taking, which was, I’m not going to claim it for me, but I’m going to fight for everybody else.
What is that inability within ourselves to accept it? I don’t know. That’s something that I actually felt like I had in common with the senator, and I think maybe it’s just the old programming that we haven’t been able to take care of.
Al-Mohamed: In many ways, your own lived experiences are what are going to shape your own policies, your views and your actions. It was very clear from the senator’s early life and the things that happened to him, there was very much a clear recognition of some of the inequities that existed. He was somebody who basically committed five decades of his life to addressing those inequities across a variety of arenas.
From a political standpoint, he didn’t have a box, [like] it’s just going to be veteran stuff. He actually ended up taking that way of looking at what is fair and what is right and putting it into a variety of arenas. Some stronger than others, but the fact is that they were there. I think that’s where you see Inouye using that personal experience and using it to push for positive change.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
