His father, Fusaji, worked as a dentist, while his mother, Masako, helped run the family fish market in Fresno's Chinatown.

[4] After the war, the Inadas returned to Fresno and once again ran the fish market, having trusted the business to family friends who operated it on their behalf during their confinement.

[2] Inada cites jazz and his time in the internment camps as his chief influences as a poet.

[1] In 1994, Inada's Legends from Camp won an American Book Award, and he has received several poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2006 Inada was named Oregon's fifth poet laureate, the first person to fill the position since William Stafford in 1990.