Inouye

A profile of Senator Daniel Inouye, the highest-ranking Asian American politician in U.S. history.

Growing up in a sugarcane plantation family, Inouye knew the pain of injustice and the dignity of those who bore it. He spent a career in the Senate convincing the country’s leaders to embrace humanity and give the marginalized the right to decide their own fates. His style was gentle and persistent, unlike that of many of the brash colleagues he called his friends. And when it came time for him to depart, Inouye’s role was so large that there was no one left in the Senate to hold back the angry political uprising that would take over Capitol Hill.