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Balancing Acts

How a Japanese Immigrant Built a Life in the Face of Racial Danger—Until Federal Agents Arrived

Author: Dana Frank

An early 20th-century immigrant’s story of perseverance—and his kidnapping by the US government

Jack Inoway was 14 and alone when he left Japan for the United States. After decades of struggle, he eventually became a prominent restauranteur. Ohio. But in 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US government seized him, interrogated him as an “alien enemy,” and destroyed his livelihood and public identity. Weaving never-before-seen personal correspondence with vital historical context, Balancing Acts reveals Inoway’s true story of reinvention, resilience, and untimely death.

Jack Inoway encountered anti-Asian racism at every turn but found strength in the thriving support networks of his fellow immigrants and his family, both in Japan and in the US. He learned how to navigate interracial marriage bans, alien land laws, and white supremacist groups like the KKK. He took what opportunities he could as a sugar plantation worker, an acrobat, and a cabin boy for the US Navy. Finally, in the 1920s, he achieved his obsessive dream of “success” by opening a chain of lucrative restaurants and becoming a pillar of the community.

As immigrants in the US continue to face rampant and violence today, Jack Inoway’s story underscores the continuity and vicious power of anti-Asian racism. Balancing Acts is an intimate and compelling portrait of a Japanese man who strategized how to surmount barrier after barrier—until the federal government wrecked his life.