UCLA International Institute, April 19, 2024 — Award-winning journalist David Ono, co-anchor of ABC7 Eyewitness News in Los Angeles, has been named the second recipient of the Irene Hirano Inouye Award of the UCLA Paul and Hirano Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.

A Japanese American broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker, Ono began his career with a college internship at a local news station near University of Texas at Austin. He went on to professional journalism positions in Dallas, El Paso, Midland/Odessa, Sacramento and, ultimately, Los Angeles.

Ono will deliver a memorial lecture in honor of Hirano Inouye, a Japanese American philanthropist, community organizer and champion of social causes, in late spring 2024 to an invited audience at the residence of the consul general of Japan in Los Angeles.

“I knew Irene for many years. She was an innovator who saw the future and knew what it needed,” Ono said. “Irene was indescribably brilliant and focused, yet did it with warmth and kindness. To receive an award in her name is the ultimate compliment. I will always aspire to make her proud.”

“We are delighted to honor David Ono, an outstanding journalist who has done in-depth coverage of everything from royal weddings to climate change to race in America,” said Hitoshi Abe, director of the UCLA Terasaki Center and a professor of architecture and urban design.

“David’s documentaries “Witness: The Legacy of Heart Mountain” and “Defining Courage,” which deal respectively with Japanese Americans held in the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming and those who served as soldiers in segregated units during World War II, have made Japanese American history tangible to wide audiences,” Abe added. “His service to the Japanese American community is proof of the enduring historical and cultural ties between our countries.”

Hirano Inouye (1948–2020) promoted U.S.–Japan relations throughout her life at both the local and global levels. A founding chair of the Terasaki Center’s board of advisors, her contributions and advice helped advance Japanese studies at UCLA.