Don’t Forget the Little Guy : Art: Grass-roots programs dealing with multicultural issues merit support, poet Mitsuye Yamada tells activists.

Japan-born, Seattle-bred poet Mitsuye Yamada spent part of her childhood in an internment camp in Idaho during World War II.

But in the 1950s, when she was a graduate student in English at the University of Chicago, “ politics was a bad word,” she said. “You weren’t supposed to say anything in your poems except truth and beauty.”

As Yamada explained Thursday morning to the Orange County chapter of Women For:, a political action group, the women’s movement of the 1970s finally galvanized her awareness of herself as an Asian American writer.

“I had to get rid of my education,” she said, “to get rid of the idea that political art . . . is lesser than world-class literature.”

Although Yamada’s talk at the Irvine Marketplace was grandly titled “Politics and the Arts: The Future Outlook for the Arts and Humanities in America,” it turned out (perhaps because she had to attend a relative’s funeral immediately afterward) to be a brief, low-key chat about the importance of supporting grass-roots programs dealing with multicultural issues in the arts and humanities.

The author of “Camp Notes and Other Poems” and “Desert Run: Poems and Stories” (both published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press), Yamada is a board member of Amnesty International, U.S.A., and the founder of Multicultural Women Writers of Orange County. She was a professor of English at Cypress College for 19 years and has taught at San Diego State and UCLA.

When Yamada became a board member on the California Council for the Humanities--the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities--she said, “it felt right to me.”

Community programs sponsored by the Council, which receives no state funds, include “Humanities a la Carte” (lunchtime talks about the arts and humanities held at Los Angeles-area businesses), “Scholars in the Schools” (one educator held dialogues with students while impersonating Thomas Jefferson) and Motheread, an inner-city project that teaches mothers how to read to their children.

Other programs funded by the Council’s relatively meager budget ($400,000 this year) include exhibitions (with historical or sociological--rather than purely artistic--themes), films, radio programs, lecture series and conferences. No grants are awarded to individuals.

Yamada encouraged Women For: to apply for a $750 planning grant for a community program of its own. Program grants range from $5,000 to $25,000, she said.

Grant proposals are accepted from nonprofit organizations on April 1 and Oct. 1 of each year; interested organizations may request further information from the California Council on the Humanities, 312 Sutter St., Suite 601, San Francisco, CA 94108.

Referring to such arts-supporting politicians as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Yamada reminded her audience that “our friends have to choose their battles (in the post-election climate). The arts and humanities may be on the bottom of the heap.”

Asked to compare the funding situation in the United States with that of other countries, Yamada said, “we’re pretty much at the bottom of the heap. In Japan, their living treasures are people . It’s a wonderful concept. They fund for life a person with talent.

“We spend a lot of money on art that we lift from other cultures, which should be back in the country where it belongs. We put a lot of money into paintings (sold at upscale galleries).

“But that’s not the art we (at the Council) are talking about. You could come off the street and come up with some idea you think is worth funding and would benefit our community.”