lois

Vaughan, Sarah (Lois)

Sarah Vaughan.

(born March 27, 1924, Newark, N.J., U.S.—died April 3, 1990, Hidden Hills, Calif.) U.S. jazz singer. Vaughan won an amateur contest at Harlem's Apollo Theatre in 1942 and soon joined Earl Hines's big band as vocalist and second pianist. Joining Billy Eckstine's band in 1944, she gained exposure to the new bebop style; she was especially influenced by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and recorded with them in 1945. Alternating between popular song and jazz, she worked as a soloist for the rest of her career. A vast range and wide vibrato in the service of her harmonic sensitivity enabled Vaughan to use her voice with a seemingly instrumental approach, often improvising as a jazz soloist.

Learn more about Vaughan, Sarah (Lois) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Schumpeter, Joseph A(lois)

(born Feb. 8, 1883, Triesch, Moravia—died Jan. 8, 1950, Taconic, Conn., U.S.) Moravian-U.S. economist and sociologist. Educated in Austria, he taught at several European universities before joining the faculty of Harvard University (1932–50). He became known for his theories of capitalist development and the business cycle. His popular book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942) argued that capitalism would eventually perish of its own success. His posthumous History of Economic Analysis (1954) is an exhaustive study of the development of analytic methods in economics.

Learn more about Schumpeter, Joseph A(lois) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Sarah Lois Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan.

Learn more about Vaughan, Sarah (Lois) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Lois-Ann Yamanaka (born September 7, 1961 in Hoʻolehua, Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi) is a Japanese-American poet and novelist from Hawaii. Many of her critically acclaimed literary works are written in Hawaiian Pidgin, and some of her writing has dealt with controversial ethnic issues. In particular, her works confront themes of Asian American families and the local culture of Hawaii.

Among her principal works are:

Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre, a book of poems written in Hawaiian Pidgin (1993)
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers (1996)
Blu's Hanging (1997)
Heads by Harry (1998)
Name Me Nobody (2000)
Father of the Four Passages (2001)
The Heart's Language (2005)
Behold the Many (2006)

In 1993, Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre received the Pushcart Prize for poetry. Later, in 1994, the Association for Asian American Studies awarded the collection its fiction award.

In 1998, her novel Blu's Hanging was also awarded a fiction award by the Association of Asian American Studies. However, amid similar accusations that the book's portrayal of one of the characters perpetuated stereotypes about Filipino men, the board rescinded the award. This action sparked controversy among the Asian American literary community (with noted Asian American authors Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston supporting Yamanaka).

In 2004, a short film, Silent Years, based on Yamanaka's screenplay was released. It is a story about a thirteen-year-old girl caught between an abusive uncle and a seventeen-year-old boyfriend, who expects a gift for his high school graduation.

The April 2007 issue of Honolulu Magazine has an excerpt from Yamanaka's upcoming novel, with the working title, The Mother Mary Stories

Family

Yamanaka is the oldest of four daughters who grew up in Pahala on the Big Island of Hawaii. Her mother was a school teacher and her father was a school administrator. She is married to John Inferrera who is currently a physical education and health teacher at Washington Middle School in Honolulu, HI. They have a son, John, Jr.