Biography
Rentaro Degawa was an Issei Hilo resident, clerk at American Factors and poet writing under the name Shito. JCCH records his birth year as 1873. His individual record documents arrest in February 1942, Kilauea Military Camp detention, Oahu transfer in May 1942, Honolulu Immigration Station and Sand Island custody, mainland transfer May 1942, Angel Island and Fort Sam Houston in June 1942, Lordsburg June 1942-June 1943 and Santa Fe June 1943-October 1945. He returned to Hawaii aboard Yarmouth in November 1945. This was administrative US wartime civilian confinement in the context of Japanese ancestry. No individual criminal conviction, imposed judicial sentence or exact arrest or release day is established. Source: https://incarceration.jcchawaii.org/internees/degawa-rentaro
