Biography
Seisaku Aoyagi, also recorded as Kiyosaku Aoyagi, was an Issei junk-store owner from Hilo, Hawaii, incarcerated during World War II under the US wartime enemy-alien internment system. The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii records his arrest in August 1942, confinement at Kilauea Military Camp and Sand Island, and transfer to mainland detention facilities. He was held at Angel Island in September-October 1942, Lordsburg from October 1942, and Santa Fe in June 1943-October 1945. He returned to Honolulu aboard the Yarmouth in November 1945. This is historical administrative internment, not a documented criminal conviction. Sources: Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, https://incarceration.jcchawaii.org/internees/aoyagi-seisaku ; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1803379
Native-pixel crop of Seisaku Aoyagi’s explicitly named 1944 enemy-alien registration card. Smithsonian National Museum of American History, collection 2015.0252, gift of Seiji Aoyagi; reproduced by the National Park Service. Photographer unknown. The museum’s individual record gives his birth date as June 4, 1888. Portrait source. Museum individual record.
