Biography
Shoyu Kitajima, also known as Masao Kitajima, was a Buddhist priest and Japanese language school principal at Kapaa Jodo Mission on Kauai. JCCH records his birth year as 1907 and arrest in December 1941. His individual record documents Wailua County Jail in Lihue and Sand Island confinement, mainland transfer March 1942, Angel Island March-April 1942, Fort Sill April-May 1942, Camp Livingston June 1942-June 1943, Santa Fe June 1943-March 1944, Jerome March-May 1944 and Tule Lake May 1944-November 1945. He returned to Honolulu aboard Shawnee in December 1945. Transfer from Santa Fe to War Relocation Authority camps was further confinement rather than final release. His detention occurred in the context of US wartime incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry; the cited archive establishes no individual criminal conviction. Source: https://incarceration.jcchawaii.org/internees/kitajima-shoyu-masao
Photo: JCCH/Sunao Fujii Archival Collection. Original-scan crop; identified in the source caption (Third row, fourth from left.). Source: https://incarceration.jcchawaii.org/internees/kitajima-shoyu-masao . Non-free image used at low resolution under this site's educational/memorial fair-use rationale; not an open-license or permission claim.
