Biography:
Bobby Masao Nagahara was born June 5, 1921, in Campbell, California, to Tadaichi and Yuki, who were immigrants from Japan. He was the youngest of three children and had an older brother and sister. At the time of the forced removal, Nagahara was a college student in San Jose, and he and his family were sent first to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, where they arrived on May 30, 1942. They arrived at Heart Mountain on September 13, 1942, where they lived in apartment 1-10-B. He answered No to Question 27 and Yes to Question 28 on the 1943 loyalty questionnaire. Nagahara was arrested April 7, 1944, and was tried and convicted of violating the Selective Service Act in June 1944. He was sentenced to three years in the federal prison at McNeil Island, Washington. Nagahara was released in July 1946 and pardoned by President Harry Truman on December 24, 1947. After prison, he returned to San Jose and worked on his older brother’s farm. Nagahara married Masako Jio on November 26, 1955, and bought his own farm in Morgan Hill, California, where he grew strawberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers and ran a well-known local farm stand for 40 years. They had four children. Bobby Masao Nagahara died in San Jose on May 10, 2022.