Biography:
George Noboru Kurasaki was born June 21, 1919, in San Jose, California. He was the youngest of six children born to Matagoro and Naka. Growing up, Kurasaki helped out as a farm hand on his family’s prune farm and graduated from Campbell High School in 1938. During high school, he learned trombone and played in the school orchestra, on top of enjoying woodworking and auto mechanic work. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, Kurasaki risked arrest by violating curfew to propose to his sweetheart, Violet Teruko Masamori, before the forced removal. The two were married on April 29, 1942 and arrived at Santa Anita Assembly Center on May 30, 1942. The Kurasaki family, including George and Violet, arrived at Heart Mountain on September 13, 1942. They lived in apartment 1-6-E. While incarcerated at Heart Mountain, Kurasaki played trombone in the George Igawa Orchestra, which performed at camp dances and various events in towns around Wyoming. In 1943, he left camp for seasonal farm work in Idaho. He answered No to Question 27 and Yes to Question 28 on the 1943 loyalty questionnaire. On April 7, 1944, he was arrested for failing to appear for his pre-induction physical. Kurasaki was one of the 63 draft resisters tried and convicted in June 1944. He was sentenced to three years in the federal prison at McNeil Island, Washington. Kurasaki was pardoned December 24, 1947, by President Harry Truman. After his release, he eventually returned to northern California, where he married and worked as a cement mason. George Noboru Kurasaki died on January 3, 2005, in Sunnyvale, California.