Biography:
Sam Isamu Shimane was born on June 12, 1925, in San Jose, California, to Iwazo Shimane and Ayako Miura, farmers from Japan. He grew up in the San Jose public school system. Shimane played football and basketball for San Jose High School until the forced removal of Japanese Americans was ordered in the spring of 1942, which cut his sophomore year short. In May of that year, the whole Shimane family, consisting of Shimane, his parents, and six siblings–Alyce Emiko, Edith Kasuko, Keiko, Kiyoko, Midori, and Toshiro–were sent to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, where they arrived on May 30, 1942. He was the second oldest of the children after his older sister Alyce, who was 20 at the time of removal. The family arrived at Heart Mountain on September 13, 1942, where they lived in apartment 23-9-AB. Shimane attended Heart Mountain High School during the school year of 1942. During his junior year, he was seen several times at the hospital for a head injury, and he dropped out of high school without graduating. Shimane answered No to Question 27 and Yes to Question 28 on the 1943 loyalty questionnaire. A year later, in March 1944, Shimane received notice that he was being drafted and to report for his pre-induction physical. He was arrested on March 29, 1944. Shimane was tried and convicted in the trial of 63 resisters in June 1944 and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. He was released in July 1946 and pardoned by President Harry Truman on December 24, 1947. After the war, he lived in Gardena, California, and worked as a clerk. Shimane married Helene Kamiya on June 25, 1961. They had three children. Sam Isamu Shimane died in Gardena, California, on December 12, 2012.