Biography:
Roy Masao Uyeda was born on April 13, 1924, in Mayfield, California, although some records say he was born on that date in 1923. He was the oldest of six children of Tsuruhiko and Fumi Uyeda. The family had a berry farm. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tsuruhiko Uyeda was rounded up by the FBI. He would eventually be incarcerated in three camps before he joined his family at Heart Mountain. The Uyeda family would be sent first to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, where they arrived on May 26, 1942, and then to Heart Mountain, where they arrived on September 13, 1942. They lived in apartment 30-15-E. Uyeda answered No to Question 27 and Yes to Question 28 on the 1943 loyalty questionnaire. He visited his father in the Justice Department camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, in April 1943, and then received leaves to work on a sugar farm in Montana and Blue Mountain Canneries in Dayton, Washington. He was arrested on September 5, 1944, and was among the 22 draft resisters tried and convicted of violating the Selective Service Act in July 1945. Uyeda was sentenced to two years in federal prison and was pardoned by President Harry Truman on December 24, 1947. After prison, Uyeda returned to California. The 1950 Census shows he was a partner in a food business with his younger brother, Charles. Uyeda married Midore Doris Sakamoto on June 28, 1953.