Internment Locations
Arrested: April 1942
U.S. Immigration Station, Honolulu, Oahu Island
April 1942 - May 1942
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
May 1942 - March 1943
Honouliuli Internment Camp, Oahu Island
March 1943 - September 1943
Paroled: September 1943
Released from Parole: October 1944
Born on Kauai Island, Masako Fujimura left for Japan with her parents at age six. She returned to Hawaii in the spring of 1941, after living in Yamaguchi Prefecture for nearly 20 years. In Honolulu, Fujimura worked as a maid for the family of a U.S. military intelligence officer before her arrest in April 1942.
She appeared in front of a hearing board, which had been considering parole for the young woman until testimony from another detainee, Yasue Takahashi, sealed Fujimura's fate. Takahashi testified to witnessing Fujimura bowing before a coconut tree in the yard of the Immigration Station detention barracks. Carved into the tree trunk were the characters chuko (loyalty). Takahashi interpreted the young woman's actions to indicate loyalty to Japan and its emperor and, with this new evidence, the board ordered Fujimura confined for the duration of the war.
Besides Masako Fujimura, seven other Japanese women from Hawaii are known to have been incarcerated at Honouliuli. They were Irene Umeno Harada, Helen Shizuko Nakagawa, Haruko Takahashi, Yasue Takahashi, Ryuto Tsuda, and sisters Ruby Chiyo Harrison and Rose Mitsuko Tsukayama.