Harada, Irene Umeno

Umeno Tanaka was born in the town of Kapa'a on Kauai Island, the third daughter of a sugar plantation worker. In her twenties, she married a plantation contractor named Yoshio Harada, who moved his family a few years later to the remote northern island of Niihau, where he took up a job as a beekeeper on the Robinson Ranch. Irene Umeno and Yoshio Harada thus joined Harada's beekeeping supervisor, Ishimatsu Shintani, as the only Japanese residents amid the island's Native Hawaiian and Caucasian population. 

On December 7, 1941, a Japanese pilot crash-landed on Niihau, sparking a series of tragic events that culminated in the death of both the pilot and Yoshio Harada. Irene Umeno Harada was arrested several days later, along with Shintani, who also had been embroiled in the events on Niihau.

Harada was ordered interned "for her own good and protection" and spent the majority of her confinement at Honouliuli. Along with Harada, only five other Japanese women from Hawaii were ever interned at Honouliuli. They were Masako Fujimura, Helen Shizuko Nakagawa, Haruko Takahashi, Yasue Takahashi, and Ryuto Tsuda.