Kanashiro, James Zensuke

James Zensuke Kanashiro immigrated in 1906 from Okinawa to Hawaii, where he worked on the sugar plantations of Kauai Island. He attended Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu and then studied dentistry at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He returned to the islands, practicing dentistry in Honolulu until his arrest and incarceration in Honouliuli in 1943. 

With the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952, officially ending the exclusion of Asian immigrants from naturalization, Kanashiro became an American citizen. He volunteered as a teacher of English to new immigrants and was a dedicated advocate of U.S. citizenship for newcomers. He also served as the first president of the United Okinawan Association of Hawaii.