Group Media & Photos
Gin'ushisha (Silver Rain Poetry Society). Hilo, Hawaii Island, 1925. Front Row (l-r): David (Shugaku) Marutani (1st), Tadasuke (Koryu) Nakabayashi (2nd). Middle Row: Minoru (Koran) Murakami. Back Row: Otokichi (Muin) Ozaki (1st), Eikichi (Seiyu) Ochiai (2nd), Haruto (Fuyo) Saito (3rd, patterned tie). Row 4: Zenichi (Kenpu) Kawazoe (center, bow tie). JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Internment Locations
Arrested: April 1942
Kilauea Military Camp, Hawaii Island
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
This internee was among twenty-eight men (mostly Issei) who were sent in the sixth transfer group for internment in U.S. Army and Justice Department camps on the Mainland. The internees were sent together from camp to camp, with some paroled to War Relocation Authority camps to reunite with family or transferred for repatriation to Japan.
Angel Island Detention Facility, California
September 1942 - October 1942
Lordsburg Internment Camp, New Mexico
October 1942 - June 1943
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
June 1943 - October 1945
Returned to Hawaii: November 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.
David Marutani was a member of one of the many dynamic Japanese poetry societies that gave Hawaii Island the name "Poetry Island" in the years before the war. With the internment of so many Big Island poets, like Rentaro Shito Degawa, Shoichi Gessho Koide, Minoru Koran Murakami, David Shugaku Marutani, Tadasuke Koryu Nakabayashi, Eikichi Seiyu Ochiai, Otokichi Muin Ozaki, Haruto Fuyo Saito, and Shigezo Kasetsu Shigekane, the Hilo societies fell silent, although many of the interned members continued to write throughout their captivity.