Group Media & Photos
Gin'ushisha (Silver Rain Poetry Society), Hilo, Hawaii. 1925. Row 1 (l-r): David (Shugaku) Marutani (1st), Tadasuke (Koryu) Nakabayashi (2nd). Row 2, middle: Minoru (Koran) Murakami. Row 3: 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.
Santa Fe Internment Camp, ca. 1944-45. Rev. Shutetsu Uyenoyama (1st row, 2nd from left). Right table, 1st seated row from right: Rev. Doro Kanda (2nd from front), Rev. Hakuai Oda (6th from front), Rev. Josen Deme (7th from front). Minoru Murakami (standing row behind left table: 3rd from front). Rev. Hakuai Oda Collection
Santa Fe Internment Camp. Bottom Row (L-R): Katsuichi Kawamoto (1st), Ryuichi Moribe (2nd), Uyemon Inokuchi (3rd), Koichi Iida (4th), Shuntaro Ikezawa (5th), Hatsuichi Toishigawa (6th), Yasutaro Soga (7th), Daizo Sumida (8th), Ryoichi Tanaka (9th), Mannosuke Komu (10th). 2nd Row: Heiji Yamagata (1st), Gihei Tanada (2nd), Totaro Matsui (3rd), Kumaji Furuya (4th), Osuke Shigemoto (5th), Rev. Ninryo Nago (6th), Tokuji Onodera (7th), Minoru Murakami (8th), Kanji Tanaka (9th), Shigeo Shigenaga (10th), Shujiro Takakuwa (11th), Yukihide Kohatsu (12th), Mankichi Goto (13th). 3rd Row: Tetsuji Kurokawa (1st), Eita Sato (2nd), Hirouemon Yamamoto (3rd), Hyotaro Nakami (4th), Sadato Morifuji (5th), Ryuichi Murata (6th), Kakujiro Nishiki (7th), Sawajiro Ozaki (8th), Soichi Obata (9th), Masaichi Kobayashi (10th), Kango Hamada (11th), Takasuke Isomura (12th), Katsukichi Wakimoto (13th). Top Row: Yojiro Osaki (1st), Hego Fuchino (2nd), Teiichiro Maehara (3rd), Kinzo Sayegusa (4th), Yuichi Nakaichi (5th), Yoshihisa Tamura (6th), Tsuneichi Yamamoto (7th), Muneo Kimura (8th), Hideo Tanaka (9th), Toraichi Kurakake (10th), Tamasaku Watanabe (11th), Mankichi Miura (12th), Riuichi Ipponsugi (13th). JCCH/Riuichi Ipponsugi Archival Collection.
Golf Club, Santa Fe Internment Camp. Row 1 (L-R): Soichi Obata (1st), Minoru Murakami (7th, with sign), Rev. Shinri Sarashina (8th). Row 2: Tsuruichi Sarae (1st), Rev. Yutetsu Matsui (6th). Row 3: Yuichi Nakamura (1st fr R). Row 4: Hidekichi Nakamoto (4th), Kazuto Taketa (9th). Row 5: Shigeki Mizumoto (1st, with tie), Mamoru Suga (4th), Kinzo Sayegusa (5th). JCCH/Mamoru Ichiba Suga Collection.
"Broadcast Department" members. Santa Fe Internment Camp, ca. 1944-1945. Bottom row (L-R): Masayuki Chikuma (2nd), Shigeru Yano (3rd), Shigeki Mizumoto (4th), Yuichi Nakaichi (5th). Middle row: Minoru Murakami (2nd), Genpachi Tsushima (3rd), Kumaji Furuya (6th). Top row: Toramatsu Matsumoto (1st), Rev. Yutetsu Matsui (3rd), Totaro Matsui (4th), Rev. Kodo Fujitani (5th). JCCH/Pat Saiki Archival Collection.
Religious group. Santa Fe Internment Camp, October 1945. Bottom row (L-R): Kogan Yoshizumi (3rd), Gendo Okawa (6th), Tetsuo Tanaka (7th), Yoshio Koike (8th). Row 2: Aisuke Shigekuni (3rd from L). Back Row: Minoru Murakami (2nd from R). JCCH/Joan Oya Collection.
Weekly newspaper staff. Santa Fe Internment Camp, 1945. Row 1 (L-R): Hego Fuchino (2nd), Yoshio Koike (4th), Nisshu Kobayashi (2nd from R). Row 2 (L-R): Minoru Murakami (4th), Genpachi Tsushima (5th), Taizen Imamura (2nd from R). JCCH/Matsumoto-Tsushima Family Collection.
Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
This internee was among 166 men (mostly Issei) who were sent on the second transfer ship for internment in U.S. Army and Justice Department camps on the Mainland. These men 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. This internee was in a sub-group of Second Transfer Group internees who were sent from Livingston to Missoula before being transferred to Santa Fe.
Angel Island Detention Facility, California
March 1942 - April 1942
Fort Sill Internment Camp, Oklahoma
April 1942 - May 1942
Camp Livingston Internment Camp, Louisiana
June 1942 - June 1943
Fort Missoula Internment Camp, Montana
June 1943 - April 1944
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
April 1944 - October 1945
Returned to Hawaii: November 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.
Minoru Murakami, who wrote under the name Koran 紅嵐 , 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, 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.