Group Media & Photos
Otokichi Ozaki with mother and father, Shobu and Tomoya Ozaki. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Gin'ushisha (Silver Rain Poetry Society). Hilo, 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.
Otokichi Ozaki. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Wedding of Otokichi and Hideko Ozaki, 1932. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Otokichi Ozaki and eldest son, Earl Tomoyuki. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Otokichi Ozaki, internee file photo. JCCH/Lily Yuri Ozaki Arasato.
Hideko Ozaki. Beige vest, knitted for husband, internee Otokichi Ozaki. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Internees from Kochi Prefecture. Santa Fe Internment Camp, July 1943. Otokichi Ozaki, 2nd row, 5th from left. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Santa Fe Internment Camp. Otokichi Ozaki (sitting, 5th from L); Rev. Doro Kanda (sitting, 8th from L). JCCH/Bryant Yagi Family Collection.
Santa Fe Internment Camp, 1944. Otokichi Ozaki, second from right. JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Kilauea Military Camp, Hawaii Island
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.
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
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
June 1943 - March 1944
Jerome Concentration Camp, Arkansas
March 1944 - May 1944
Tule Lake Segregation Center, California
May 1944 - November 1945
Returned to Hawaii: December 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with about 775 other internees aboard the military troopship the Shawnee.
Writing under the pen name Muin, Otokichi Ozaki belonged to 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.
Family Torn Apart, edited by Gail Honda, is a collection of Otokichi Ozaki's World War II letters with poetry, published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i as part of its internment trilogy. The other books in the series are Yasutaro Soga's memoir, Life behind Barbed Wire, and Kumaji Furuya's Internment Odyssey.