Takahashi, Shozo

Shozo Takahashi, born to workers of the Ewa Sugar Plantation, was taken at the age of three to be reared by his grandparents in Fukushima, Japan. He was educated there, earning a certificate to become an elementary school teacher. He returned to the islands in 1938, when he was 24 years old, and joined the faculty of the Hawaii Chuo Gakuin Japanese language school in Honolulu. Other teachers at Chuo Gakuin who also would be incarcerated included Teruo Konishi, George Mamoru Nakagawa, Chikashi Nakayama, Arthur Katsumi Niino, Jitsuo Takato, Yoshitami Jack Tasaka, Harry Minoru Urata, and Takeo Yamamoto. 

The next year, Takahashi accepted a position teaching at the Waialae Japanese Language School in the Kaimuki-Kahala area of Honolulu, where he met and married fellow teacher Yuriko Miwa. Following the Pearl Harbor bombing and the shuttering of all Japanese language schools in the territory, Takahashi went to work as a carpenter at the Honolulu Planing Mill in Kakaako. 

The FBI arrested, interrogated, and released Takahashi in spring 1942; a year later, he was arrested again and this time incarcerated at the Honouliuli Internment Camp. There he shared a barracks with fellow Waialae teacher Masaichi Sesoko. Also incarcerated were Waialae principal Genyei Miyagi and his wife, teacher Fusako Miyagi, who spent their confinement on the continent. 

After the war, Takahashi returned to teaching, initially at Palama Gakuen; he later was recruited to be principal of the new Kaimuki Japanese Language School, established by fellow internee Katsuichi Miho. Takahashi served as Kaimuki principal for 24 years until his retirement in 1979. 

During World War II, Takahashi's brother, Mikio Mike Takahashi, served with the U.S. Army as a member of the 100th Infantry Battalion.