Shima, Shinkichirō (島辰吉朗)

Biography

Shinkichirō Shima was born in 1877 in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, and arrived at San Francisco in 1894 on board the Empress of China . He was baptized at a Methodist church in 1898 and became a devoted Christian. During World War II, he was incarcerated in the Santa Ana Assembly Center and transferred to the Manzanar Relocation Center on July 31, 1942. In the Manzanar Relocation Center, he joined the Guayule project, propagating rubber plans. He was also a poet and worked as a cactus nurseryman in Southern California, exporting cacti to Japan.