People

: Shoji Kaga; He was born in Port Blakely, Washington to Japanese immigrant parents. His parents immigrated to the United States just before U.S. involvement in World War I, coming in through the Port of Seattle. His family were agricultural workers on the sharecropper system, renting land in the Beaverton, Oregon area, growing strawberries and other crops, and selling a percentage of their profits to the landowner. The family was interred with other Japanese Americans during World War II. They were placed in the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho in March or April of 1942, when Mr. Kaga was about 15 years old. Just months after the family’s release at the end of World War II, Kaga was drafted into the U.S. Army, and served in the occupying forces in Japan. After, he moved to Chicago in pursuit of work. He was a purchaser for ITT in Chicago for many years. He married Gay (Chin) Kaga in Multnomah, Oregon on June 28, 1954.

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