Seichi Shiraiwa photograph collection

Seichi Shiraiwa (1921-2020) was born in Maui, Hawaii on a sugarcane plantation. When he was thirteen years old, Seichi moved to Japan to complete his high school education. He and his four sisters and brothers stayed in Japan with their grandmother while his parents returned to work on the plantations in Hawaii. After receiving his high school diploma, he moved back to the United States in 1940 and rejoined his parents there.

Unable to find work at the sugar cane plantation, he worked as a "yard boy" in Maui. Shortly thereafter, he decided to move to Honolulu in search of a better career. By December 1941, he was employed as a building contractor on naval officers' quarters near Pearl Harbor. On that fateful Sunday in December, he was off from work but heard air raid sirens and saw Zero fighter planes flying through the clouds above Honolulu. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government announced that the country was at war with Japan and he was promptly fired from his job because of his Kibei status. He eventually found work as a bus driver.

Seichi was drafted into service in 1944, and underwent basic training in Texas. During this time, the army urgently needed reinforcement for the 442nd regiment in Europe, but because of his Japanese language proficiency, he was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) for further training. In early August of 1945, Seichi graduated from the Language School in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and was assigned to the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) of the Far East Command General Headquarters Section. By mid August, the war had ended and he was then sent to the Philippines and eventually landed in Japan as part of the U.S. occupation and worked with the press censorship office. He was honorably discharged in 1949 and accepted a position in the Civil Service for a year before returning to Honolulu.

In 1950, Seichi moved to Chicago and completed training at Coyne Electrical School, but in 1952, he accepted employment at the US Post Office. The following year, he married Susan Mori and they settled in Hyde Park and raised 4 daughters. He retired from the Post Office in 1981 after 29 years of service. That same year, he started work for Marubeni Corporation, a Japanese export import trading company. In 1986, his wife Susan passed away. Seichi worked at Marubeni until his retirement in 1991, and he passed away in 2020.

Source: Shiraiwa, Seichi