Herbert Hideyo Inouye
Herbert Hideyo Inouye was born on November 14, 1928 in La Jara, Colorado. In 1939, due to his mother’s medical condition, the family moved to Los Angeles, CA but with the outbreak of war, they voluntarily evacuated back to Colorado in February 1942. Inouye graduated from the University of Colorado in 1950 and served in Korea as part of the U.S. armed forces. In 1991 he retired after 31 years with a large engineering/construction firm. Inouye married Dorothy Natsuko (Yanaru) in 1953 and they have five children and five grandchildren.
Updated October 2008
Stories from This Author
Memoirs - Part 4 of 4: Amache and School Days
Nov. 19, 2008 • Herbert Hideyo Inouye
Read Part 3 >> Visit to Amache In mid-September 1942, after our first harvest was virtually done and before my freshman classes were to begin, I took my mother to visit my sister Helen and her family (Mrs. T. lino, her mother-in-law, Ken lino, her husband, and Glen lino, her son) at the Amache Relocation Camp. We had last seen them in Los Angeles some seven months earlier—seven months seemed like eternity considering all the trials and tribulations that occurred …
Memoirs - Part 3 of 4: Farming in Colorado
Nov. 12, 2008 • Herbert Hideyo Inouye
Read Part 2 >> Starting a New Farm Starting a farm operation from scratch in the San Luis Valley is a very difficult task at best. The growing season is short and the crops require extra personal care. Add to this, the time is the middle of February 1942 and all of the established farms are already rented out by this time. Certain vegetables need to be started from seed in hot beds in Mid-March. New equipment and tools need to …
Memoirs- Part 2 of 4: Caravan to Colorado
Nov. 5, 2008 • Herbert Hideyo Inouye
Read Part 1 >> The Volunteer Migration Around January 14, 1942, a Presidential Proclamation required all Japanese aliens to register and forever carry with them papers that identified them as "enemy aliens." By the end of January 1942, General John De Witt of the 6th Army Area Defense declared all Japanese aliens and their families be rounded up from the "sensitive areas" and incarcerated. The designated "sensitive areas" included San Pedro, San Diego, Long Beach, etc., mostly all sea ports …
Memoirs - Part 1 of 4: War Breaks Out, Everything Changes
Oct. 29, 2008 • Herbert Hideyo Inouye
Friends and family have asked me to chronicle my life experiences during World War II. Since I was barely thirteen when Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by the Japanese, my remembrances and interactions are limited to an early-teenaged Japanese American growing up in a chaotic, prejudiced, "Japan-hating" society. However, family and friends who shared these experiences with me are rapidly diminishing. For example, one of the more memorable experiences was my family's volunteer evacuation from California to Colorado which was …
