"Although immigrant Japanese had boxed in the United States since at least the 1880s, Seattle's James Yoshinori Sakamoto (1903-1955) was among the first Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) to box professionally."
Profile (HistoryLink.org, the Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History)
"Born in Seattle, James Y. Sakamoto became one of the leaders of the local and national Japanese American community during the critical era just before and after the start of World War II. He was a founder of the important organization, the Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) and started the first English-language Japanese American newspaper."