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Fusataro Nakaya was born in Japan in 1886. After immigrating to the United States, he attended medical school at the University of Illinois in 1916. Nakaya went on to practice medicine in Boyle Heights in Los Angeles County. In Los Angeles, Fusataro also met his wife, Edith Morton. Due to the anti-miscegenation laws in place at the time, the couple married in Tijuana. As a result of the marriage, Nakaya-Morton was stripped of her U.S. citizenship. Prior to World War II, Fusataro was Vice President of the Los Angeles Japanese Association. In 1942, Nakaya was incarcerated at Heart Mountain Relocation Center by the authority granted to the Western Defense Command by Executive Order 9066. Nakaya relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where he passed away in 1952. Fusataro Nakaya was survived by his children, Marilyn, Robert, Paul, Gladys, and Frances Nakaya-Morton.

Executive Order 9066:

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the incarceration from 1942 to 1946 of approximately 120,000 adults and children of Japanese ancestry, many of whom were United States citizens. They were expelled from their homes and placed in incarceration camps without due process and in violation of their civil rights. These camps were euphemistically referred to as “relocation centers” or “internment camps”. After decades of advocacy by the Japanese American community, in 1988 the United States issued a formal apology and began redress to survivors of Japanese incarceration during World War II.