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Shiro Takeda (1901-1971) and Hisako Manabe (1911-1970) were married on September 13, 1938 in Reno, Nevada. Shiro Takeda emigrated from Japan in 1929 to attend graduate school at Lincoln University in San Francisco. After graduating, he served as editor for The New-World Sun in San Francisco and the Rafu Shimpo in Los Angeles. Hisako was born in San Francisco to immigrant parents born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. In 1942, Hisako gave birth to a son, Terry. In the same year the Takeda family was removed from their home to Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming via Santa Anita Assembly Center, California by the War Relocation Authority as part of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans authorized by Executive Order 9066. In 1943, Shiro was hired as a Japanese language instructor for the United States Navy at the University of Colorado, Boulder on May 6, 1943. On July 16, 1943, Hisako and Terry were also released from Heart Mountain. In 2002, the U.S. Navy presented an award for distinguished service to Shiro Takeda (posthumously) and other instructors at the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School.

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.