Background
Kashiwagi was born in 1922 in Sacramento, California. He grew up in Loomis, a small fruit-growing town in Placer County, California, where his Issei parents ran a fish market.
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Hiroshi Kashiwagi
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He attended Loomis Elementary school, Placer High School and Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, graduating in 1940. He also attended Japanese language school, where he did his first writing and performing.
Career
Foreign his writing and performance work on stage he is considered an early pioneer of Asian American theatre. During World World War II, Kashiwagi and his family were sent to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, an internment camp for Japanese Americans. In camp, Kashiwagi spent time reading, and joined a theatre group.
When the United States. government forced detainees to fill out a Leave Clearance Application Form, commonly known as the "loyalty questionnaire," Kashiwagi refused to answer the infamous questions 27 & 28, key questions which asked internees, after a year of unjustified incarceration, if they were willing to swear unqualified allegiance to, and serve in the military for, the same government that had forced them into the camps in violation of the constitutional rights, and, if they were willing to forswear allegiance to Japan, thereby admitting an allegiance to the enemy.
Unable to answer "yes-yes," to the two questions, the government took Kashiwagi"s refusal to reply as a "no-no," and he was branded a Number-Number Boy, and he and his family were segregated by the government as "disloyals" and were ostracized by the Japanese American community. After the passage of the Renunciation Acting of 1944, Kashiwagi and others at Tule Lake renounced their United States. citizenship under government coercion.
After the end of World World War II, Kashiwagi attended University of California, Los Los Angeles He wrote his first play in 1949 for the Nisei Experimental Group, a theatre group formed in Los Los Angeles His one-act play, THE PLUMS CAN WAIT, was first performed in Los Angeles in 1950, and in San Francisco and Berkeley the following year.
He graduated from University of California, Los Angeles, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Oriental Languages in 1952.
In 1959, with the help of attorney Wayne Collins, Kashiwagi had his United States citizenship restored. Kashiwagi would later dedicate his book Swimming in the American: a Memoir and Selected Writings to Collins, "who rescued me as an American and restored my faith in America."
In 1966, Kashiwagi graduated from University of California Berkeley, receiving a Masters in Library Science degree. He also was employed at the San Francisco Public Library as a reference librarian in literature, Japanese language materials, science and government documents, and as a branch manager.
At the Western Addition Branch Library, he started what became the largest collection of Japanese language books on the West Coast.
He retired after 20 years in 1987, when he was cast in Philip Kan Gotanda"s play, The Wash at the Eureka Theatre. Kashiwagi appeared in several films, including Black Rain, directed by Ridley Scott, and Hito Hata: Raise the Banner produced by Visual Communications.
Membership
Kashiwagi is a member of Dramatists Guild and Screen Actors Guild.
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Born
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Nationality
United States