The Tanigawa Branch

Although we know only a little about our Tanigawa family, we are in the process of gathering information from very knowledgeable, living family members.

The patriarch of the Tanigawa family from Kauai was Jisaburo Yamamoto. However, because his wife, Sute, did not have brothers and according to custom, Jisaburo took her surname in marriage. There are years in which Jisaburo, Sute and family appear in the Federal Census, but others in which they do not. Why?

Mystery solved: Jisaburo worked for the sugar plantation and was spearheading the  unionization of its employees. Back in the day, this was a life-threatening endeavor, which meant that Jisaburo sometimes found it necessary to take his family into hiding.