Born January 8, 1895, and the third son of Katsusada and Yoshiko Ishii Tamura, Katsuchika was born into a samurai family whose ancestors were vassals of the Kujo family, Imperial court nobles. He traveled to the United States in 1920 to study. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in English Literature. This book details his life and times, which included being detained at several internment camps during World War II.