Obituary for Robert Yoshiaki Yada, Fort Smith, AR

Robert (Bob) Yoshiaki Yada , born 1937, passed on the 15th of May, 2023 after a bout with cancer. Due to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor during Wor...

May 24, 2023
4:02 AM

Robert (Bob) Yoshiaki Yada , born 1937, passed on the 15th of May, 2023 after a bout with cancer. Due to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, in accordance with Executive Order 9066 for all persons of Japanese descent, a 4-year-old Bob and his parents were incarcerated within the Rohwer Internment Camp in McGehee, Ark. until 1945. Bob would reflect that his earliest memories were of believing that "everyone that looked like me must live behind tall, barbed wire fences and see armed guards in towers every day.