Jack Aikawa ’46

After being evacuated from Tech to the internment camp for Japanese Americans in Rohwer, Arkansas, Jack Aikawa returned to Oakland and graduated from Tech. Jack was luckier than many other Japanese American Tech students who did not return to Oakland or to school from the internment camps.

Aikawa earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Zoology at UC Berkeley, and graduated from UC Berkeley’s School of Optometry in 1954. Aikawa owned his own optometry practice for many years in downtown Oakland. He was active in Oakland’s Japanese American Citizen’s League and civic affairs. He died in 2010 and is survived by four children and eight grandchildren.