His parents, Tamasaburo "James" and Bun "Mary" Yuzawa named their Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) son after George Washington.
He graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1933 and attended Los Angeles City College where he earned an associate degree in Business.
The Yuzawa and Hattori families were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in concentration camps under the direction of the Wartime Civilian Control Agency (WCCA).
The Yuzawas and Hattoris lived with approximately 20,000 other Japanese Americans at the Santa Anita racetrack, a temporary detention facility converted from stables.
George's younger sister, 19-year-old Chieko "Patricia," was not permitted to go with her family to Santa Anita or the Granada War Relocation Center because she contracted tuberculosis shortly before the evacuation.
In September 1943, the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA) released George from the Center because he had promise of employment from the Annenberg and Erickson Florist Shop in New York City.
George was stationed in Tokyo as part of the American Occupation of Japan,[2] where he served as a special officer for entertainment for enlisted U.S. military servicemen.
In the early 1970s, he worked with other Nisei and Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) civil rights activists to combat racial discrimination against Asians.
These activists included Mitziko Sawada (academic historian and author), Kazu Iijima, Min Matsuda, Kazu Obayashi and Tami Ogata (founders of Asian Americans for Action), Yuri Kochiyama (human rights activist), Suki Terada Ports (AIDS advocate), Michio Kaku (Princeton University theoretical physicist), and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, who was instrumental in the Redress Movement for Japanese American incarceration.
The group initiated a vigorous writing campaign to educate advertisers and department stores across the nation about Kenzo's use of the historically derogatory terminology, Jap.
George asked Ruby Schaar, the president of the New York chapter of the Japanese American Citizens' League (JACL) for assistance.
The chapter board contacted New York Nisei attorney Moonray Kojima who filed a lawsuit against Kenzo's Paris firm as well as its American distributor, Mallory Outerwear.
George and this same group protested the ILGWU's (International Ladies Garment Workers Union) implied anti-Japanese racism in its "Buy American" campaign.
This group of Nisei volunteers monitored local and national broadcasts and print media for negative Asian stereotypes and racial slurs.
In 1965, he organized the Ad Hoc Committee of Concerned Asians in New York City to address the housing needs of Issei (first-generation Japanese American) and Nisei senior citizens.
JAHFA was a non-profit organization that provided health, educational, informational, language, and social services to the elderly Japanese community in New York City.
In the early 1980s, JAHFA became a standing committee of the Japanese American Association of New York (JAA), to secure additional financial and manpower resources.
Founded in 1977, the WSFSH assisted with the distribution of funds from federal and private sources to local residential construction projects on the Upper West Side.
In 1981, George served as a member of the East Coast Japanese Americans for Redress organization, which advised the federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians.
The hearings in turn helped shape the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 in which President Ronald Reagan and the U.S. Congress apologized for the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese American citizens and permanent residents, authorized the payment of $20,000 to each victim who was still alive, and allocated $50 million for a public education fund.
In 1982, George and the JAA helped establish the annual spring Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
George worked with the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles to develop an Ellis Island exhibit called "America's Concentration Camps."