[1][2] Abe was born in Kailua, Hawaii in 1895 to immigrant parents from Japan, Matsujiro and Raku, who had arrived in the islands two years earlier as migrant workers from Fukuoka.
He entered the police department as a Japanese interpreter in 1918, and as a member of the Hawaii National Guard was taken into the United States Army with his fellow guardsmen to serve in World War I.
[7] The intersection of Abe's ancestry and rise to prominence set him up for negative attention from the US Army's Hawaii sub-command; he was arrested on August 2, 1942, roughly eight months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II.
[9] However, at the time he was charged, this was not in fact an offence; with martial law in effect, the Army issued an order making this a crime, but that was not until six days after his arrest.
[12] Abe would be held for a total of nineteen months, first at Sand Island, and then at the Honouliuli Internment Camp, where fellow Japanese American legislator Thomas Sakakihara was also detained.