He was born on May 3, 1923, in Auburn, California, with the name Takao Takagi.[3] His father, Tomokichi Takagi, was from Hiroshima.[3] According to Takao Takagi's sister Hannah, Tomokichi Takagi immigrated to the United States in 1902. Hannah recalled that their mother, Yasu Takagi, arrived in the United States several years after their father.[4] The Takagis owned a fifty-acre strawberry farm.[5]
Takagi was a sociologist, criminologist, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at the university's School of Criminology until it was shut down by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1974. Unlike all of the other faculty members at the School, however, he remained at Berkeley after the school's closure, since he had already been granted tenure.[6]
^ abIkeda, Tom (2011-03-16). "Paul Takagi Interview". Densho Digital Archive, Densho Visual History Collection. Retrieved 2020-07-24.
^Holmes, Hannah Tomiko (1981-08-27). "An Oral History with Hannah Holmes" (Interview). Interviewed by Arthur A. Hansen. Fullerton, California: California State University Center for Oral and Public History. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-22.