Kingo Nonaka

was a Japanese-Mexican combat medic during the Mexican Revolution and later became the first documentary photographer of Tijuana.

Early life Nonaka was born on 2 December 1889 in Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan, to Bunsishi Nonaka and Tasuyo Nonaka. In Japan he worked in the field and as a pearl diver. In 1906, he emigrated to Mexico with his uncle Shiotaro. They were contracted to work on the American-owned La Oaxaqueña sugar plantation in Oaxaca under harsh conditions

Denied entry into the United States at Ciudad Juárez under exclusionary laws applied to Asians, he survived as a street sweeper and janitor, often sleeping on park benches.

Bibiana Cardón, from a family of bullfighters and seed merchants, found him sleeping in a park, took him in, baptized him as José Genaro, taught him Spanish, and helped integrate him into Mexican society. He began working as a janitor at the Civil Hospital of Ciudad Juárez, where his madrina, Bibiana was employed. Here, he gained first hand nursing and surgical experience assisting the hospital's staff, eventually acquired a license to work at the infirmary, taking the Hippocratic Oath on his 21st birthday in 1910. Between 1921 and 1942, they settled in Baja California. He opened two photo studios in Tijuana and became a naturalized citizen in 1924. During this era, Nonaka's photography showed a different side of the Tijuana area, which up to that point was focused on tourism. Focusing on cultural, civic, and sports events and on the changes Tijuana underwent, from small town to a larger city. He donated more than 300 photos of early Tijuana to the Archivo Histórico y la Sociedad de Historia de Tijuana. He died in 1977 and is interred in the Panteón Jardín, Mexico City.