Bill Hosokawa

Bill Hosokawa
Born	(1915-01-30) January 30, 1915 Seattle, Washington, United States
Died	(2007-11-09)November 9, 2007 Sequim, Washington, United States
Occupation(s)	Author and journalist

William Kumpai Hosokawa (January 30, 1915 – November 9, 2007) was a Japanese American author and journalist who worked for 38 years at The Denver Post, before retiring as the editorial page editor from that particular paper in 1984. Hosokawa retired from the newspaper industry in 1992.

Hosokawa was also a prolific author. His 1969 book Nisei: The Quiet Americans chronicles the experiences of first-generation Japanese-Americans, including the internment experience during World War II. His last work, Colorado’s Japanese Americans from 1886 to the Present, was published in 2005. Other books include Out of the Frying Pan, Thirty-Five Years in the Frying Pan, Thunder in the Rockies, The Two Worlds of Jim Yoshida, and The Uranium Age.

Hosokawa was a recipient of the 2007 Civil Rights Award from the Anti-Defamation League.

Early life

Bill Hosokawa was born on January 30, 1915, in Seattle, Washington. His parents were recent immigrants from Japan. His father, Setsugo Hosokawa, who immgrated from Hiroshima, Japan, in 1899 at the age of 15, worked as a migrant farm work and a railroad section hand in Montana. Hosokawa's parents eventually settled in Seattle.

Hosokawa graduated from Garfield High School in Seattle. He enrolled at the University of Washington, where he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism in 1937. In 1936, while a student at UW, Hosokawa's professor and adviser strongly advised him to abandon his journalism career goals because no newsroom would hire a Japanese American.

Career

Hosokawa and his new wife, Alice Miyake, moved to Asia in 1938 because he was unable to land a job at any major metropolitan newspaper in the United States. He found a job working at an English-language newspaper in Singapore. He was later employed by a magazine in Shanghai, China.

Hosokawa's wife, Alice, returned to the U.S. in anticipation of the birth of their first child. Hosokawa did not see his son, Michael, until the baby was 14 months old. The family lived in Seattle [1941]], just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. As a result, Bill Hosokawa, his wife Alice and the couple's infant son, Michael, were among 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast who were sent to Japanese internment camps during World War II.

The Hosokawa family were sent first to an assembly center at the Puyallup, Washington fair grounds where the family, along with others from the Seattle area, lived in horse stall while the camps were being built. The family was moved to the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center in Wyoming when he was 27 years old. Hosokawa's later writings and news reports were influenced by his time spent interned with fellow second generation Japanese Americans, who were known as Nisei, and their children, such as his son, who were known as Sansei. Since Hosokawa had journalism and writing experience, he was appointed the editor of the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp newspaper, The Heart Mountain Sentinel.

Hosokawa and his family were released from the internment camp in 1943, so he could work as a copy editor at The Des Moines Register. However, the experience of internment stayed with Hosokawa. For more than forty years Hosokawa published a column in the Pacific Citizen entitled From The Frying Pan. His column offered his personal observations on the internment of Japanese Americans. His topics included bigotry and what he called "native facism." His later entries sometimes focused on parenthood and travel, but he usually stayed on the topic of discrimination.

Hosokawa finally received a position with a major metropolitan newsroom after World War II, when he accepted a job with the Denver Post. He served as a war correspondent for the Denver Post during the Korean War and Vietnam War. He also worked at the Post as a columnist, associate editor, and assistant managing editor at the paper. He also held the post of the editor of the Denver Post's Sunday magazine for twenty-five years.

He left the Denver Post in 1984 and took a position as the reader ombudsman at the Rocky Mountain News, which is the archrival of the Denver Post. He remained with the Rocky Mountain News for eight years, until his retirement from the newspaper business in 1992.

Hosokawa worked to promote opportunities from Nisei and Sansei Japanese Americans during his career. He often helped Japanese Americans, as well as recent immigrants, find jobs and counseling. According to the Rocky Mounatin News, Hosokawa once even gave away his living room couch to a couple who needed it. He also worked to promote positive Japan-United States relations. He served as the Honorary Consul General of Japan for Colorado from 1976 until 1999.

Author

Hosokawa's books and writings were deeply influenced by his experience as a Japanese American in the internment camps during World War II. His first major work, Nisei: The Quiet Americans, which explored this experience, became a national best seller when it was published in 1969. He also focused some of his writings on his love of newspapers. His 1976 book, Thunder in the Rockies, chronicled the history of the Denver Post. His last book, Colorado’s Japanese Americans from 1886 to the Present, was published in 2005 when he was 90 years old.

Some of his writings were inscribed onto the National Japanese American Memorial in Washington D.C. when the monument was dedicated in 2000.

Honors

Hosokawa received on honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Denver in 1990 for his work in journalism and literature. In 2003, the Asian American Journalists Association presented Hosokawa with its lifetime achievement award for his work. Most recently, he was a recipient of the 2007 Civil Rights Award from the Anti-Defamation League.

Additionally, the Japan Society of Colorado sponsors a fellowship in the name of Bill and Alice Hosokawa's name.

Death

Bill Hosokawa died on November 9, 2007, at the age of 92 at his daughter's, Christie Harveson, home in Sequim, Washington, where he had lived for the previous four months. Hosokawa's wife, Alice, died in 1998, while his youngest son, Peter, died in 2006. He was survived by his two daughters, Christie and Susan, his son, Michael, his brother, Robert Hosokawa, as well as eight grandchildren and seven great granchildren. In a column published in the Denver Post on November 22, 2007, Hosokawa's colleague, Fred Brown called him a "champion of civility, dignity and human rights."

A memorial service for Bill Hosokawa was held at the Gates Concert Hall at theUniversity of Denver on February 17, 2008. The list of speakers honoring Hosokawa included Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and Ryozo Kato, the Ambassador of Japan to the United States.

External links

• Rocky Mountain News: Champion of Japanese culture - and dignity
• Seattle Times: Newsman Bill Hosokawa defeated bias, his own anger
• Los Angeles Times: Bill Hosokawa, 92; journalist overcame internment and prejudice
• Interview from Maynard Institute
• Interview from Chips Quinn Scholars
• Obituary from Denver Post columnist Fred Brown
• 2007 Article from Rocky Mountain News
• Remembering Bill Hosokawa