Interviews

1. From Reparations to Redress

2. The Strength of Evidence

3. A Reporter’s Responsibility

Hosokawa,Bill

(1915 - 2007) Journalist

The Strength of Evidence

The, I thought the, the redress commission hearings were very interesting. But a lot of that information was known. And many of the witnesses were just telling about their own experiences, the bitterness, the injustice. It was information that had to, had come out, and I'm glad that Congress was made aware of this sort of thing. But the coram nobis cases were much more significant because it, they showed misconduct, official misconduct which affected us adversely. And this business of evidence being destroyed or suppressed was outrageous, and I'm sorry that the government decided not to challenge but to admit indirectly that they were wrong and, and reverse the, the previous convictions. If that had been allowed to go to trial and that evidence made public, it would have been much more effective.

Redress movement

Date: July 13, 2001

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito, Daryl Maeda

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Bill Hosokawa was born in Seattle, WA in 1915. Hosokawa’s interest in journalism started early and while a student at the University of Washington, a faculty adviser urged Hosokawa to drop out of the journalism school "because no newspaper in the country would hire a Japanese boy." Hosokawa rejected the advice, but when he graduated in 1937 he found the professor was right.

Hosokawa went to Singapore in 1938 to help launch an English-language daily. Later he moved to Shanghai, China to work for an American magazine. He returned to Seattle in 1941 just five weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Along with his wife and infant son, Hosokawa was sent to Heart Mountain in Wyoming. There, he was the editor of the camp newspaper, The Heart Mountain Sentinel. Hosokawa was released from camp to work for a paper in Des Moines, IA. In 1946 he moved to Colorado to write for the Denver Post where he remained for 38 years.

Hosokawa also authored books on the internment experience and wrote a column targeting discrimination in the Pacific Citizen for over five decades. Bill Hosokawa died in 2007 at the age of 92. (April 15, 2008)