Temple: Dreams, dignity fill Hosokawa's tale

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Slowly, he walked to the podium, cane in hand, washed by the warmth of a standing ovation.

Then Bill Hosokawa looked out from behind his glasses and, with a sly smile, said, "If I were as smart as some people think I am, I would sit down and say, 'Thank you.' "

But Bill still can't resist the opportunity to tell a good story, and so he did. In this case, the story the distinguished Colorado journalist told was of his own life, starting with his birth in 1915 in Seattle and going back to 1899, when his father came to America from Japan. A life with lessons for us all, a life of dignity.

Looking at Bill - honored this week along with former Denver Mayor Federico Peña with the 2007 Civil Rights Award from the Anti-Defamation League - made me think of my own grandparents and parents. Of how close I feel to them but how little I really understand the challenges they went through in their lives. And how my own children don't really know what their parents have experienced in this world.

He told of his boyhood and his desire to become a journalist. How he studied at the University of Washington, where, unlike the other students, he wasn't sent to state newspapers to work during the Christmas break - because he was Japanese. He told how his adviser told him he wouldn't be able to find a job at an American newspaper - because he was Japanese.

"No American publisher is going to hire a Japanese boy," he was told. "And I said to myself, 'We'll see about that.' "

The sad truth was that the adviser was right - for a time.

Each generation has its own struggles. After Pearl Harbor, Bill, his wife and infant son were relocated to a camp for Japanese "non aliens and aliens" in Wyoming, where he lived for more than a year before finally getting the chance to work at an American newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa. A few years later, he joined The Denver Post, where he worked for 38 years, retiring as the editorial page editor. Then, one of my predecessors, Ralph Looney, was smart enough to grab this driven, tireless man and make him the Rocky Mountain News readers' representative.

He can tell his story much better than I. And he did.

But I thought it important for you to hear how he feels about his work, looking back over seven decades as a writer.

"It's been a great career. I've loved every moment of it," Bill told the crowd. He called his life "a remarkable demonstration of the opportunities available to Americans under our system."

That it is.

Bill's most recent book, Colorado's Japanese Americans From 1886 to the Present, was published 90 years after his birth.

Bill was glowingly introduced by Gov. Bill Ritter, who saluted his contribution to our understanding of prejudice and the creation of a civil society.

Looking at Bill Hosokawa, standing before us, I thought of how he had been able to transcend the anger he must have felt at the indignities he had suffered.

I thought of my own parents, who never experienced the public success Bill has but who brought up my brother and me on the idea that he holds dear: that the world holds promise for all if they pursue their dreams.

I thought of my own grandparents and how they too had so much taken from them and yet had not given up.

I thought of how people like Bill and my own family have taught me lessons with their decision to press on, to not live in the past but to take up the challenge of the present.

I can't say journalists have any special position in this world. But I can say that Bill is a special person - and a special journalist.

The young man who was told he had no chance of living his dream is living proof that it's in our own hands whether we live an honorable life, whether we make this world a better place.

That is the lesson Bill reaffirmed for me this week. For it, and so much more, I thank him.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or at 101 W. Colfax, Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.