Robert Hosokawa- January 24, 2005
"We Knew We Weren't the Enemy"
A speech about a time in our history that is relevant today- the internment
of Japanese-Americans at the beginning of World War II
Robert R. Hosokawa is a 1940 Whitman College graduate, where he was president of his class and graduated with honors in English. After graduating from Whitman College, Mr. Hosokawa was considering law school when he was forced into an internment camp at the start of World War II because he was a Japanese-American. He and his wife, Yoshi, were allowed to leave their internment camp after one of his former Whitman professors found him a job with a weekly newspaper in Independence, Missouri.
Mr. Hosokawa eventually earned a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism, and later held staff positions at the Winona Daily News, Des Moines Register, Minneapolis Tribune, and the Syracuse Post-Standard. He was also managing editor of the World Book Science News Service in Houston, Texas, which covered the space program and other science news. Toward the end of his career, he had teaching positions at Winona State University, Syracuse University, and the University of Missouri, in addition to various forays into the corporate sector. He served as director of corporate magazines and newspapers for the Honeywell Corporation, based in Minneapolis, and as vice president of corporate relations for the Super-Valu Stores of Minneapolis. Prior to retirement, he was a professor of journalism at the University of Central Florida.