The remarkable life and career of Takashi Hoshizaki will be the focus of “The Importance of Telling the Japanese American Resisters’ Story,” an April 27 panel at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles led by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the Mineta-Simpson Institute.
Hoshizaki, 98, is one of the few surviving draft resisters from the camps that held more than 125,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. He was convicted of draft resistance during a trial of 63 men from Heart Mountain in 1944 and spent two years in federal prison.
He was pardoned by President Harry Truman on December 24, 1947, and became an eminent botanist whose research into circadian rhythms took him to Antarctica and a career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Hoshizaki will receive the Foundation’s Douglas W. Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award for his work building the Foundation and leading the effort to ensure that the principled resistance to the draft for men unjustly imprisoned is remembered.
The 4 p.m. event April 27 at JANM’s Tateuchi Democracy Forum at 100 N. Central Ave. in Los Angeles will also feature Hoshizaki, Shirley Ann Higuchi and Douglas Nelson, the Foundation’s chair and vice chair, and Aura Sunada Newlin, the Foundation’s executive director. It will be hosted by documentarian and newscaster David Ono.
“Takashi’s service on the Foundation helped build the organization to lead the education about the Japanese American incarceration,” Higuchi said. “His energy and guidance helped raise the resources that made our museum possible. His example has provided a beacon for all of us to follow.”