Takashi “Tak” Hoshizaki was born on October 3, 1928, in Los Angeles, California, where he was the eldest of six siblings. When Executive Order 9066 was signed—authorizing the forced internment of Japanese Americans across the United States—Hoshizaki was just two credits away from completing his high school diploma.

On August 20, 1942, his family was relocated to Heart Mountain, one of the ten internment camps where Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated during World War II. Despite the hardships and racial discrimination he faced behind barbed wire, Hoshizaki worked in the mess hall and earned his high school diploma. When he was called to military service, he became a member of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, which opposed the draft for incarcerated Japanese Americans, challenging the morality and legality of their internment. His defiance led to a three-year sentence in federal prison, but he was eventually pardoned by President Harry Truman two years later.

After the war, Hoshizaki continued to advocate for justice and the remembrance of this dark chapter in American history. Despite the mistreatment he and many other Japanese Americans endured, he later served in the military, driven by a sense of duty to his country. His advocacy was instrumental in the redress movement, which called for official government apologies and reparations for those who had been incarcerated. Hoshizaki went on to earn a Ph.D. in plant biology and married Barbara Joe, a biology professor at Los Angeles City College, with whom he had two children.