Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1038/

Getting good guidance

The doctor that my father had – his name was Dr. William J. Norris and he was on the staff at Children’s Hospital and Good Samaritan. And so – he was very kind – and one time I asked him, when I was older, I said,” I’d like to be a doctor.” And so he says,” Oh, if you do I can help you all I can.” Never did he say that, because you’re a woman…

So anyway, so I applied to medical school and at SC they didn’t take any the first year, and the second year they took 2 women so then I went to Chicago. And…I applied to Stritch Loyola and they accepted 4 women - one from San Franciso, and myself and 2 from Illinois.

So then, I kept in touch with this…my father’s doctor and so when I graduated, I said,” I think I’d like to be a surgeon.” And he says,” well - he used to call me Sake – Sake,” he says,” as a woman,” hey says,” surgery will be very difficult because you’d have to depend on men to refer cases to you. And so if I were you, I’d do family practice and see how you like it and if you still want to go into surgery I’ll do everything to help you.”

So I went into general practice and I liked it, cause I tooked care of – as I always say – skin and it’s contents, I took care of the children and mothers and did some surgery and all aspects of medicine at that time.


education gender medical schools medicine

Date: March 31, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Gwenn M. Jensen

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Dr. Sakaye Shigekawa was born January 6, 1913 in South Pasadena, California. When she was a child, her father was hospitalized from double pneumonia and while visiting him, she got acquainted with the doctors and nurses and decided then to become a doctor. After studying premed at USC, she was accepted to Stritch Loyola Medical School and was only 1 of 4 women in her class. She persevered through medical school despite sex discrimination from instructors and fellow students and began practicing medicine in the Los Angeles area.

She was one of the first to be incarcerated at the Santa Anita Race Track on March 1, 1942. She was invited to join Dr. Norman Kobayashi and Dr. Fred Fujikawa treating patients while there which helped her overcome the bitterness and depression she was in. At first she was only allowed to treat skin conditions, but after a while she asked to be able to do other things and began to do obstetrics and other parts of medicine.

After the war she continued to practice medicine and eventually opened up her own practice, which she continues. In her thirty-nine years of obstetrics practice, she calculates that she delivered over twenty thousand babies and never lost a mother. She passed away on October 18, 2013 at age 100.  (April 2020)

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