Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1179/

Japanese Hospital: My Father & Mother

Yes I do recall the Japanese Hospital on the First and Fickett I guess there was need for it - to serve the Japanese community and perhaps just like any generation, they’re kind of, you know, afraid or skeptical of…maybe and they can’t speak the language. I think the Japanese Hospital probably had a really great role because of the fact that it serviced the Japanese community and so probably if they lived in Torrance or Santa Ana…or Gardena or wherever – West L.A./East L.A., they came to the Japanese Hospital probably because they felt more comfortable. My father worked at Turner Street Hospital and also at the Japanese Hospital on Fickett Street. My father was a general practitioner but it says…physician and surgeon, that’s right that’s what it says. Well, my mother came from Kaui, Hawaii, and she came for the purpose of becoming a nurse, but she happened to go to the Turner Street Hospital and evidently it wasn’t a nursing school and so she worked there and that’s where they met. All the doctors and the nurses and their families…you know they used to all…they used to party a lot. And they used to have picnics, etc. I remember one picnic specifically because the doctors were putting on a skit and they had a background and they all were dressed in surgical whatever and then there was a gurney, and the reason why I remember it is because my father was the one that’s on the gurney. And his abdomen was huge and I guess it was a lot of – it was a skit, and so you know, they’re cutting him up etc. around the side and everything and they’re pulling out whatever balloons, etc. you know and, I guess as a child I was, you know, scare that they’re hurting my father, you know.


California Japanese hospitals Little Tokyo Los Angeles United States

Date: February 3, 2010

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Eiko Masuyama, Carole Fujita, Yoko Nishimura

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

Interviewee Bio

Margaret Kuroiwa is the third daughter of Dr. Daishiro Kuroiwa from Saga-ken, Japan and Agnes Haruyo Ogawa Kuroiwa. Her father was a prominent Issei physician who worked at the Turner Street Southern California Japanese Hospital, and was one of the five doctors, along with Dr. Tashiro, to file the lawsuit against the State of California. His practice was in Boyle Heights and in the Taul Building in Little Tokyo. He also treated tuberculosis patients at the Monrovia Sanitarium. She and her 4 sisters were born at the new Japanese Hospital on First and Fickett. (April 11, 2010)

Houston,Jeanne Wakatsuki

East First Street the hub of Japanese American community

(b. 1934) Writer

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Father became trilingual to practice medicine

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Typical day for the doctors

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Discrimination for Nisei doctors

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Recalls seeing her father off on a business trip with his surgery nurse

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Finding out about her father's case

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Kaji,Frances Midori Tashiro

Making patients feel comfortable by using patient's regional dialects

(1928–2016) Daughter of an Issei doctor 

Inose,Yoshiko

Memories of the Japanese Hospital (English/Japanese)

(b.1908) Daugther of the first publisher of the Rafu Shimpo

Inose,Yoshiko

The Closing of the Japanese Hospital (English / Japanese)

(b.1908) Daugther of the first publisher of the Rafu Shimpo

Todd,Kathryn Doi

Opening Up Shop in Little Tokyo

(b. 1942) The first Asian American woman judge