Dr. Kazue Togasaki looked around her house in the heart of San Francisco. It was late fall 1943. She hadn’t been inside her home in almost 2 years – not since the day she had, by order of the United States Army, boarded the bus that took her to the Tanforan Assembly Center. She was one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were forcibly relocated to various internment camps after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Her home had been ransacked. Anything of any value had been stolen. She also had no job to return to – her position working in a local doctor’s medical practice had long been filled by someone else.

Kazue (in foreground) helping vaccinate internees at the Manzanar internment camp in April 1942 (UC Berkeley Bancroft Library)

Kazue had hoped – even though she knew it was likely unrealistic – that she would be able to step back into her life once she was allowed to return home. She was tired from her forced journey through five internment camps in various parts of California, Arizona and Utah. And while each camp was slightly different, they all were essentially the same: crowded, unsanitary conditions filled with people doing their best to stay healthy and sane with no real support or structure for doing so. Kazue had vowed to not let her circumstances discourage her from action. So with each arrival at a new camp, Kazue’s first order of business was to set up a medical practice where she could treat illnesses and deliver babies, recruiting other detained doctors and nurses to help.

Kazue now had to face that her old life had been destroyed. While she was exhausted at the thought of rebuilding it, she still maintained her belief in what was possible – at the very least it would be easier than setting up makeshift medical facilities in the camps. And she knew that the other returning Japanese-Americans would need health care even more than before, given the difficult conditions they endured in the camps. She also knew that they would be more likely to trust someone from their own community. There were very few Japanese doctors, and even fewer Japanese women doctors. Kazue was one of two in San Francisco, and the other women only practiced for a year before moving away.

Before the war, she had been a general practitioner, but afterwards Kazue decided to specialize in obstetrics – she wanted to deliver care to women who needed someone they could trust. With a medical degree, Kazue didn’t need to ask anyone else for a job. Instead, she started her own practice. Her siblings helped at the clinic too, and five of her sisters also pursued their own careers in medicine. One of nine siblings, she and her five sisters all became nurses or doctors and none married. Kazue dedicated the rest of her life to providing medical services to her community – often providing services at no charge to patients who couldn’t afford her fees.

The Power of the Wand

Kazue was one of the first two Japanese-American women to graduate from medical school in the United States.  She delivered more than 10,000 babies during her career. Kazue’s legacy lives on in the work of the thousands of Asian women physicians who care for patients every day. Additionally, Kazue’s efforts to be a safe and culturally supportive place for the Japanese-American women in her community lives on today in organizations like Asian Women for Health. AWH works to “provide communities with critical access to free breast and cervical cancer workshops” that deliver “culturally and linguistically appropriate health education with an emphasis on preventative care.” 

Her Yellow Brick Road

Kazue graduated from Stanford University with a degree in zoology in 1920. She couldn’t find a job in her field because she had two strikes against her: she was a woman and a minority. The only jobs available were either as a sales clerk or maid. She decided on maid, and worked for a wealthy family while she brainstormed her next move. Nurses were always in demand, so she and applied to a nursing program at Children’s Hospital. Kazue relied on her experiences as a child helping her mom care the injured during the San Francisco earthquake. She caught on to the work quickly and graduated first in her class.

Even so, nobody would hire her – hospital administrators told her that they just “didn’t use” Japanese nurses because “the staff wouldn’t have it.” So Kazue worked for a short time as a secretary for the YMCA International Institute, and then enrolled in a public health nursing program at the University of California. She spent one year there before she decided she was “sick and tired of breaking my back to work and then having the job go to the white nurse. It just wasn’t worth it.”

Kazue as a medical student in 1933 (Drexel University College of Medicine Archives)

Kazue needed a break from the prejudice of San Francisco. And she wanted a degree that would be harder to ignore – a medical degree, even though no Japanese-American woman had ever received one before. She moved across the country to Philadelphia and earned her medical degree at Women’s Medical College. After graduating in 1933, she decided to give San Francisco another chance because she missed her family. She returned west,  completed an internship at Children’s Hospital and, joined a practice owned by a white doctor on the corner of Sutter & Powell in downtown San Francisco. She bought a house in the Japanese-American community nearby (Buchanan & Post) and finally felt like she had made it.

Life continued, although news from Europe and Asia continued to get darker as the world slipped into war. Everything changed on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the United States entered World War 2. Just a few months later, President Roosevelt gave the Army permission to relocate any Pacific Coast resident of Japanese ancestry to internment camps – even if they were United States citizens. The Army didn’t waste much time, and put the plan into motion less than two weeks after the President’s Executive Order. Kazue, just like the other 120,000 Japanese-Americans, had little time to pack or plan for her forced relocation. They all received a notice that they had to report to a bus station on a certain day with no more than two suitcases. Everything else had to be left behind.

Kazue was sent first to an “assembly center” at the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California. It was a waystation to the more permanent camps, and people were crammed into horse stalls while they waited to be moved. Kazue recruited other imprisoned doctors and nurses to offer medical care to the internees. Word spread quickly that Kazue could help those in need. She delivered over 50 babies in her month at Tanforan. She was the oldest of the medical professionals interned there – there were two nurses and another doctor – and she taught them as much as she could.

Kazue (in foreground) helping vaccinate internees at the Manzanar internment camp in April 1942 (UC Berkeley Bancroft Library)

Kazue next was sent to another assembly center in Stockton, CA. From there, she was moved around frequently as the Army took advantage of her medical skills. She was sent, in order, to Tule Lake (northern California near the Oregon border), Poston (southwest Arizona), Manzanar (southern California between the Sierra Nevada mountains and Death Valley) and Topaz (west central Utah).  Conditions at all the camps were primitive, and living in crowded barracks in difficult weather conditions took its toll on the health of the internees. At each camp, Kazue set up her makeshift clinic and quickly became a trusted source of healing and comfort. When she was finally released in late 1943, she returned to San Francisco to see what remained.

Brains, Heart & Courage 

Kazue grew up in a large Japanese immigrant family. When her dad was a young single man, he came to San Francisco to study American law after graduating from law school in Japan. He hoped to build a life in the United States as a lawyer, but no law firm would hire him.  He returned to Japan for a brief time, but could not let go of his dream of a life in San Francisco. When he returned, he met Kazue’s mom, who was a student, and got married.

They lived in San Francisco’s  Mission neighborhood until Kazue was 3, when they returned to Japan. But again, the lure of a better life in San Francisco brought them back, even though the racism was difficult to navigate. They settled in a house not far from the St. Francis Hotel. Since her dad couldn’t use his law degree, her parents needed to come up with another way to support the family. Her mom, whose own dad was a merchant in Japan, suggested they open a store. They decided to try that, and opened one nearby that sold rice, Japanese tea, and dishware. They grew the business until it became one of the biggest Japanese wholesalers in the city.  

Ruins of the San Francisco earthquake, not far from where Kazue lived with her family

When Kazue was 9, San Francisco suffered a catastrophic earthquake. Buildings crumbled to the ground and fires broke out all over the city. Kazue woke up that morning to the chimney in her house falling in and filling the kitchen with soot. Her family evacuated, walking up the street to a nearby hill where they spent afternoon watching the city burn. At night, they stayed at Kazue’s uncle’s house on Church and Market – outside of the worst of the damage. They returned to their spot on the hill for the next 2 days until the worst of the fires were extinguished.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, there were so many people injured that the hospitals were overrun. Many churches set up temporary hospitals in their buildings to care for the overflow. Kazue’s mom was one of the parishioners who organized and operated the hospital in her church. Kazue went with her mom every day to help wherever she could. She learned basic first aid to help treat the wounded and served as a translator between the non-English speaking older Japanese immigrants and the doctors.  

Kazue’s parents enrolled Kazue and her brothers at the nearby Hearst Grammar School. They, plus one other girl, were the only Japanese students there. When the city decided to enforce a segregated school system, they were moved to an all Japanese elementary school. This lasted for a semester, until U.S. and San Francisco city governments entered the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan. San Francisco agreed to re-integrate Japanese children into its public school system if Japan would limit how many of its citizens immigrated to the United States, and Kazue returned to Hearst. She graduated from Lowell High School and enrolled at University of California Berkeley. After her freshman year she transferred to Stanford University to study zoology.

Glinda’s Gallery

Just the Facts

• Kazue was born in 1897 in San Francisco, California.
• Kazue retired from medicine when she was 75 – 40 years after she started her own practice after her internment.
• The San Francisco Examiner named Kazue one of its Most Distinguished Women of 1970.
• Kazue died in 1992. She was 95.

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