I was born at the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights.
My American-born mother moved to Japan as a child. As a Kibei-Nisei, she returned to LA in 1948 at the age of 20 where she met my father. They married in 1951, and a year later, my mother became pregnant.
Image Courtesy: Little Tokyo Historical Society Archival Collection
Access to quality healthcare was a major issue for the Japanese living in California due to the discriminatory practice of rejecting medical services to Asian immigrants. Additionally, Japanese medical doctors were banned from working in hospitals or medical clinics. In 1929, despite the legal battles pertaining to the Alien Land Law, a group of Japanese doctors, led by Dr. Kikuwo Tashiro, fought and won the right to purchase property. They built a 42-bed hospital in Boyle Heights to serve the Japanese community and appropriately named it the Japanese Hospital.
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcing 120,000 Japanese-Americans, including medical professionals, into incarceration camps scattered throughout the remote regions of California, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming. The Japanese Hospital was temporarily leased to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church for the duration of the war.
Discrimination prevailed on the West Coast even after the war. Hospitals continued to deny patients of Japanese ancestry medical and maternity services. For my mother, having her baby at the Japanese Hospital was her only option.
The building now serves as an assisted-living facility for the Boyle Heights community. In 2016, the Little Tokyo Historical Society nominated the former hospital for designation as a historic landmark in LA. Later that year, the City Council approved and designated the Japanese Hospital as one of LA’s 1,100 Historic-Cultural Monuments.
The Japanese Hospital not only holds a significant place in Japanese American history but will always hold a special place in my heart. This is where my life began 70 years ago.
