Densho Digital Repository - Homer Yasui Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-491-13)

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So I'm curious, when you were in Portland, then, did you ever consider being kind of the Japanese American physician in Portland? Like in Seattle, in other words, I mean, generally, there were a few Japanese American, generally Nisei doctors that all the Sansei -- and I went to Ben Inouye and all of the other Sanseis went to the JA. Did they have something like that in Portland and did you ever consider doing that?

HY: I'm not sure I understand the question, if that's what it is.

TI: Well, so you're talking about the insular nature of the Japanese American community. So oftentimes, in places like Portland or Seattle, you had a community within a community.

HY: Oh, yeah. We're talking about my residency?

TI: Yeah, your residency and whether or not...

HY: Very, very much like it. This is only five years (after) the war.

TI: Right. And so I was wondering if there was an attempt to maybe recruit you, to say, "Hey, Homer, why don't you set up practice in Portland and be the community doctor?" Because that's kind of what happens.

HY: Well, it may have happened to others, it didn't happen to me. Nobody has made a -- although I joined the armed forces like the Navy, and that's a very multi-ethnic group. But the other one was, I joined a, kind of a half-baked organization called the Active Club. I don't even know what the Active Club does anymore, but that was the only two. But no, I didn't set out to be any example or exemplar.

BY: So was there a, quote, "Japanese community doctor," during those years?

HY: You mean like a society?

BY: No, no. Like the one or two Japanese American doctors who everybody went to in Portland. Was there anybody like that?

HY: Oh, yes, there was. When we first came back to Portland -- now I'm talking about 1951 -- Dr. Kinoshita and this other doctor, I can't remember the name, were the only two. And that's where all Nikkei went to, there were only two. They were, as I say, they were both from Hawaii. [Narr. note: Dr. Robert Shiomi was born in Japan.]

TI: Well, and maybe that was enough. I mean, sometimes it was hard to break into that. Once you have that market, then it's hard for...

HY: When we come back, we don't have a doctor. Like me. I didn't have a doctor, my parents didn't have a doctor. I got to know doctors as a doctor myself, from the hospital I was working in. So that way, we began expanding, Toshiaki Kuge and, oh, Albert Oyama, there were several other Nisei doctors there. But they were all in different hospitals. So eventually we started going to different doctors. But in the beginning, yes, they were the ones that everybody went to.