Kazue Togasaki (June 29, 1897 – December 15, 1992) was one of the earliest women with Japanese ancestry to earn a medical degree in the United States.

Biography

Kazue Togasaki was born on June 29, 1897 in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

to Japanese immigrants, Shige Kushida and Kikumatsu Togasaki. Her father studied law and her mother came from a family of merchants. Togasaki's father's unemployment resulted in her parents opening a store selling Japanese tea, rice, and chinaware. She was the eldest daughter and the second born in a family of nine children. Kazue Togasaki was described by her family as a strong-willed and domineering figure in the household. She planned out her younger siblings’ courses in order to get them on the right track into the medical field. Many of her siblings went on to practice medicine, after she became a doctor. Mitsuye Togasaki Shide (fourth-born sister) and Chiye Togasaki Yamanaka (sixth-born sister) both became registered nurses after obtaining their RN degree, Yoshiye Togasaki (fifth-born sister) and Teru Togasaki (seventh-born sister) both obtained their MD degrees and became physicians, and Yaye Togasaki Breitenbach (eight-born sister) became a psychiatrist for the Veterans Administration. Kazue Togasaki's brothers held careers in politics, journalism and computer science.

Early life

Togasaki came from a family of devout Christians; therefore, they regularly welcomed immigrants arriving from Japan and offered them a place in their home. After the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, Togasaki's mother Shige Kushida turned a church into a hospital. At nine years old, Togasaki along with her siblings helped their mother by translating for immigrant women to doctors. These charitable acts became a norm within the family and was most likely the greatest influence for the daughters in their future careers in medicine. Togasaki applied to different medical schools; however, at the time, medical schools were highly discriminatory towards women and Japanese Americans. She was accepted at

Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

and became one of the first Japanese American women to earn a doctorate of medicine in the United States. She set an example for her sisters, and soon after, her sisters followed in her footsteps and became physicians and registered nurses.

Education

During her childhood, Kazue Togasaki and her brothers went to an all-Japanese school. Their schooling occurred during widespread school segregation against

Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

, prevalent until the

Gentlemen's Agreement A gentlemen's agreement, or gentleman's agreement, is an informal and legally non-binding agreement between two or more parties. It is typically oral, but it may be written or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or th ...

in 1907. This agreement served to desegregate schools for Japanese children and limit restrictions placed on Japanese immigrants in exchanged for Japan's curtailing of further emigration to the United States. After desegregation, Kazue Togasaki and her brothers continued to face discrimination from other white classmates. Togasaki's higher education began at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

for two semesters, later transferring to

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

in 1920, receiving her bachelor's degree in Zoology. Togasaki worked as a maid for one-year before going into a two-year nursing program. She received her RN degree at the Children's Hospital School of Nursing in 1924; however, due to the discrimination against Japanese nurses, she was unable to work in the hospital where she received her training. When she lost her nursing job, she decided to get another degree in public health at the University of California in 1927. After obtaining her degree in public health, following the outspoken beliefs of her parents, Togasaki decided to apply for medical school and enrolled in a medical school in 1929. Togasaki earned her medical degree from the

Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) was founded in 1850, and was the second medical institution in the world established to train women in medicine to earn the M.D. degree. The New England Female Medical College had been established ...

in 1933.

Career

Kazue Togasaki started her career in the medical field as a nurse; however, due to her parents’ opinions about education, she decided to become a physician instead. She worked as a fundraiser and secretary, and after that studied public health nursing at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

for one year, before enrolling in medical school in 1929. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Kazue Togasaki, her father, and most of her siblings, along with other Japanese Americans, were detained by the US government; however, some of Togasaki's siblings were not incarcerated because they were away for work. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she was detained for a month at the

Tanforan Assembly Center The Tanforan Assembly Center was created to temporarily detain nearly 8,000 Japanese Americans, mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area, under the auspices of Executive Order 9066. After the order was signed in February 1942, the Wartime Civil Cont ...

, and she was asked to start providing medical services, such as administering vaccinations, delivering babies, and more, to other Japanese detainees who were held at the center. While there, she delivered fifty babies and led an all-Japanese-American medical team. She was afterwards sent five times to other assembly and relocation centers (including

Topaz Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al Si O( F, OH). It is used as a gemstone in jewelry and other adornments. Common topaz in its natural state is colorless, though trace element impurities can mak ...

Tule Lake Tule Lake ( ) is an intermittent lake covering an area of , long and across, in northeastern Siskiyou County and northwestern Modoc County in California, along the border with Oregon. Geography Tule Lake is fed by the Lost River. The elevat ...

, and

Manzanar Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one o ...

) before being let out in 1943. In 1947, after World War II, Kazue returned to San Francisco to continue her medical practice. She then opened a medical practice in San Francisco, where she worked until she retired at the age of 75. Togasaki's devotion obstetrics and gynecology has helped built her reputation as a pillar in the Japanese American community, as she never once took days off from work for a vacation. Throughout her career, she has helped deliver thousands of babies. During her earlier career, she often treated Japanese women, but later on in her career, she began treating a more diverse group of patients. During the time that she had the medical practice, Kazue Togasaki remembered her charitable roots and treated families regardless of their ability to pay. She opened her own home to unwed mothers and terminally ill patients. Togasaki also often invited unwed mothers to stay at her house, delivered their babies, and helped the mothers through the adoption process. She also extended her hands to house Japanese American students who were there to study at the University of California. In 1970, she was recognized as one of the "Most Distinguished Women of 1970" by the ''San Francisco Examiner'' for all of her good deeds. Other women of Japanese ancestry that studied medicine in the United States around the same time include:

Keiko Okami was a Japanese physician. She was the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine from a Western university (Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is re ...

, who earned her medical degree in 1889, and Megumi Shinoda, who earned her medical degree in 1933.

Death

She retired from her profession at the age of 75. When Togasaki's memory began to fail her, she persisted for twenty years with

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

before she died on December 15, 1992, at the age of 95.

References