IWAMOTO​,​ Kinichi

I came to New York as a doctor when I was 23 years old. At that time, there were about 3,000 Japanese people living here. If you included company employees, there were probably even more. I was educated in the old way — we were taught that medicine requires patience and self-discipline. The patient always came first; money was secondary. Nowadays, doctors have fine offices on Park Avenue, but in my time, we couldn’t do anything like that. We even made house calls at night. Doctors today rarely do that. In 1924, the Immigration Act was revised, and new arrivals could no longer become permanent residents. But since we had come before the change, we were allowed to stay long-term — so I remained. During the war, it was very difficult. I was taken away by the FBI and imprisoned on Ellis Island. I was one of the first twenty people brought there. But after two or three months, I was released and able to resume my medical practice. Still, during the war, there were very few company employees left, so doctors weren’t much needed. Japanese people also had strict curfews — if we went more than twenty miles from home between certain hours at night, we needed a permit or we would be arrested. I’ve gone back to Japan eight times in total, and I’d still like to go once more. When we first came, crossing the Pacific took about ten to fourteen days. After that, it took another three or four days to cross the American continent by train. Just one trip to Japan took about a month each way. This interview is part of the DMHJNY's new exhibit Issei: Portraits Of The First-Generation Japanese New Yorkers which is on view here: https://www.historyofjapaneseinny.org/issei/