Interviews

1. Family background

2. Driving 1930 Ford at age 12

3. Classified 4C - enemy alien

4. Inahara shunt

5. Encouraged to go to college

6. Father's career as a manjyu maker

7. Identified as Japanese ancestry

Toshio Inahara

(b. 1921) Vascular surgeon

Identified as Japanese ancestry

I*: What do Nisei and Sansei call themselves here in Oregon? Do they say, “I'm Japanese American”? Or do they say, “I'm American”? Or do they say, “I'm Nikkei” or...what would they call themselves?

I don't know, I don't know what they say when they're among friends or among Caucasians.

I: What about yourself? When you meet someone new?

I tell them I'm of Japanese ancestry if they ask. But you know, no matter where I go, I'm first identified as Japanese. And they say, “Are you from Japan?” So the people who don't know label you immediately that you're from Japan. And this I found at all the meetings I went to.

I: Do you get upset with that question or do...?

No, I've accepted that and it's pretty universal, I think.

I: And what about the Japanese? When you meet Japanese doctors, do they think you' re Japanese?

No, no, I don't think so. I think we stand out being different. Yes, I think...and of course, conversely, we can identify Japanese when they’re here.

* “I” indicates an interviewer (Akemi Kikumura Yano).

identity Nikkei Oregon United States

Date: December 6, 2005

Location: Oregon, US

Interviewer: Akemi Kikumura Yano

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Toshio Inahara was born in Seattle, Washington, the first of four brothers. At age three, he moved with his family to Japan, returning after six months to Tacoma where his father established a successful Japanese confectionery, “Fugetsu.” Toshio’s father wanted his sons to grow up in the country, so the family moved to a farm 30 miles west of Portland, Oregon, in 1931.

In response to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, West Coast Japanese Americans were ordered to evacuate to Assembly Centers, but the Inahara family obtained a travel permit to relocate inland to Ontario, near the Eastern Oregon border. Toshio volunteered for service in the US Air Force in 1942, but was rejected because of his Japanese ancestry.

After two years of family farming, Toshio was accepted at the University of Wisconsin, where he studied pre-med courses, eventually earning his M.D. in 1950 from the University of Oregon. Following internship and residency, he trained in vascular surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and then returned to Portland to establish a private practice and serve as a clinical instructor in surgery at the University of Oregon Medical School.

Dr. Inahara is one of the world’s foremost authorities on carotid endarterectomy and is co-inventor of the Pruitt-Inahara Carotid Shunt.(December 6, 2005)