What did people do in Tanforan when they had a toothache? Many of them probably paid a visit to the makeshift dental clinic in Block 1, established by Dr. Carl Hirota, a San Francisco dentist.
Hirota was so dedicated to his community that he sent his wife and daughter to Salt Lake City to wait out the war while he accompanied his fellow San Franciscans into incarceration and saw to their dental needs.
By the time he got to Topaz, he was 33 years old–but that didn’t stop him from volunteering to serve in the military the day after Secretary of War Henry Stimson announced that Japanese Americans would now be eligible to enlist.
Read his story, “The Dedicated Dentist.”
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