This story aired in the March 10, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
At the turn of the 20th century, Chinese immigrants faced systemic discrimination, particularly in healthcare. Confronted with language barriers and neglect from Western institutions, community leaders took matters into their own hands, establishing a healthcare system that has not only endured but thrived.
We learn how residents there built their own hospital, and meet a healthcare provider that continues to care for its surrounding neighbors a century after its development.
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Story:
On Jackson Street, in San Francisco’s Chinatown, across from meat and produce markets is the country’s only Chinese Hospital. Inside, in a doctors office, family doctor Jennifer Chen is meeting with Chen Yu Tao, one of her patients.
Tao is 90 years old, and here with her daughter. She’s sitting on the edge of the patient table. Dr. Chen leans in to ask what brings her in today. Tao’s daughter helps explain that her mom has had some swelling in her legs. Dr. Chen asks if anything in her routine has changed recently?
“No, not much,” the daughter says, but wonders if it could be that has been drinking too much fish soup. Dr. Chen considers this, and after jotting down notes and asking more questions, she advises Tao to stay away from salty foods. She also prescribed some medicine to help with the swelling. They’ll keep a close eye on her legs over the next few weeks.
A lot of Dr. Chen’s work resembles visits like this one. Most patients who walk through the hospital’s doors are 60 years or older, receive Medicare, and are Asian. Dr. Chen adds, “I do get a lot more of the older population who speak Toisan and Cantonese”.
That’s why the majority of the staff here are bilingual. The doctors also practice both eastern and western medicine. The hospital even has their own insurance plan that factors in the unique health issues the community faces.
Chinese Immigration and the Gold Rush - History
The approach to this type of care is rooted in over a century of history. Chinese immigrants were coming to San Francisco during the Gold Rush. According to Dr. Marylin Wong, a retired physician who studies how history influences health, many of these migrants were young men who faced a lot discrimination. They were blamed for a recession and accused of stealing jobs.
“There's one very common thing that happens throughout the history of the United States,” says Dr. Wong, “whenever the economy goes bad, there's always scapegoating”.
In this case, Chinese migrants were blamed. Dr. Wong points out that this economic scapegoating contributed to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law shut the door on Chinese immigration and created even more racial tension, which led to the separation of families.
“By the time 1890 came around, the Chinese community at that time was pretty much a bachelor society. They are in their 50’s and their 60’s, so it's an aging population,” says Dr. Wong. When these elderly Chinese migrants turned to local hospitals for support, they were denied care.
Dr. Wong continues, “So when you have a community of people, there are going to be needs,” they’ll need food, housing, and medicine, “but if a community cannot get help from the greater society, then the community has to turn inward”.
The Tung Wah Dispensary
This is where the first iteration of Chinese Hospital was born, in 1899. It was called The Tung Wah Dispensary, it was a small clinic that combined Western and Eastern medicine. Little did the clinic know that the following year, it would provide a critical service to the Chinese community.
Bubonic Plague 1900 San Francisco
When San Francisco was hit by the bubonic plague, the Chinese population was blamed for the spread of this disease and forced into quarantine.
Dr. Wong shares, “the only time that the public health department paid attention to the Chinese community is when it want[ed] to blame it for infectious disease”.
So with no support from the city, the dispensary stepped up. It provided care and became a lifeline for Chinese residents. It’s an eerily familiar story to the COVID-19 pandemic where the Chinese American population faced similar racial tension. “It is the same song that they've sang all the way through,” says Dr. Wong.
San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake
The dispensary had a short life, it burned down following the 1906 earthquake, but the Chinese community took this as an opportunity to build something bigger. With the support from local Chinatown organizations, they raised the funds to build a full-fledged hospital in 1925, one which could actually admit patients. They grew even more when the Chinese Exclusion Act ended 20 years later, and San Francisco saw another wave of immigration. “And what [the] Chinese Hospital saw was a big boom in the service that it offered, because now [it] is no longer just a community of men, but now you have women, you have children,” says Dr. Wong.
The evolution of Chinese Hospital continues to parallel the changes amongst the Chinese population of San Francisco. When Chinese-Americans and immigrants began moving out of Chinatown to different parts of the Bay, the hospital followed them, opening clinics in other neighborhoods - like the Gellert Health Services clinic in Daly City. That’s where Cecilia Wong Leung has practiced acupuncture for over 12 years.
Gellert Health Services Clinic in Daly City
Cecilia also practices other Chinese Traditional medicine - like cupping and ear seeds. She also prescribes herbs to assist the treatments. All of this aimed at both physical and mental health.
“This particular clinic is not a standalone acupuncture clinic, like just right across the hallway here is a Western medicine clinic,” says Cecilia. On the other side, where Cecilia is pointing to, patients can receive vaccinations and orders for their prescriptions, and much like the main hospital, the staff here is also bilingual.
Cecilia shares, “I think especially for pain, like, there's an emotional component that I don't know how you would address, like, with a translator”. She says, it’s more than just relieving pain, “like it relieves suffering, and it's very comforting, and I can't imagine, like, a provider that didn't speak Chinese, [they] wouldn't be able to offer that to these people. So that makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile.”
Chinese Hospital
Back at the hospital, Dr Chen shares a similar sentiment with Cecilia, “I think that's really the best part of all of this, is that they have someone that they can really relate to, that understands, culturally, you know, a lot of things that they are going through”.
Dr Chen grew up in San Francisco. She was even born at Chinese Hospital, and so was her brother. As kids, they’d help translate legal documents or doctors appointments for their parents. She says this experience helps her better understand her patients, “I mean, it's complicated enough, if you know the language, much less being monolingual and having to, you know, navigate the healthcare system in the US”.
It’s this kind of care that brings patients like Chen Yu Tao to the hospital. Tao’s daughter shares that they feel prioritized and cared for by Dr. Chen. They trust her, it’s why they’ll take an hour-long commute to get treated here. Dr. Chen adds that Tao's daughter has even said to her, “ I treat you like, you know, you're my younger sister, because you take care of my mom so well.”
For patients like Tao, they find not only treatment here at Chinese Hospital, but a sense of belonging, and for Dr Chen, the hospital remains a place where she can provide the kind of care that makes an impact. She adds, she hopes the hospital can provide this kind of care for another 125 years.
