Densho Digital Repository - Kay Yatabe Interview (Densho ID: ddr-ajah-1-9-15)

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PW: What was UC Berkeley like in 1966?

KY: It was great because we had got, my senior civics teacher had invited two guys who were El Cerrito High graduates, and they were active in the Free Speech Movement to come to talk to our civics class. So that got me really excited because they were talking up what was going on with the Free Speech Movement and Mario Savio. So when I got to Berkeley, my father did this, perhaps, passive aggressive thing, I don't know. I brought home a Parents' Confidential Statement so I could get financial aid so I could live on campus. He never filled it out. And I, for whatever reason, I couldn't say, "Hey, Dad, why don't you fill this out?" There was no way I was saying anything, so we never did it. So I never got financial aid, so I had to live at home, which was a disappointment for me. I wanted to be on campus, I wanted to have a campus life. So what I did, which was perhaps not wise, we were on the semester system. I'm taking a full load, you can imagine, math, everything. I'm going to get a PhD in something. And I decide I'm going to get a job for the Christmas holidays. And I apply for a job at El Cerritos Capwell's, and I wanted to do giftwrap, because I was always really good at giftwrap, my giftwrap through high school, I did really imaginative things. And they told me I was too short. And it never occurred to me to argue that or say I could stand on a stool. Now, my Auntie Kuni's sister worked at the Oakland Capwell's and so she got me a job in giftwrapping, fancy wrap. I, of course, just tried to do plain wrap, but they said, "You're supposed to be in fancy wrap," so I did fancy wrap. So this is, like, crazy, but three days a week, and they had to be the days where I didn't have an afternoon lab. So I would take the bus to Oakland, from Berkeley to downtown and work until closing time, I don't know, nine or something. And then my parents would come pick me up. And I did, three days a week I did that, with a load of classes, it was kind of crazy. If I looked at this, I says, that's not a good idea. But I so much wanted to move on campus. My mother was afraid I was going to get consumption, TB. So I did that, and then after Christmas, that ended. Fortunately, we were on the semester system so that I could still cram. And then I think I got a job, I think I got a work study job, definitely for the summer, dissecting aphids in Albany, Gill Tract.

PW: And that was your freshman year?

KY: After the freshman year, yeah. And then I got myself into the co-ops, into living in a co-op.

PW: What year was that?

KY: For my junior year -- I mean, for my sophomore year. So I lived at Stebbins Hall on campus.

PW: How was that?

KY: Well, it was pretty weird, because the first roommate I had, I think was psychotic. She was an electrical engineering/computer science major, and she talked all night about all these things that were in her head. I eventually, everyone looked at me and said, "How can you stand that?" So I did get, I got out and got a really nice roommate who was actually, she was twins, and she and her twin were on their way to medical school, so that was a nice little thing. Because I had never, I mean, all through college I did not think of going to medical school. I was going to be a PhD, scientist, research scientist.

PW: And when did you determine that? So you're at Cal, and when did you start realizing, okay, there's a track that I'd like to start pursuing?

KY: Well, I loved science, and I had this idea with this woman who was a botany major. I was tending more towards biochemistry, and so I took all these classes that were appropriate. I had full heavy science curriculum, and in those days, you could place out of... there was a U.S. history requirement and something else. Maybe government, I placed out of it. And so I had one year in the co-ops, and then the next year, because I had this friend from, Chinese Hawaiian friend from my classes, she invited me to join three of them from the dorms in an apartment. So the junior year I lived off campus in an apartment with three other girls, and one of those was the woman who was living in this house for twenty years. She just moved out last year.

PW: So these are the friends that you just hung out with?

KY: These were, yeah, I had different stages of friends, but my first friends were Asian, because I'd never had that before. So I had a Chinese friend and a Japanese American friend and I loved that. I mean, it was just great, I don't know, I've never had before, especially the Japanese American friend. And then in the co-ops, also I gravitated toward having these Chinese friends. And then when I moved into this apartment, well, the one woman was Chinese, but she had a boyfriend already. But the other two women were Jewish and political. And my particular roommate Wendy was really into it. She eventually got a PhD in political theory, so she was a lot of my education. I mean, she would talk Nietzsche, Rousseau, I mean, she was really into. And there were some really great professors at Berkeley at that time, and she kind of thought it was too bad that I was placing out of all these non-science classes, and she thought my education was really lopsided, which it was. The better non-science classes were hard to get into, because there were big lecture halls and then too many students wanted them. Oh, and I started going to demonstrations immediately. It was Vietnam Day at first, Vietnam Day. So that was even when I was living at home, I would go to demonstrations.