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MC: I'm gonna ask whether your law school education seemed sort of irrelevant? That first year of law curriculum is so detached from any sort of social movements.

DM: Yeah, I think it really was. And I think, I think, even though I was in the thick of, I wasn't in the thick of any of those particular movements, I wasn't, I was brand-new to Berkeley. This was the first time I lived away from home. I was just trying to survive there and get a feel for what it was like to live away from home. And so I, well, I participated peripherally in some of those things. I wasn't in the middle of those. But the thing that probably impressed me the most was about Berkeley and how it kind of led me down this path was, the first night I was in the dorms where I was staying. And I was with my friends and we were discussing the grading system that they had announced earlier that day. The system they had set up was called TML. They wanted to avoid "A," "B," "C," "D," "F." So they set up a quota system. The top ten percent in any class got a "T." The middle 80 percent got an "M," the lower ten percent got an "L," "C," "D," or "F." So, I mean, they didn't quite abolish it. It was a quota. They had to give these kind of grades. So we're thinking, very first night, we're thinking, you could work your butt off and get in the 89th percentile and get an "M." You could do absolutely no work, don't show up in class, get an eleventh percentile and get an "M." We looked at each other, we just started laughing. And I was such a guy who was studying in a grind. I thought, but this was an offer too good to refuse. So then we counted out at least ten people who were dumber than us, who didn't study as much, who were on drugs, who were gonna quit, who never went to class. We identified fifteen people and we knew we were totally safe. And it set the course because we really didn't have to study. So I felt, and we all did feel that we should at least go to class sometimes. So we went to class sometimes, at least the first semester, especially. Because we, I think I knew we needed to get some training in what the law was about 'cause we knew it was different. And so we did go occasionally. And then after that it just, we hardly showed up because we knew we knew we were gonna be in the eleventh percentile. So, and it was the first time I came to grips with competition that way, of struggling to be the top, to be the best. I had to say, "No. I'm going to learn more, and I'm going to gain more from not going to class every day and studying all night, by reading other things, learning new experiences." And that kind of, I credit Berkeley for that. Because I got, because of that grading system, it helped me overcome, I think, some, some personality issues that perhaps would have taken me on a different path than where I would have liked to have gone.

MC: Did you feel alienated at all in law school?

DM: Oh, absolutely. Law school was a terrifically alienating experience. Partly because the discipline and the methodology of teaching is much different than reading books and learning and spitting it back, you have to engage actively in discussions. The subject matter itself was very alienating because it was not anything related to -- they didn't teach it as a course about real people. They taught it as more abstract concepts. The students were a wide variety and I think in any other school I would have been really alienated but there were so many people who were just about similarly alienated, we formed our own alienated group and did alienated things together, like go see all kinds of crazy movies and do other stuff. So, yeah, I did not feel at home in law school itself but I met some great, great people there that helped me both gain political insight and learn other parts about myself. And so I can't say the law -- I mean, the law school was alienating but the students that I met that became friends were just the opposite. We became friends and helped me change my perspective and learn new things.

TI: Well, during this period, how about getting involved with the Asian American community in the Bay Area? Were there opportunities for that for you?

DM: There were opportunities, but because there were no Asians in law school, hardly at all at the time, the only -- and I, and one of the reasons I went to Berkeley was to stay a little more anonymous. So I didn't make as much contact with the undergraduate community. I kind of wanted to play out this hand that I was given which was an anti-Gardena hand and that would be hanging around doing different things within the law school environment with your -- or, not law school environment but your friends from law school. And it was more counterculture than it was anything else. It was counterculture and anti-war more than anything else. If I had taken that step to do more civil rights stuff, which ironically I'm doing more now, then I probably would have gotten in touch with more Asian Americans. And so the only contact I really had was playing basketball. But that was with a bunch of guys, so it wasn't like a social thing for me at all. And it wasn't until much later that I get more involved in the Asian American community in San Francisco where there was really a large community to get involved in.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.