<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So I guess what I wanted to get next to is after you graduated from high school, you decided to go to UCLA.

JY: Right.

TI: Why UCLA?

JY: Well, that's the one place that was available, and twenty-five dollars a semester.

TI: Now was it clear that you wanted to go to college?

JY: Yes. Yeah, I really wanted to go to Berkeley, but there was no way to pay for room and board up there.

TI: And so what was life like at UCLA?

JY: Busy because we had all our studies to take care of. We helped my dad at the church trying to find odd jobs on weekends, mostly with gardeners, working on weekends in the Beverly Hills area.

TI: And so what year did you enter UCLA?

JY: '35.

TI: And 1935, UCLA, how large was the class and about how many Japanese were...

JY: Well, the classes were, depending on the course, of course, just like now, the science courses, of course, were small. The general courses, like in political science or psychology would be a hundred fifty or something, anyhow, huge classes.

TI: And then sprinkled through there would be some Japanese, or how many would do that?

JY: A few, yeah. Just very few in each class.

TI: Okay. In terms of just the whole student population, how large was the enrollment at UCLA?

JY: I believe about seven, eight thousand, and there were a hundred Asians, mostly Japanese.

TI: And I'm curious, of those hundred Asians at UCLA, did you know most of them?

JY: I guess we knew each one, almost.

TI: And so how would you guys get to know each other?

JY: Well, there was a little place where we would eat, have lunch together, in brown bags. Hardly anyone went to the cafeteria. They mostly were brown baggers.

TI: And I'm curious in terms of gender, were they mostly male?

JY: No, there was quite equal spread as I recall. I guess I might have intentionally focused on the girls. [Laughs]

TI: And then what was your field of study as an undergraduate?

JY: I guess biology mostly.

TI: And you chose biology because you wanted to be pre-med?

JY: Pre-med and then we had other side interests if medicine didn't quite fit out. Like in the marine biology or zoology, things of this sort.

TI: So I'm curious, in your choice of studying, you mentioned this earlier, how in high school you realized that only certain jobs were available. When you think about things like marine biology or zoology, were there jobs available for Niseis in those areas?

JY: I don't know.

TI: Or even medicine, where if you became a doctor, would that be a position that you could practice?

JY: We had a family physician who was a Caucasian, was an extremely fine guy. And he was one of the few Caucasian households which we went to. And it was always a nice experience, or when we were sick, he would come over, make housecalls.

TI: But I guess what I'm trying to get at is, was there a case where the Niseis would only go to certain fields because they knew after they graduated they can get a job, or did they just go for what they really wanted to do?

JY: I think what they wanted, yes.

TI: And so what happens when they graduate, say, in engineering and they couldn't get a job?

JY: Well, there's not an engineering school at UCLA at that time, but there was an economics student. And on Saturdays at that time we worked at a fruit stand, and there was a whole bunch of UCLA kids working there, mostly from UCLA. And one Saturday, near graduation time, there was one guy who was an extremely nice fellow and we looked up to him. And I said, gee, he's gonna get his bachelor's degree, we thought highly of the bachelor's degree, and so now he's on his way. Saturday came and here he shows up at the fruit stand. That really hit me, hits me even today.

TI: Because here he is, he's a newly graduated economics major from a major university...

JY: And he's no further ahead than when we were freshmen when we were working in the fruit stand. There was very little advances. That really... said, god, the least I could do is study as high as I could if I wanted to get anywhere, and whatever subject I was taking.

TI: But that made you want to study more?

JY: Yeah, wanted to study more.

TI: But here you had who just studied, graduated --

JY: Yeah, but that, the odds were, it would be a little better if you studied hard, no matter what happened. And he couldn't... he was in economics, couldn't get his CPA, but eventually, when he eventually, postwar, here he's a partner in one of these big accounting firms like...

TI: Arthur Andersen or Deloitte?

JY: Deloitte, yeah, he was partner in Deloitte, and his son is now a partner in Deloitte.

TI: Okay, so I'm curious, what kind of student were you? Were you a good student, good grades?

JY: No, I was glad to, if I got an A I was very, very happy, and felt lucky if I got a B. [Laughs]

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.