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TI: Okay, so you had one brother at OSU, another one at University of Oregon. And you graduated from high school, and tell me what you did.

PN: I graduated from high school, I didn't get great guidance counseling, I followed my brother Jerry to Oregon State. And even though I got a full ride from the University of Oregon, I went to Oregon State because I was pretty straight and narrow in high school. I think marijuana was being introduced then, but, I mean, I saw it once, I didn't drink, I didn't swear, I didn't do drugs in high school, I was pretty straight and narrow. And seeing my two brothers and their different role modeling, Oregon State seemed pretty safe to me. [Laughs] So I went there my first year, and then realized that as a liberal arts major, I was in an agricultural and engineering college, which wasn't gonna work. So my brother Jerry helped me transfer to another college. So he was pretty instrumental in doing that. He was also instrumental in tutoring me through my physical science class my freshman year, which I got an "A" in only because he tutored me all night long in that.

I was a freshman cheerleader at Oregon State, and partly because of Patty Kato, you know, my high school friend, I had gone through freshman rush, and I had gotten a bid from every sorority there. But I didn't understand why, why they had given me that. And I didn't have, really, the confidence. So... this is a little vignette. I wanted to be an Alpha Kai Omega, 'cause I'd met some women and they were bright and they were athletic. But even though I got bids from all these houses, I didn't trust that they would want me. So I went to a house that was pretty... I knew I would get in, 'cause my future sister-in-law was a member of that house. But then I realized after I did that that I really wanted to be in this other sorority and I really didn't want to be in this house, so I de-pledged after two weeks. And they said, they said how terrible I was and how bad I was, and I just remember my brother picking me up after that and I was crying and it was really upsetting. And that was really an experience of me not going for what I wanted. Not... holding back, trying to be safe, trying to play it safe.

So that left a big impression on me, and when there were freshman cheerleading, Patty convinced me to try out for freshman cheerleading, partly, I think, because she saw the experience that I'd gone through with sorority rush. So she didn't try out, I did, got to be freshman cheerleader, that was really a lot of fun. But in terms, academically, I was really a liberal arts major in this agricultural engineering school. And I knew that education was my way out of poverty, because my mother said, "Get your education and get off the farm." But I also felt a lot of peer pressure not to study. The most important thing for a lot of girls at Oregon State was when you were going to get "pinned," you know, wear your boyfriend's... so I was a cheerleader who went to the library and studied a lot.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.