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PW: So in order to attend the pharmacy school at UCSF, did you move to San Francisco?

EH: No. So the first year, I didn't... actually, what happened was my parents moved from Oakland to Florin, California, I don't know if you know where that is, near Sacramento. So I had no place to live.

PW: What year was this?

EH: This was in 1958. But then the minister, the English-speaking minister, lived in, for our church, lived in Berkeley. And he offered me, they offered me to stay at their house. So I lived there for, actually, for the first semester. And I found a friend that had also lived in Berkeley. Because he was from L.A., but his sister lived in Berkeley. This is another Japanese American kid that I met, but he had a car, so he and I would drive across the bridge to San Francisco every day and then come home to Berkeley. But when I got to the, San Francisco, I met some new friends there. And one of them was, he was living in the fraternity house right near school. These were pharmacy fraternities, and they had six or eight or ten kids, almost all boys, that were living there. So I found an apartment there, not apartment, but a room there.

PW: In the fraternity?

EH: Yeah. So then I moved there, and I didn't have to commute every day, because that was kind of tough. Of course, it's even worse now, but anyway, even those days, it was a lot of driving back and forth. So I lived there for a year or half a year, and then I found three other boys that were also looking for apartments, and we found a flat. So four of us moved into a flat, and all happened to be Japanese Americans. One from Monterey and two from Watsonville, and one from Mountain View. So I guess there was... oh no, and then one from Los Angeles. There was actually six of us, I guess. But anyway, we got a place to live. And so I lived there for almost the whole time.

PW: Were you officially part of the fraternity, like did you join the fraternity?

EH: No, so while I was living at that fraternity, I wasn't a member, it wasn't required. Actually, there was another fraternity that I did join later on, a couple years later. So they weren't restrictive like the regular fraternities, like at Berkeley, so a lot of the... because a lot of the students at pharmacy school were minorities, ethnic minorities.

PW: So you mean that the ones at Berkeley were mostly racially restrictive, so you couldn't join because you were Japanese American?

EH: Yes. I think there was a... I don't know if it was Asian or just Japanese, but there was an Asian community, fraternity, and I think there was a Black community, Black fraternity. But you couldn't get into the white fraternities at that time.

PW: But UCSF was different? Those fraternities were mixed?

EH: Yes, yes.

PW: Which fraternity did you join? What was the name of it?

EH: It was called Phi Delta Chi.

PW: And were there, again, activities or things that you did as a fraternity group?

EH: No, we used to have some meetings, but it wasn't very social. So I don't remember doing much with the fraternity itself, except when I got accepted, then I got a ring and that was it.

PW: Have you stayed in touch with many of these fraternity brothers?

EH: No.

PW: Did you have to work as a student while you were attending...

EH: Yes.

PW: Where did you work?

EH: I worked at several places. Well, all through high school, I also worked. In high school I worked for Japanese gardeners, working on the weekends.

PW: How was that?

EH: Well, I realized that was not what I wanted to do as a profession. I made money, so that was good. I also worked at a gas station a friend of mine's parents owned, and that was in Chinatown, so that was a good job, too. But then once I got to pharmacy school, after my first year, I got a job at a local pharmacy in San Francisco, actually, in the area called Potrero Hill, which I enjoyed quite a bit. But that helped financially because at that time, my parents didn't have a lot of money. Because my younger brother and sister were still in high school, so then they needed help, too.

PW: And to keep track of your parents, so they're in Florin at this point while you're in the pharmacy school?

EH: Yes.

PW: Okay, so I always have to keep track, because your dad's going to move again, I know it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.