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BN: So yeah, I guess we'll switch topics now and move forward a few years. I think in the prior interview, you covered a lot of the subsequent time period, your employment at the study center. And then we wanted to now kind of explore a little more your teaching career, your work with the schools. And one thing that I was kind of wondering about was, you had said in the prior interview, I think, that you had majored in math in part to please your father, which I hear all the time, actually, from Nisei and Sansei. That was true with me also. But you ended up teaching math for many years. Did you come to enjoy that, ultimately?

AU: Yeah, I did. I'll give you a little background. My dad had the foresight to see that computers were going to come in a big way. You figure I'm starting UCLA in '65. And I'd always done well on math aptitude tests, and so he was encouraging me toward math. And then like you said, I wanted to please him. And the thing is, I didn't really enjoy the math classes. I hated my classmates -- I didn't hate them, but I disliked them, I didn't feel comfortable. There were very few women and it was mostly white guys. And so here I am, I'm already kind of angry about the racism that I'd experienced and that I'm going into these environments like that, but there was a part of me that just stuck it out because I didn't want to drop it. It may be a pride thing, but I never did that great either in my math classes. I'm surprised I didn't flunk out, but I didn't flunk out. [Laughs] And when I graduated, I actually interviewed with IBM. (...) I made it past all the written tests, and at the oral interview, the guy interviewing me did what I think is not considered legal anymore. He kind of said something to the effect of, "Wouldn't you be happier being a housewife?" And then, of course, they never offered me the job. Anyway, I had my math degree, and it did come in handy because in 1974, I had... well, 1970, I got married, and in '74, we had a son, Chris. A few years down the line, we needed to have two incomes, and so the math really came in handy, my math background, because the public school system is always short of math teachers. Always, still even now. And so I had no problem getting a job as a math teacher. And I ended up teaching with the L.A. Unified Schools for thirty-two years. What else did you ask about?

BN: Did you just start teaching math, or did you have to get some credential, or how did that...

AU: Okay, I'll back up. Back when I was at grad school, I got a Master of Education and I got a teaching credential. Because at that time, gee, so many of the Sansei girls I knew were getting teaching credentials. I mean, that was what you did, you get a teaching credential, so I got one.

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