<Begin Segment 8>

BN: So I'm going to get back to some specific articles in a minute, but I wanted to also now, while you're doing this, you're still at UCLA, right?

JF: Yes and no. I wound up in my senior year dropping out of what is now the Ethnocommunications program because I felt like the activities I was involved in at the time were more important, and they wanted just, like I said earlier, school wasn't, I wasn't really a great, active student. It was just something I had to do, kind of, because my dad wanted me to have a degree. Anyway, so I dropped out of that EthnoCommunications program for two years in my senior year, and focused on working on the paper and my involvement with this Asian Black Chicano pride program. And then working, still had to earn an income, as little as it was. But back then I was only paying sixty-five dollars a month for rent, so different times.

BN: What were you doing for a job?

JF: Let's see. Back then, I was working at the UCLA basement of the medical center. I don't know if people still do this, but they had kind of a hierarchy of workers at the UCLA medical center and we were the bottom of the bottom, so we wore these shit brown uniforms. I forgot what they called us. Anyway, we had to push around these huge metal carts, they were about seven feet tall on huge, big, like four-inch diameter wheels. And we'd push 'em around, we'd... well, the first thing we did, first thing in the morning was visit our floors, we were assigned floors to visit each of the supply rooms, and then you take an inventory of each room, what they need, needles and syringes and these Kelly clamps and all this other stuff that each particular supply room needed. So if they were low, you have to replenish it. So then you'd go back down to the basement where all the supplies were and load up your cart and then you'd start on delivering all those supplies, so I did that at UCLA. And the only thing I remember from that was this Chicano guy we worked with, this phrase he used to like to say when he would look forward to the weekend. He said, "Yeah, and remember, there ain't no rest for the good lookin'." [Laughs] He's kind of, is that a biblical phrase or something that you're kind of twisting? Anyway, he was a lot of fun. Yeah, but like I said, I was only paying sixty-five dollars a month for rent, and that was for a back house that was standalone, had one bedroom, a little living room and a little kitchen. You couldn't beat that.

BN: Where was it?

JF: This was on Vista Del Mar.

BN: Oh, wow.

JF: Just below Santa Monica Boulevard.

BN: By the beach, too.

JF: No, it's more like West Hollywood.

BN: Oh, Vista Del Mar. The Vista Del Mar I know is right along the ocean.

JF: Or maybe it was just Vista. [Laughs] I had to almost have a lottery for whoever, when I decided to leave that place, for who took it over, because everybody wanted to go there. They couldn't believe how nice a place, nice situation. So I remember Clark Nakashita, he was the winner.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.