Yuki Sato

Student

“I would like everyone in the world to have equal rights. If all people try, we will make it some day.”

She feels it’s always been with her: the desire to ensure a life free from the horrors of war and starvation. But in particular, it was the recently televised images of brutality in Africa that made Yuki Sato of Saitama, Japan set her sights on a career in the United Nations. “I am studying political science so I can work for the UN. I want to help the people in Africa, to help them establish rights and have enough to eat,” she says. “In my life, I want to do work, not for company profits, but for people.”

Yuki sails fearlessly along over the bumps in the English language that grows more familiar to her each day. “I never can speak it fast enough!” she says with a laugh. But languages are a strength of hers and the fluency will come. “I went to a French school in Japan and studied the language for one month in Grenoble, France on a school trip,” she says. “French is a language many people use in Africa, and the more languages I know, the more I can learn about different cultures.” Cultural differences between the US and Japan are actually what brought Yuki to SMC.

“I couldn’t go to a Japanese university because in Japan only young people can go to college,” says Yuki who is 21. “So I came to the US to study. And in SMC, they don’t care about age. There are people who are 40 and 50 years old studying here. I like it that everyone can learn.”

Yuki plans to transfer to UCLA or Berkeley—before arriving at the UN, of course. She reports that she and her Japanese friends at SMC find Los Angeles a great place to live. “There are so many interesting things to do nearby,” she says. “My mother and sister came to visit and we went to Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and Las Vegas. I think we are pretty impressed with America.”

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