Lillian Ota '43

Lillian Y. Ota in the 1943 Legenda, Wellesley's yearbook publication. As she came to Wellesley from a Japanese American internment camp, she did not have a proper home address; here, her hometown is listed as the college.

Lillian Ota 1943

Miss Lillian Y. Ota attended Wellesley College as a senior from 1942-43 after receiving a special scholarship to attend the college. She was originally a student (junior Phi Betta Kappa) at the University of California at Berkeley, but was forced to relocate after the beginning of the war and the start of the incarceration of Japanese Americans. Ota was one of the first to be relocated under the new student relocation program, leaving Tanforan Assembly Center in August, 1942. After graduating from Wellesley, she went on to study history at Yale.

While at Berkeley, Ota was on the editorial staff of the Daily Californian. She was known as a brillaint, straight-A student. After being incarcerated at Tanforan, Ota became the women's editor of the Totalizer, the camp paper.

Studies at Wellesley: History

Other Institutions: University of California at Berkeley (1941-42), Yale University

After Wellesley...

Attended Yale University to continue studying history

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