Past Staff, Interns, and Volunteers
Aidai Boobekova
Volunteer Spring 2025 - Spring 2026
Elizabeth Johnson
Student Intern Spring 2026
Kevin Zhao
Student Intern Fall 2025 - Winter 2026
Kevin helped organize books in the Lisa Christiansen Research Room. He is also a freelance photographer for La Voz.
Johanna Cheng
Student Researcher Spring 2026
Johanna is writing a paper on Betty Peck of the Saratoga Community Gardens based on research from the CHC Archives.
Mirian Torres
Student Intern Spring 2025
Sydney Nutter
Student Intern Winter 2025 - Spring 2025
Anthony Parra
Student Intern Winter 2025 - Spring 2025
Anthony helped out at our 2025 Taste of History event. He is enthusiastic and always ready to help. He is a founding member of Calle Willow Business Association.
Rama Haileselassie
Student Intern Winter 2025 - Present
Rama is working on inventorying archival files and documents in the Lisa Christiansen Research Room. She is interested in art history, particularly in Ethiopian art and culture.
Yansy Ngai
Student Intern Winter 2025 - Present
Yansy joined the CHC in Winter 2025 as an intern through the Humanities Mellon Scholars program. Though she is no longer an intern, she continues to volunteer whenever her schedule permits. Her tasks include cataloging and organizing the library's books, as well as the physical archives collection. Yansy transferred to a 4-year university for Cognitive Science in Fall 2026.
Jjuan Yeap
Student Intern Winter 2025 - Spring 2025
JJ worked with archivist Saroj Bangaru and other interns and volunteers to organize books in the Stocklmeir Regional History Library and Lisa Christiansen Research Room by subject and call number for entry into the online catalog.
John Madrid
Student Intern Spring 2025
John supported the expansion of the Stocklmeir Regional History Library and the establishment of the Lisa Christiansen Research Room. He moved countless boxes of books and archival materials, and helped organize books by subject for entry into the catalog.
Destiny Lara
Student Intern Spring 2024 - Fall 2024
Destiny helped transcribe many of the audio and video tapes in the California History Center archives.
Nam Nguyen
Student Intern and Volunteer Fall 2023 - Fall 2024
Clare Aligbe
Student Intern Fall 2023 - Fall 2024
Clare helped transcribe many of the audio and video tapes in the California History Center archives.
Esteban Harkins
Student Intern Fall 2023 - Fall 2024
Born in San Francisco, Esteban cultivated a lasting interest in architecture while growing up amidst the Eichler homes that lined his path to school. He is pursuing studies in both architecture and philosophy. Looking ahead, Esteban hopes either to serve as an architect for the UNHCR or to engage in architectural interventions for underserved communities through participatory planning to create uplifting living environments. As an intern with the Mellon Scholars Program, Esteban served as an epitomist for the CHC, summarizing oral history transcriptions.
Lakshmi Kandala
Student Intern Spring 2023 - Summer 2024
Lakshmi Kandala is a Humanities Mellon Scholar majoring in Computer Science at De Anza College. She was an intern at the California History Center through the HMS internship program. She has learned much historical information about California and its history from the place itself and also from Lori and Lisa. Her main project was to research more about the history of CHC itself and to make an informational project that will be accessible to all of the willing public. She assisted with documenting the contents of our Californian magazine.
Marcus Jacob
Student Intern Fall 2023 - Spring 2024
Marcus Jacobs is a biology major and Humanities Mellon Scholar, and he is extremely passionate about dessert. He used skills learned at Foothill College and California History Center to make a positive impact on the environment. Marcus’ work at the Center focused on transcribing some of the Yvonne Jacobson oral history recordings. His technical prowess enabled us to explore transcription software.
Matt Piasecki
California Youth Leadership Corps Intern Fall 2023
Matt was discovered abandoned in a box on the steps of the California History Center - a strange fate for a 40-year-old adult. Unsure of what to do with him, it was discovered that he had rudimentary audio/video skills and a passion for history. He was put to work creating content for the History Center.
Mykala Marandia-Chau Irvin
Student Intern Summer 2023 and Summer 2024
My name is Mykala Marandia-Chau Irvin, and I had the pleasure of serving as a member of the CHC during my summer breaks in 2023 and 2024. Some of my favorite memories include organizing books and magazines down in “The Dungeon” and chatting with Ms. Lisa as we worked together. I truly valued the friendships and connections I made at the Center and often find myself missing those long, hot summer days spent surrounded by good company and shelves full of history.
Vivian Doss
Student Intern Spring 2023 - Summer 2023
Vivian was born and raised in San José and she was an intern for the CHC through the Humanities Mellon scholar program. She found the program by clicking through the De Anza website and got so excited when she saw the word “internship” that she started an application in the middle of class. She worked on investigating the everyday lives (what did they eat, what music did they listen to, what were their days like?) of those who were held in Japanese internment camps. She wrote several articles for the Californian magazine on this subject. She also enjoys testing the odd recipes she finds in the California Digital Archives.
Bobby Banks
Student Intern Spring 2023 - Summer 2023
Bobby Banks was a huge help to us over the summer of 2023, in his last quarter as a CHC Intern. He helped organize archival materials and books during the expansion of the Stocklmeir Library.
Bobby was a Humanities Mellon Scholar at Foothill College where he majored in Geography. He applied to Foothill as a geography major simply based on a childhood interest in maps and the Earth as a whole. The idea of using maps as a useful tool to manage and analyze data opened his eyes to a possible career path that continued to pique his interest with every GIS class he took. We wish him a happy and successful future.
Kevin Candra
Student Intern Winter 2023 - Spring 2023
My name is Kevin Candra, and I was a student employee at De
Anza’s California History Center (CHC) in 2023.
I was first introduced to the CHC by sociology instructor Steve Nava, through the Spaces of Belonging pilot oral history project. During the Winter ‘23 quarter, I contacted Prof. Lori Clinchard to ask if I could continue to help with and learn about oral histories.
Through a connection with previous CHC director Tom Izu, I was able to do an oral
history interview with Steve Fugita, a retired Emeritus Professor of Psychology and
Ethnic Studies at Santa Clara
University who was born in a World War II concentration camp for Japanese Americans.
Dr. Fugita shared his experiences with me, and helped me see the effects that the
concentration camps had on the Japanese American community. I was especially interested
to see how some Japanese Americans bounced back from being oppressed during that p
eriod of incarceration to become activists, in a relatively short period of time.
From this one-time involvement, I got to know Prof. Lori, the CHC director, who then offered me a job opportunity at the California History Center for Spring quarter.
I helped set up a system to digitize the past oral history recordings that are stored on cassette tapes (around 250 tapes) and on VHS (around 150 tapes), and to then make them available to students and community members.
Janet Ilacqua
Archivist, Librarian, and Volunteer 1987 to 2002
From 1987 to 2001, I had 24 jobs in Silicon Valley. I started out as a Gallup Poll interviewer in Los Altos and Palo Alto and then went to work as a cataloger and indexer. In 1990 I got a MLS from San Jose. In 1995, I made a switch to technical writing in various companies, including Compaq, 3Com and Dataquest. In 2001, the dot-com recession hit. I was 48 and making $50/hr. There was no work for me after my last contract ended. I sold my Condo and retired to Tracy. I am now a freelance writer and write for Substack, Quora, Facebook and LinkedIn.
From 1987 to 2002,I worked part time at the California history center cataloging the student research papers, oral histories (VT and TR), archival materials, postcards and other miscellaneous items. I started in March 1987 as a intern from the Foothill Library Tech Intern and met Lisa in September 1987. At that time, we were using typewriters. Later on, we switched to FileMaker Pro. Lisa persuaded me to resume my MLS at San Jose and I was promoted to Librarian in 1990. My contract ended in 1993 and I continued to work as a volunteer until roughly 2002.
I worked, despite the demands of my other job and family responsibilities, to complete cataloging the collection. I considered it my most important and signìcant endeavor of my life. I am happy that the collection i worked on has become such a significant contribution to the history of such an important part of the world economy.