A Taste of History
The Future of the Past: Reimagining How We Do History
Saturday, April 26, 2025 | 4-6:30 p.m.
California History Center, De Anza College
This special fundraising event will offer a new look at the California History Center and the role of local history in the future, based on the needs of our students and how we can reconnect the communities of the past and present to create a view of the future.
- Tickets: $95 per person; sponsorship rates available
- Proceeds support De Anza student multimedia, oral history and archival projects that preserve and share our local history.
We will showcase the California History Center’s work to bring history alive, through
- Accessing traditional archival materials
- Exciting, new NEH-supported oral history projects
- Engaging the community as a living history lab
This Year's Program
Tom Izu, executive director emeritus of the California History Center (CHC), will lead a panel presentation on the experiences of CHC researchers, interns and community members. The discussion
will highlight the unique and humane nature of archives and libraries as both physical and social spaces. Together, the panelists
will consider ways that the CHC has always had an open door to all generations of people to talk and ponder the past and its meaning, how it impacts the present – and what we dream for the future.
De Anza College President Omar Torres will welcome those attending this year's program. Guests will also be able to
- Hear a student a capella group, Vocal Flight, perform a variety of jazz standards
- Enjoy savory and sweet catering from nearby businesses and sip wines from local producers
- View the California History Center exhibit, “Belonging and Identity,” which combines the stories and personal art of De Anza’s Pride Center students – led by Jamie Pelusi, Pride Center faculty director, with images from instructor Lisa Teng’s photography students
- Listen and learn from unique presentations of archival material and historical exhibits, curated by current CHC staff and interns who will be available to talk with visitors
We will also honor Lisa Christiansen for more than 27 years of service to the California History Center!
About the California History Center
The historical record resides not just in traditional archival records and books, but also in the minds of living people, expressed through forms of social connection and interaction. The California History Center is now exploring how to create openings in various communities to find new knowledge that will come out of dialogue and interaction.
This effort centers the CHC as part of a shift in paradigms of how we see "doing" local history work. CHC's model is not a passive, one-way process of downloading knowledge into minds. It does not objectify and essentialize concepts into historical factoids. It is a way of educating through open dialogue utilizing a framework that social and community spaces provide, and the minds and spirits of the community members that inhabit those spaces.