History As Education – and Storytelling

California History Center

Focusing on California and regional studies, the California History Center and CHC Foundation present exhibits, offer classes with De Anza College, publish a periodical, and operate a library and archives. Special events, including lectures, panel discussions and workshops are also featured.  Student interns are currently helping to digitize and expand our collection of over 400 historic oral history recordings. 

Voices of Silicon Valley: NEH Grant Project

De Anza has received its first-ever grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, providing $150,000 for an ambitious, three-year effort to create and expand oral history programs focused on historically marginalized communities.

Read the Californian

cover image of man in broad-brimmed hat tending to a leafy plant

The latest issue of Californian, published quarterly by California History Center, is available now! Articles include a look at the Mexican immigrant experience in the Santa Clara Valley during the Great Depression, remarks on Fred Korematsu Day, the center director’s report and more.

Read the newsletter

Donate – Become a Member!

Use our online form to donate and become a member of the California History Center and Foundation.

Join Now!

The California History Center and Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization (EIN 88-0108599).

Faculty Coordinator and Center Director:
Lori Clinchard

Lori ClinchardThe center is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

  • Lori Clinchard can be reached at clinchardlori@deanza.edu
  • To reach the Center, or librarian/archivist Lisa Christiansen, please call 408.864.8987.

About the California History Center

With its programs and resources, the California History Center  – which has received numerous awards and honors – is an active focal point for California history studies and has been recognized as an "outstanding educational facility" by the State of California.

Emphasizing living history, the center provides students with a unique opportunity to "encounter the historic site, document, or experienced individual, and personally interpret and recreate a period in history."

Housed in the reconstructed le Petit Trianon, a national registered landmark located on the De Anza campus, the center offers credit classes, changing exhibits and a video documentation program. The magazine Californian appears 3 times a year. Students can participate in all of these activities

Additionally, the center's Stocklmeir Library hosts a growing collection of materials on California history and on almost every aspect of Santa Clara Valley's development, including student research papers, books, journals, video and audio oral histories, photographs, manuscripts, newsletters, clippings and pamphlets.


Recent California History Center Events

The California History Center hosts and helps sponsor a variety of interesting events, workshops and panels each year. You can read about recent highlights on the History Center Highlights webpage.

See Highlights of Recent Events


Hidden Histories of Japantown

city view with fans and writing on skyThe California History Center is co-sponsor of an ambitious, augmented reality community art project in San José’s Japantown neighborhood.

The project combines technology, art, history and culture to share stories about the Chinese, Japanese and Filipino communities that helped shape this historic district. 

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