Category: California Humanities
Actor, author, director, and activist George Takei recalls his family’s resilience and ability to find joy, beauty, and love in simple treasures while imprisoned in Japanese internment camps…
Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye is the 28th Chief Justice of the State of California. She recalls her experiences as a student in a humanities class in college, her upbringing…
Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, reflects on her life growing up in New Mexico and how a low grade on a poetry analysis assignment in…
Juan Felipe Herrera, a performance artist, activist, and U.S. poet laureate in 2015, recalls how his third-grade teacher’s compliment on his singing voice led to his lifelong belief…
Actor John Cho shares how the humanities reveal answers to the most important questions in life. He notes his fondness of reading and how, during his childhood, the…
Craig Watson, former director of the California Arts Council, reflects on the storytelling aspect of the humanities and the time he spent as a teenager in Guadalajara exploring…
Author and publisher Malcolm Margolin shares how the telling of stories helps shape and give meaning to the world. He also reflects on his time documenting American Indian…
Luis Rodriguez, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014, explains how his love for books and libraries rescued him from a life of trouble. He notes that through…
Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, went to college expecting to become a doctor, but taking a course on religious ethics and moral issues…
At 95, Betty Reid Soskin is the oldest active U.S. Park Ranger. Having lived through wars, racial segregation, and other turbulent times in our history, she says empathy…