Discover Nikkei Community Engagement Specialist. I am currently working on a master's degree in History at Cal State Los Angeles with a focus on cultural geography of colonial Latin America. I'm fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and excited to use my language skills to support Discover Nikkei. Outside of work, I volunteer as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate for foster youth and dabble in music, visual arts and poetry. I'm also a proud fourth-generation Angeleno.

Linda has written a few articles for Discover Nikkei relating her and her best friend's experiences as the daughters of Japanese mothers who emigrated from Japan to the U.S. in the aftermath of World War II, as the brides of their U.S. soldier fathers from the American South. Linda Cooper is a communications consultant and freelance writer with more than 30 years of experience as a public relations practitioner, U.S. Senate press secretary and journalist. She holds a BA in journalism and political science from Mississippi University for Women.

I am Manager of the Minidoka Swing Band - a tribute band remembering the music that made life bearable behind barbed wire in the Japanese American Internment camps of WWII. Named after the Minidoka Internment Camp near Twin Falls, ID

My name is Mitch Homma. I’m a sansei who grew up and still resides in Southern California. In addition to working as a software and aerospace engineer for a small Chantilly, Virginia based company, my interests include Japanese history and Christianity in Japan. In my spare time, I work on publishing some family items that I believe are important to history and hope it inspires other to do the same. I contribute to three different Discover Nikkei albums which are based on my family’s photo albums, documents, and stories. My current albums contain items from Amache and Heart Mountain Internment Camps as well as Gardena Valley Baptist Church, which 4 generations of family attended. The Amache and Heart Mountain albums are being updated as I come across related photos while still searching through hundreds of photos in boxes. I am also working on two other albums which may be published in the future. Both albums are based on recently uncovered photos and documents. One collection is based on Christianity in Japan (1890-1930) and the pre-WWII Southern California Japanese Christian Federation of churches. The second documents my 2008 trip back to Japan and Amache to see my family history first hand. This album includes pre-WWII and today’s photos of my family’s sites, Japan relatives, and finally my father and his sibling’s emotional closure when visiting Amache during JANM’s Enduring Communities Conference field trip.