Celebrating History and Heritage 

Here's a collection of special TikTok videos created by De Anza's Office of Communications for AAPI Heritage Month and Women's History Month in 2022.


AAPI Heritage Month: May 2022

Who Created Ms. Marvel? Continuing its series of special TikTok videos celebrating history and heritage, De Anza College has released two new videos for AAPI Heritage Month.

The short videos profile two individuals who have made unique contributions:

  • Sana Amanat, a Pakistani American who co-created Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim superhero to have her own series in the popular line of Marvel Comics. Amanat is now a top executive responsible for content and character development at Marvel.
  • Freddie Tavares, a Hawaiian-born musician and engineer who created the Fender Stratocaster guitar. He can be heard playing the familiar first guitar note in the musical theme for Loony Tunes comics.

Sana Amanat

Freddie Tavares


Women's History Month: March 2022

To help celebrate Women’s History Month, De Anza College has created a series of TikTok videos about women who have made a big impact in science, medicine and mountaineering.

Patricia BathEach video packs a powerful story into the quick-viewing format that has made TikTok one of the most popular online apps in the world – especially among teens and adults under age 25. Created by De Anza’s Office of Communications, the profiles include

  • Patricia Bath – who graduated with honors from the Howard University College of Medicine and went on to develop a new surgical tool and pioneered techniques for cataract surgery that are used worldwide.
  • Junko Tabei – who established Japan’s first women-only mountaineering club and, in 1975, became the first woman to summit Mt. Everest. Tabei, who made some of her own gear to save money, also became the first woman to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents.
  • Olga Gonzalez-SanabriaOlga González-Sanabria – who joined NASA after graduating from the University of Puerto Rico. She did pioneering work on nickel-hydrogen batteries used by the International Space Station and later became the first Latina senior executive at NASA Glenn Research Center.
  • Katherine Johnson – the mathematician who became one of the true-life inspirations for the movie, “Hidden Figures.” Hired by a forerunner of NASA in 1953, she performed calculations that helped launch the first American into space and, later, the first American to orbit the earth. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

You can watch the videos below or follow De Anza on TikTok at tiktok.com/@deanzacollege.

Patricia Bath

Olga González-Sanabria

Katherine Johnson

Junko Tabei

Commemorative Zoom Backgrounds

Visit the De Anza Zoom backgrounds webpage to view and download special commemorative backgrounds for a variety of events and celebrations.

Zoom Backgrounds

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