Dana Matsunami, just named the YWCA’s Centennial Writer, is a senior at Whitman College
majoring in history and minoring in politics.
Though she hails from a little town just north of Seattle, Dana spent the past summer working in Washington, D.C., with the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
At the Smithsonian, Dana assisted a curatorial team with an exhibit about Japanese American mass incarceration during WWII. She spent her time working with donors, handling historical artifacts, sitting in on design team meetings, doing research, and writing education materials for the exhibit.
She brings to the YWCA both experience and passion for work that sheds light on traditionally underrepresented historical narratives.
Dana can’t wait to spend her year working with the YWCA, helping to tell the stories of countless extraordinary women in Walla Walla. “I am so excited to be with the YWCA during such an important year!” Dana says.
The Whitman Community Fellow Initiative funds selected juniors and seniors to spend an academic year working with a prominent local non-profit to address some of the area’s
social, economic and cultural challenges.