Editing Tamlyn Tomita (section)

==Early Life==

Tamlyn Tomita, a first generation Japanese-American (issei), was born on a military base in Okinawa and grew up in Los Angeles. Her Japanese-American father was in an internment camp during World War II. He met her mother while stationed in Okinawa between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Her mother was of half-Okinawan Japanese and half-Filipino descent, born in Manila and emigrated to Okinawa after World War II. Her father became an LAPD officer upon returning to Los Angeles.

Tomita graduated from Granada Hills High School and attended UCLA, where she studied history and planned to become a history teacher. While a junior at UCLA, she participated in Nisei Week, where she was crowned its 1984 queen. She and several other Japanese-American girls were asked by [[Helen Funai]], the 1963 pageant queen, to audition for the role of Kumiko in [[The Karate Kid Part II (Movie)]]. She promised her parents that she would finish college, and then explore acting.

Tamlyn won the 1984 Little Tokyo Nisei Week Queen in 1984.