Ami is the daughter of an immigrant, Chinese mother and an Anglo father. She started working at the age of 14 to help her single-parenting father pay the rent. She continued to work, non-stop, to pay her way through college at Northwestern University, and out of college–as a cafeteria manager, a waitress, an SAT and LSAT teacher, a caterer and house cleaner.

After moving to California, Ami was hired to create the first Teen Program for the City of Los Altos, including Mountain View schools. She moved to Santa Cruz County in the early 1990s, just after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Once in Santa Cruz, where she lived as a renter for many years in all sorts of “situations,” she became the first Master Composter Trainer for Ecology Action of Santa Cruz and was one of the first staff writers for Metro Santa Cruz, later leaving for Metro San Jose to become an award-winning investigative journalist. Ami also completed the Conflict Resolution Center (CRC) mediation training and became a CRC board member. She later moved to San Francisco to pursue a freelance writing career.

In San Francisco, Ami wrote articles and cover stories for the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner opinion pages and joint Sunday Magazine, for Inc. Magazine, Glamour and was managing editor for Entrepreneur of the Year magazine.

Around the same time, Ami began a training-of-trainers program in innate mental health and resiliency (then called “Health Realization”) through the Santa Clara County Department of Alcohol and Drug Services, where she went on to conduct mental health classes in the county jails there, in juvenile hall, the correctional ranches, for homeless shelters, for sober living environments and for county staff and departments.

After six years of this work, she went on to co-found a national non-profit with her father, called the Center for Sustainable Change, to bring simple principles of emotional and spiritual resiliency to communities across the United States.

With funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, Shinnyo En and health agencies and non-profits across the United States, outcomes from these projects included:

• Reduced violent and property crime rates

• Reduced use of psychotropic medications for participants

• Increased school attendance

• Reduced sick days and chronic health issues for hosptial employees

• Reduced youth recidivism

Since moving back to Santa Cruz, Ami and her husband have raised two kids here. She served as an elected member of the Westlake School Site Council, as an appointed member of the City Advisory Committee on Homelessness (CACH) and has been a dedicated climate activist and champion of democracy and racial and social justice. 

For nearly two years, Ami volunteered–teaching weekly classes–at the drop-in center called Mental Health Client Action Network (MHCAN) on Cayuga in Midtown, on mental health and well-being for people who were unhoused or precariously housed. She ran for county supervisor in 2022 to bring more participation and democracy to the election process. She later ran for the Democratic Central Committee and was elected as the second highest vote getter, after Justin Cummings.

For nearly three years, Ami has hosted programs on KSQD, after being recruited by the late and great Gloria Nieto to join the show Unheard Voices with Gloria, Bobby Bishop and Thairie Ritchie.

As a founding member of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), Santa Cruz County–which launched after the murder of six Asian women in Atlanta, Georgia during the Covid pandemic, Ami has worked to bring Asian-American history in the region to the foreground. Her new show, Moment of Truth with Ami Chen Mills has covered Transgender issues, the tech oligarchy takeover of San Francisco, and shows with Permaculture teacher and author Starhawk, Angela Davis, Jess Craven, Walter Masterson, former DOJ official and private equity author Brendan Ballou, Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute on “The Office”), and many others … to cover a wide range of topics, from unions and housing to emotional and spiritual resilience at this difficult time. She also founded a Substack called Moment of Truth Dispatch, to help educate the public about politics (local and national) and write funny things too.

When Moms for Liberty came to our county, Ami helped organize with others (Diversity Center, Pajaro Valley Pride, Safe Schools Project) to write a public opinion piece signed by 44 organizations across the county. We have not seen Moms for Liberty openly organize here again. She is also a founding member of the LUV-BIPOC group for her professional community (Listening to Unheard Voices-Beautiful, Inspiring People of Color).

Most recently, after a spate of national news about Flock, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), Ami rapidly organized the Get the Flock Out campaign, involving activists from across the county. Within roughly six months and after an intensive media campaign and lobbying effort, the Santa Cruz City Council voted 6 - 1 to cancel the Flock contract. Ami continues to be involved in supporting efforts in Capitola and Watsonville to “get the Flock out.”

Ami is currently a lecturer at UCSC and a member of UC-AFT (and formerly of UAW 4811) who teaches resiliency and continues to train groups and coach and consult individuals and organizations through her solo practice, Ami Chen Coaching and Education.

Ami’s very unique qualities of honoring the humanity and perspective of each person; her investigative journalism skills and fierce sense of activism for those most vulnerable and threatened, makes her the kind of leader Santa Cruz needs now.