Hello again! This is my second blog covering my internship with the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. As expected, this month has also been just as awesome. I’ve attended three meetings, and I have a few highlights I’d like to share.
At our first meeting, we met Karina Gomez, a very inspiring collection manager at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Cultural Resource Center. She was kind enough to share her story about how she got where she is today. Her ‘why’ really stuck with me. Like Karina, I’ve always dreamed of pursuing something that seems so beyond an invisible barrier, and listening to her being an example of how it’s not actually impossible was so reassuring. Having the ability to work in collection initiatives and preservation for your own lineage is a career I didn’t even know existed.
After her story concluded, we transitioned into a collection workshop where we grouped museum artifacts that we believed fit into a sub-theme, creating a story. The sub-themes we were given were communicating your message, the power of the people, and trending topics.
Some of the artifacts we were instructed to categorize
Patty Arteaga, our speaker at our second meeting, was just as interesting and insightful as all the speakers we’ve met. As a public programs manager for Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future, she shared advice around the idea of community engagement that got her to where she is today by emphasizing how all experiences form a connection. She shared every step of her story, from work in the service industry to internships, to remind everyone how important it is to continuously push yourself. She concluded her story by showing one of her works, including a musical performance that covered the 1871 Massacre in Los Angeles.
We also started polling stories us students would like to share for this year’s summit. We did this through a whiteboard on Zoom, which was actually really cool. We decided as a group we want to focus around politics/political movements.
Whiteboard on Zoom displaying all of our ideas
The center of our last meeting this month was around genealogy. Hannah Scruggs, a Genealogy Reference Assistant at the Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (yes, that is the title), shared her work as a community genealogist to explain how her work makes a lasting impact for communities and improves the accessibility of historical material.
We were then given the task to outline our own family history in a way that connects to the larger context of American history. This was really hard for me because I know very little about my family history.
I texted my mom, and all she knew for sure was that my grandmother was born in Ooltewah, Tennessee. I shared that information with my Zoom group, and it turns out Alayh, another student intern, lives there right now and her family has for quite some time. I’ve been messaging back and forth with her to compare family lineage, and I find it so odd that we happen to have a connection to a town that seems so out of the blue.
I spent hours outside of my meeting scanning through information I could find, and it turns out my great-great-grandfather helped introduce legislation in Colorado to officially commemorate the celebration of Flag Day in 1895 and was also a record holder in New York for the 800-meter dash. I find this so cool to have such a connection with him, since I have ran the 800-meter dash every weekend for track and was also at the Colorado Capitol meeting with legislators.
That’s all for now. I can’t wait to see what else we do!
1935 article mentioning my great-great grandfather’s name, Ralph Voorhees
Me talking with Representative McCluskie, Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives.
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