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Internship Week 2 - Evelyn Garayalde - HistoryMiami Museum

This week was week 2 for me at HistoryMiami and I learned so much about doing research here at the museum.

I want to start this post by talking about what I couldn't mention in my last post...

Saturday:

I came in on Saturday, July 20, to survey the visitors of the museum since Saturday is our busiest day. I realized that even on our busiest day, we only have 20-30 visitors. This bothered me immensely because I have come to love our exhibitions, and to know that most people have no idea that we even exist is incredibly disheartening.

Talking to the people who did visit, I was able to meet some very interesting individuals. I met a woman who used to be a reporter. She lived in Miami for many years and did not know its history. She came to the museum to learn more about the city she calls home and spent 3-4 hours exploring our "Tropical Dreams" exhibit, which delves into Miami's history. I also met a man who was here on vacation from Jamaica. He wanted to visit the museum to know more about the city before exploring. I was able to hear his perspective as he went through our exhibit, especially our section on the Jim Crow era in Miami. Being from Jamaica, he told me that he felt disconnected from that level of racism. He described it as something you read about or see in movies, but seeing how it affected real people in Miami was very enlightening for him.

Apart from guests, I was also able to connect with our museum staff. I had some interesting conversations with Alvaro Fernandez, one of our educators, about the exhibits and the future of the museum.

These are some pictures I took while walking around the museum:


After doing surveys all day, I was invited to join the museum's Stiltsville boat cruise, where I got to learn about the incredible history of Biscayne Bay and Stiltsville from our fabulous historian, Dr. Paul George. It really was an amazing time.


Now, onto this week...

Work from Home:

On Monday and Tuesday, July 22 and July 23, my partner and I spent some time looking for interesting people who work within our chosen topic to interview, as well as developing interview questions for them. We also discussed what our display would look like and what kinds of things we would want to include. I also took some time to write drafts of text for our display.

Wednesday:

On Wednesday, July 24, we spent some time in the morning contacting the people we wanted to interview and doing more research on our topics. After lunch, we went to the library to learn about what resources are available to us there and to get library cards!


We then went back to the museum and got a tour of our collections. We learned about how people can do research here and how the museum decides what to keep and what not to keep. We also learned the stories of many of the artifacts and how they were acquired.


Thursday:

The first thing we did on Thursday, July 25, was take a tour of our archives. It was so interesting to learn about how people do research here at the museum. We learned about the process of digitizing our archives and how the museum displays certain sensitive material. We heard about how people can use the archives for many different reasons, such as looking for pictures of distant relatives or finding out more about the exploration of Florida's coastline.


After our tour, we were lucky enough to have Suarmis Travieso, our Assistant Director of Education, tell us about our different education programs and show us around our education spaces:

We saw all of the real artifacts that kids get to learn about and touch. 



We got to see some of the historically accurate costumes used for programs like our Halloween cemetery tour or our family fun days. 


We were able to see and play with the sensory toys used for our sensory days. It was such a fun part of the day.


After this, we had lunch, and then my partner and I got to work trying to decide what we were going to include in our display. We made an appointment with the archives to try and find pieces that we could use. We were then lucky enough to meet some other interns who are working here this summer. We talked with them about their experiences and what they have been working on. Then we spent the rest of the day continuing to work on our projects.

Tomorrow:

I took the day off today, Friday, July 26, but I will be going back to the museum tomorrow, Saturday, July 27, to do more surveys and research, as well as to conduct an interview.

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