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Kansas City Museum (Week 2) - AL Lopez



Week Two has officially wrapped up and to say that it was truly a jam-packed week full of activities is truly an understatement! The beginning of my week started with wrapping up my work on the exhibition I was doing inventory for last week, focusing on local artist and UFW activist Chepe Alonzo. I also attended a meeting at the Hispanic Economic Development Corporation, where the meeting was primarily focused on the local Union Cultural Mexicana association. 

The next day was a little simpler, I was able to work from home, starting my work on transcribing oral histories for the Kansas City Museum from their YouTube channel interview series. The video that I watched was fascinating, it was an interview with Jerry Morales and Virginia Alvarez Morales, detailing Mr. Morales’s experience being a professional boxer, even winning titles such as The Golden Gloves National Champion, as well as focusing on his work behind the scenes, becoming a referee and youth boxing coach and eventually founding The Guadalupe Boxing Club in our local West Side. 


After a day of working at home, it was time to go back to working out in the community! I had the honor of being able to go to the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Center to sit in on a meeting detailing the possibility of bringing more baseball into our local community, including the restoration of a local baseball stadium for all to enjoy in the near future. Afterward, I was able to pay a visit to the Bruce R Watkins Cultural Center, where I was able to learn more about Mr. Watkins’s hand in our community‘s development during the 1960s and beyond, making our little Kansas City community a little more welcoming to all of the different people that inhabit it.


My final day of this week started a little later in the evening, with being able to partake in the Kansas City Museum’s Member Appreciation Night. It was super cool to be able to see our underground Soda Fountain being packed to the brim with all sorts of people, especially since it is usually quieter down there on normal weeknights! Afterward, I was able to go to a meeting at our local Guadalupe Center that focused primarily on getting to know our local politicians who were hoping to represent us in our local election for city council. Normally I would not be very ecstatic to go to one of these meetings as they all are mostly the same and were usually built on false promises, but this time was for sure different! Everyone who spoke truly seemed to have their heart in giving back to the community while also giving very plausible points on what they would do to better our community, I was even able to talk to them after the debate had ended and it really stunned me how down to earth they all were! It was truly an eye-opening experience and I could not be more thankful for the opportunity to partake in such a wonderful debate! 


Overall, while this week may have been entirely different from week one, that truly does not mean that I did not have the best time being able to partake in it! These past weeks have been such a mind-blowing experience and I cannot explain in words how much this opportunity means to me, being able to both work hand and hand with my community and meet new people every day is such a dream and I would not trade it for anything!

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