National Museum of American Indian NYC- Maria Liger (Week 1)

Wednesday

    07/05 So today is my first day and I was introduced to all the staff that is in my department and my cutesy little cubicle where I will spend most of my time at the internship. It was also my first day commuting which took me like an hour and 20 minutes to get from my house to the museum but it was kind of relaxing. My day pretty much consisted of looking through all the galleries and just taking the museum in. I was able to shadow Iveethe through how she greeted the visitors at the Museum which was kind of nice. I really loved the overall building that the museum is in and how old but fancy everything looks. My favorite piece that i saw today was called “Banana”, it is kind of a play on the word apple, which is used to described a native person in a derogatory way making fun of them for being red on the outside and white on the inside. This played a lot into overall the white washing, forced assimilation and the stripping of natives culture in almost a political cartoonish way so I thought it was pretty cool. (Pic will be included) Although I love my job my favorite part was to go out to the city for lunch and really take in bad smell and loud new yorkers. Jokes aside, I do really enjoy walking in the city and I discovered this coffee shop where everything is $2.50, even pastries and if you want a different milk so I kind of fell in love <3. After lunch I did get a tour from Iveethe of the iAC which is the center where I will be doing my project and it is an interactive place for families/children. Here I also learned how to do Mayan math which is like actually top 3 math lessons in my life. I have also set a goal to myself of not repeating outfits once throughout the whole internship (which is going to be like 2.5 weeks in person), so I do hope I can conquer that goal easy 😛. I did also see a dead rat today incase anyone thought the rat thing was a myth.

Thursday

    07/06 So today they cancelled the trains to NYC this morning so I had to have someone drive me an hour through traffic and I was late to the office 😍. Even with that, my day went fairly well. Today was more focused on trying to get a project idea down and working with that a little bit and shadowing Iveethe and Kate the other intern (who is super cool btw). Overall I did a lot of office work and came up with an idea to kind of have a presentation for kids where they could learn about crops and do some hands on activities, I will not elaborate too much because *spoiler alert* I didn't end up going with that. Shadowing Kate was very fun she is a little too sweet for the people at the museum. Her project was with worksheets for kids to do at the temporary exposition that we have to Shelley Niro, a super talented native artist. I learned that I might not want to work in a Museum full time in the future BUT visiting and actually learning there especially more with he help of activities like the one Kate or I are/will make is super fun and educating. I do kind of wish I was able to do some more hands on as I have been seeing that other people are handling objects or doing more things in the back, but I still really appreciate the work in the front. Today for lunch while I was wondering around I found this statue that looks like it is a lot of intertwined standing papers that have been drawn with sharpie all over it. I know it sounds crazy but just look at the picture and tell if you could have described it better. It is such a cute place they also have a massive screen with tables and chairs to sit down and watch tennis. I think it is a very popular place for interns and overall people who work in the city to grab their lunch and eat there. Overall the day was pretty calm but good, 7.5/10

Friday and Monday

    07/07- 07/10 Friday I had to drive for an hour with crazy New Jersey drivers just because they cancelled the trains again. Although I had my little panic moment I still made it on time to the office as the professional I am 👩🏻‍💼. Today work wise was pretty similar to the other days, having to shadow and learn more from the galleries, I do again wish I had more access to stuff in the back and be able to see and touch more things but I understand that it is such a big museum importance wise that everything is VERY controlled and handled professionally not by anyone especially me 😄. Monday I was really thinking about Argentinian empanadas all throughout the day so I had to have them for lunch. When I tell you this was the highlight of my week if not of my culinary experience this summer I am not lying. I got a beef one and a ham and cheese one and I think it is also the memories of when I used to have them when I was little but they were so good. these 2 days were again pretty good and I still really enjoy working on the project and brainstorming with Iveethe about it using past resources and what the Museum has to offer. I finally decided to do a work project where I take 2 crops in this case chocolate and corn and make some pamphlets to talk about them in the iAC, and I will probably try and come up with some game or interactive addition to it.

                      

Tuesday

    07/11 Tuesday they let us have a little trip to other museums in New York city 🫶🏼 This was so fun and pretty insightful. The first place we went was the copper Hewitt where it is more of a modern take on museums for sure. It had a whole floor on different recent events and movements and why these matter which was good to get to know what is going in the world and how it can be exposed somewhere we are sued to seeing past stories and not current movements. After that we went to the American Museum of Natural History and it was insane. This was the biggest museum I have ever seen. It is like all the museums combined in one with an insane amount of artifacts and activities. To be honest it was kinda overwhelming at times because of the amount of people but I would definitely recommend. Then we went to the New York Historical museum, where there was also a related gallery with natives and the work that both me and Kate have been working on, everything was really cool and we got in for free showing our badges 🤭. And our last stop super quickly was the MET which was gorgeous and also really crowded. We saw an exposition on Afrofuturism which really reminded me of what we saw at the NMAAHC all together :). All in all the day was amazing and I was able to get some more inspo for my project. We walked almost 22,000 steps and we had to cross central park 4 times that day. I definitely feel so much tanner now that I saw the sun for the first time in a while. I loved basically every single moment of this day except when I missed my train. 9.5/10

                              

    

                            

Wednesday

    07/12 Today I pretty much worked on my project and finished the first part of it 😄. I was able to join a leadership online meeting the other interns in the museum had which was pretty good. I am hoping I can actually interact with more kids this Friday as there is a group of 125 campers coming to the museum, a little bit nervous but I think if i make a mistake or act embarrassingly they won’t remember. I will finish updating today next week when I do my next blog stay tuned! Also let me know if you have any recommendations on the pamphlet or anything and I miss you all so much 💔.