Engaging with Diverse Communities: My Summer with Patapsco Heritage Greenway

Hello, I’m Camilla Sandoval and I’m a graduate student on the public history track. This summer I had the chance to work closely with a local nonprofit to improve the approach and extent of its community outreach and engagement. A few months ago, Dr. Meringolo put me in touch with Lindsey Baker, Executive Director of Patapsco Heritage Greenway, who was interested in finding appropriate strategies to develop a strong relationship with Latinxs who use and visit Patapsco Valley State Park. Lindsey and I met to talk about our respective goals and interests to get a better idea of how we could structure an internship that would be beneficial for the both of us.

We split my work into three projects, one due at the end of each month. In June, my project was to create an annotated bibliography covering essential information related to community outreach. This meant reading relevant literature, finding model outreach programs from other parks, and identifying organizations or groups that work with Latinx communities. The most insightful articles I read were those that did not treat outreach and engagement as a one and done event. For example, in this study of the National Parks Service’s engagement with communities of color (or lack thereof) the authors recognize six major themes and many subthemes that are essential to engaging underrepresented groups of people. Some of the major themes were inclusive interpretation and histories, supportive workforce environment, and community involvement. I knew from my own experiences as a visitor and former intern with the NPS that I wanted my work for PHG to say what this article was saying—that a successful relationship with the Latinx community necessitates, among other things, time, reflection, and a genuine effort to understand and value cultural differences.

For the rest of the annotated bibliography, I was able to find some examples of parks that had both short-term and long-term community engagement projects. I also came across numerous national and local Latinx-led organizations that are dedicated to improving the relationship between Latinxs and the environment. Some, like the Hispanic Access Foundation, offer internships around the country as a way to facilitate long-term engagement with parks. All of this served as important need-to-know information for PHG but it also helped me with my own thesis research.

            For my thesis, I am examining the representation of Latinxs on the National Register of Historic Places. I want to understand how the National Register presents the place of Latinxs in the national story of the United States and what factors have led to that representation. Writing and researching this annotated bibliography allowed me to explore the ways in which Latinxs are involved, or not involved, in different subfields of public history. Even though my thesis is specific to historic preservation, the research I did for the annotated bibliography led me to many articles and park programs that, in one way or another, made me consider new questions and different points of view while I thought about Latinxs and public history. My understanding of the power and significance of telling the stories of people who were not wealthy, white, straight, men at our historical sites was amplified while doing this project for PHG. My first month was an awesome start to my summer internship. 

National Museum of American History Part Three

This August, I worked both as a curatorial intern in political history and as a public programs facilitator.

In curatorial affairs, I finished my project on the National American Woman's Suffrage Association(NAWSA). I got experience researching at the Smithsonian Institutional Archives, which helped me to get experience for my thesis. The time spent researching helped me to see what a career in curation would be like. I compiled a list of the objects donated by NAWSA and each time that these objects were on display. My work helped to prepare for the new exhibit that deals with the memory of women's suffrage. The exhibit meetings have not started yet, but there is a lot of preparation for an exhibit before it is even considered for funding. I learned a lot during my internship, especially about the numerous dead ends that you hit before success. Researching for the exhibit has shown just how little effort is taken in preserving institutional archives for smaller exhibits. The suffrage displays that the museum put up were not recorded, the few pictures that are out are not dated, so there is no way to know when they displays went up on came down. I loved feeling a part of the exhibit making process, but I wish that I could have seen more of the process. I wish that it would have been possibly to attend some of the exhibit meetings, but everything moves slowly in group projects and in the government.

As a public programs facilitator, I have had some really great experiences talking to the visitors in the museum. The American Experiments exhibit really uses my public history skills. I engage visitors in discussions about their beliefs in democracy and citizenship. As I interact with visitors, I am intentionally trying to get them to see the other side of the debate. I had a great interaction with a family, playing an activity "Where Do You Stand?" The game offers different statements about who should be voting. One of the questions is "People should vote online." The mother in the family said she wanted online voting, but the rest of the family didn't want voting to be online. When I asked why they made the choices they made, the mom said that everything is online, so why not voting. But the rest of the family worried about the hackability of online voting, and they convinced their mom to change her stance. As I get to interact with people, I get to see just how much they are gaining from the exhibits "American Democracy: A Leap of Faith" and "How Did We Become Us?" When visitors come into the museum they are almost always looking for the pop culture items, the Ruby Slippers, Kermit, Sesame Street, Julia Child's kitchen, and First Ladies. Getting to see people's favorite attractions and sending them to something they never expected is amazing.

I had a lot of fun working on both sides of the museum world, being behind the scenes in curation and on the front end talking to visitors.

PHG Historical Redesign Post #2

For the second month of my project I was tasked with creating a outline for the historical information on Patapsco Heritage Greenways old website for the redesign. In creating this outline, I made more concise version of the historical data already on the site in order fit it to the four major locations in the Heritage area: Ellicott City, Elkridge, Relay, and Catonsville. Originally, they had the data as one long page of text with sub headings and various links. As well as a home page that had more links attached to it that connected to various sources like books, and signage in the heritage area. My job was to boil this down into one page of text only highlighting what was important and what felt needed to tell the story of the Valley. I also provided additional information I felt necessary from my previous months project where I sourced data from websites in the Heritage area. Because of my background in history the outline didn't take me very long. It was more focused on what data was viable and made sense, and what didn't. Some of the information was repeating or extended over a couple centuries. Other data was small tidbits about areas that used to be towns but were now just part of Patapsco Valley State park. I found a lot of trouble being concise as well because naturally I wanted to be thorough for the person that would inevitably have to move the data from my outline to the website. In the action plan I created, I ended up adding notes like "You may need this paragraph, but its not necessary to." For the next months project I have a much harder task. I am going to attempt to find all historical, cultural, and environmental signage in the Patapsco Heritage area. This means road signage, plaques, park signs, anything that falls under those three criteria. With this I am creating an inventory that list the name, location, a picture, and a write up on everything I find. Im going in almost completely blind but im looking forward to this last month of work on this project.