Holocaust Museum Houston- Eliana Streeter, Week 4

 

Hello fellow YAP interns, I still can’t believe these four weeks have gone by so fast. I feel so grateful to have been given this opportunity and can’t believe how far I’ve come. At the beginning of this internship, I had no idea what advocacy, representation, cultural pride, authenticity, and growth truly meant. After having completed Washington Week and now my four-week internship, I now know what they mean and the impact they have when they are lived out in your daily life. I have grown so much and have a better grasp of what it means to be in the workplace.

It has been a great pleasure working with the Boniuk Center at Holocaust Museum Houston, as well as collaborating with the different departments of the museum to contribute to their Youth Initiative. I will forever be a museum advocate as I grew up going to museums with my family. Not only have I learned a lot about history, science, and art, but I now know the importance of who’s story it is, how it’s being told, and who is telling it. These three things often shape how a person sees a piece of art, artifact, or historical event. Going forward I will always have a new respect and love for what people are tasked to do in order to keep museums alive. From the volunteers to the directors, everything must work efficiently to move the museum forward and generate the next exhibit.

During my internship, I had the pleasure of meeting Chief Development Officer Kim Parker. Her role is to fundraise for each fiscal year. This can be done through generous donors, yearly contributors, survivors and their families, as well as the museum’s annual fundraising Luncheon and Award Dinner. She also shared the importance of taking care of the monetary gift by making sure the money is being used as efficiently as possible within the museum. She is also in charge of thanking the donors and showing the museum’s appreciation for the donor’s continued support.  During the meeting, she also shared more information about the museum’s affinity groups. These are donation groups which you can get benefits from based on the size of your donation. There are groups for the next generation of survivors, people interested in art, generational donors, and much more. I feel this is a great way to know where your money is going and what projects or departments within the museum you will be supporting. 

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I also had the wonderful opportunity to have met with the Chief Executive Officer Kelly Zúñiga. She shared with me her career path and how she was led to the museum. We also spoke about the Educator In Motion Program and the importance of making the museum completely bilingual, representing and providing for the Houston population. As she was describing her career path, I found it interesting to learn that she has a background in fundraising. This is a good skill to have as she sits on many boards and must constantly advocate and represent Holocaust Museum Houston. It is awesome to know that a female is the head of such an amazing museum that teaches both history and addresses current human rights issues. 

On the last day of my internship, I was lucky enough to present my ideas for Holocaust Museum Houston’s Youth Initiatives to the staff. All of my hard work and research came down to one presentation. According to my colleagues, the presentation was awesome and they were overall impressed with the ideas I had come up with. I was honored to have had my internship here and glad that I got a chance to share my ideas with the rest of the museum staff that I had met and learned so much from. It would be even more wonderful if one of my own ideas were to be put into action in the near future. 

To close out the week, my family and I were invited to attend the Latinx Initiatives Advisory Committee (LIAC) event at the museum which is a part of the museum’s Latinx Initiative. At the event, there was a presentation from professor Dr. Jesus Esparza from Texas Southern University on A History of Hate: The Ongoing Fight Over Immigration. He provided a wonderful presentation tracking the hatred that has always centered around Latinx immigrants and the challenges they face to enter the United States. He also spoke about the different narratives that were spun throughout history that led to the way many people still feel in the present day. To close his presentation, we got a sneak peek at the oral histories of immigrants and their stories that are featured in the book he edited entitled, The Truth In Our Stories: Immigrant Voices in Radical Times.

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To close out this wonderful experience my own supervisor, Dr. Michelle Tovar presented me with my very own award for all the work and collaboration I had done over the past four weeks. It was an honor having met my colleagues and collaborate with the many people that make up the museum. My special thanks go out to the following people: Wendy Warren, Laurie Garcia, Amy Frake, Ezequiel Castellanos, Heleva Bacchus, and my wonderful supervisor Dr. Michelle Tovar. Meeting this group of people was truly inspirational as they brought their passion and professionalism to the office each day. I couldn’t have grown into a young professional without their support and welcoming atmosphere.

Below are some photos of me and my wonderful colleagues from the event.

Thank you again fellow Yappers for your friendship and collaboration during Washington Week. I hope that we meet again sometime soon.

Sincerely,

Eliana Streeter