Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

Summer 2012 intern Ali Smith in Chinatown, D.C.

How do I even begin to describe my time with the Smithsonian this summer? Three words: enlightening, challenging and inspiring. Interning at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program this summer was a truly rewarding experience. From the engaging institution-wide intern events to daily activity in the Asian Pacific American Program office, every aspect of my experience at the Smithsonian deepened my appreciation for museum work and confirmed my passion for Asian American History.

During my internship, I was thrilled to have had the chance to not only assist with fundraising for HomeSpun but also learn about the process of planning a traveling exhibition by working on Sweet & Sour with Noriko Sanefuji. I gained valuable experience participating in the planning meetings, discussing content and structure with Noriko and Cedric Yeh, and researching potential images to capture the themes of the exhibition. By helping with this exhibition, I not only learned more about Chinese American Immigration History and food (topics I am already very passionate about), but also challenged myself to think critically about questions and themes that would provide the best lens for examining this important subject. I feel that working on this project taught me to think about historical research in new ways that will hopefully position me to become a more effective researcher and writer.

My favorite external event from this summer would have to be the private tour of the new exhibition at the National Archives, Attachments: Faces and Stories from America’s Gates. While I had already encountered some of the stories highlighted in the exhibition in previous research, engaging with the curator and hearing his thoughts behind the structure and concepts of the exhibition was very interesting. I was also very pleased at the complex issues the exhibition brought to the surface as well as the diversity of its subjects; I felt that the content and the structure contributed to the national narrative surrounding citizenship, and both immigration and exclusion at America’s “gates.”

In addition to all of the exciting happenings in the office and around the city, I was also very excited to have had the opportunity to dive into my research on D.C.’s Chinatown and the history of Chinese American activism. Being in D.C. for the summer with the Smithsonian enabled me to get more involved with the community, both by volunteering and attending community events and meetings, an aspect of my internship that has critically informed my individual research.

As my time at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program comes to a close and I reflect upon my experience, I think that I have matured professionally and academically. My experience and growth would not have been possible without the support and guidance from all of the staff and interns at APAP. Thank you for your encouragement and friendship!

Summer 2012 intern, Liz Pon, working on an exhibition storyboard.

It’s hard to believe my time here at the Smithsonian APA Program is up! It was full of exciting, novel experiences. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work on two amazing projects. I helped compile resource and image lists for each as well as brainstorm content and design. Asking myself, “What would I want to see in an exhibition?” was such a wonderful experience. I had to convert my mindset from simply absorbing exhibitions to critically analyzing each item to incorporate. I loved seeing the projects in their younger “script” formats, but putting together an upcoming exhibition in storyboard format with fellow intern, Kia, was especially exciting—it allowed us to see a more tangible version of the exhibition.

In addition to learning about museum programming and curating, I gained exposure to the expansiveness and breadth of the Smithsonian Institution; from research branches to exhibition spaces, the Institution covers so much. Interning at the Smithsonian APA Program helped enrich my understanding of the diversity of our nation. From the tour of the Library of Congress Asian American collection to the “Choctaw Days” Veterans Ceremony at the National Museum of the American Indian, my summer here has been a great didactic experience. At the beginning of summer, I composed a list of places to visit and experience in D.C. I am happy to report that, with few exceptions, I have completed my to-do list! I have visited nearly every Smithsonian museum in Washington.

A great part of what I have learned here is thanks to the wonderful people—staff and interns—that work at the APA Program. We exchanged varied perspectives on everything from the Pew Research Center’s “The Rise of Asian Americans” report, to which is the best food truck for lunch (and there are a lot here!).

Independently, I researched the biomedical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine and its usage in Asian American communities. I hope to use what I’ve learned as the foundation for my thesis.

All in all, everything from exhibition work and my personal research project, to museum events and special tours, has deepened my understanding of my ancestors and ethnic community. For this, and much more, I am thankful for the opportunity to intern at the Smithsonian APA Program. I look forward to returning and experiencing firsthand the projects that the other interns and I have worked on this summer.

Summer 2012 interns from left: Kia, Josie, and Liz at the National Archives.

I am very sad to be the first summer intern to leave and I can’t believe that it is already time to part ways with the APA Program. The internship was a great experience and I gained many valuable memories. This summer, I was able to help with the APA 101 exhibition. My role was to find images for various topics that will be highlighted. I really learned to keep an open mind when doing this because each initial search would spin off into five additional ones! It really emphasized to me how much history there is that needs to be shared in a stimulating way in order to engage people.

I racked my mind for one specific event that stood out for me this summer to talk about and it was very hard to limit myself. One of the things I enjoyed the most was the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. I went on a walkthrough that was open to staff, interns, and volunteers a few days before the festival opened. We discovered that most exhibits take around four or five years to put together. The amount of hard work that goes into each part of the festival is astounding and I could only imagine how rewarding the end result would be. For a few days, I braved the intense D.C. heat to walk through different festival tents (my favorite section was the land-grant college tents—it was great to see all the innovative ideas from around the country).

The biggest thing I learned about this experience is that a lot of time and effort goes into everything done at the Smithsonian, so the people who work here have to be passionate about what they do. No minute detail is overlooked. I am going to miss being around such passionate people!

Intern Aaron Sayama (center) at the Library of Congress with summer interns Liz Pon (left) and Josie Suh (right).

I have had an incredible summer here in Washington, D.C., interning with the Asian Pacific American Program. This summer I have been the catch-all intern, working on many different projects and blogging all about different  events I attended, such as the Guam Liberation Day Celebration and our visit to The Library of Congress. I also penned several blog posts for This Month in History: two important Supreme Court cases, Gordon Hirabayashi’s Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Patsy T. Mink Opportunity in Education Act.

This summer I also spent a significant amount of time working on an independent research project examining the link between social media and literary engagement. I focused on different ways to approach Asian American poetry online. For my final blog post, I am going to elaborate on one of my favorite poems: “Toasts in the Grove of Proposals” by Cathy Park Hong.

This poem comes from Hong’s 2007 book, Dance Dance Revolution. Before I talk a little about the poem, take a look and even listen to the author read it herself.

Toasts in the Grove of Proposals
Cathy Park Hong

Lo, brandied man en rabbinical cape
dab rosy musk en goy’s gossamy nape,
y brassy Brahmin papoosed in sari’s saffron sheet
swoon bine faire Waspian en ‘im wingtip feet,
les’ toast to bountiful gene pool, p
to intramarry couple breedim beige population!

Lo, union o husky Ontarian y teacup size Tibetan,
wreath en honeysuckle y dew-studded bracken,
lo, union o Cameroon groom kissim ‘e gallic Gamine’s cheek
en miscengnatin’ amour dim seek to reek
les’ toast to bountiful gene pool,
to intramarry couple breedim beige population!

Clap away, Greek chorus o gay sashayim crowd,
clap away, chatty flackmen y pre-nup hackmen,
bine fort, ruby-lined pachyderms who trundle here proud,
bine fort, madders who nag fo proposal enactment,
les’ toast to bountiful gene pool,
to intramarry couple breedim beige population!

To me, the writing here is creative and demonstrates Hong’s cleverness. Though, I hesitate to introduce this poem to a group of students because of its linguistic difficulty, I think the dialect has an interesting and readable enough meter and rhythm as to make it comprehensible, especially for students interested in hip hop or spoken word.

More importantly, I think the dialect Hong has created makes a political statement. It would have been one thing for Hong to simply write about interracial relationships. However, she employs its consequences through fluidity of language and culture, and by creating a distinct, creolized space. The dialect draws on English, French, Spanish, Latin, and “an amalgamation of over 300” languages, according to Hong, reflecting the increasingly enmeshed global culture. Hong’s book, Dance Dance Revolution, draws on global conflict to make extreme political statements, whereas the poem here makes it more subtly, as if to suggest that the logical end of globalization is the miscegenation of relationships.

Working with incredibly talented staff and my fellow interns this summer has only furthered my interest in Asian American Studies, literature, and public education. I look forward to following APAP as it continues to shape the dialogue about APAs on a national level.

Interns at the Library of Congress. Photos by Jeremy Johnson, Summer 2012 intern.

By Aaron Sayama, Summer 2012 Intern

In addition to working on upcoming exhibitions and our personal research projects, interns at the Smithsonian APA Program also have the opportunity to explore cultural and historical sites that the District boasts. One such adventure took us to the Library of Congress (LOC).

We arrived just in time to join a reserved tour group readied for departure. Listening to our lively and informative docent, we learned about the history of the Library itself. The docent elaborated on each sculpture and relief panel in the lobby, meticulously covering the symbolism present in them. On our tour we heard about some of the Library’s most popular items, such as the Mainz and Gutenberg Bibles. Afterward, we went to see Thomas Jefferson’s personal library. Displayed in the back of the LOC main exhibit space, Thomas Jefferson’s collection of books—organized in his own clever way—gave us a glimpse of this founding father’s intellectual life.

The most rewarding part of our visit, however, was our tour of the Asian Reading Room. Led by founder and curator of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander collection, Remé Grefalda , we got a firsthand look at many of the pieces now housed at the LOC. Some of our favorite pieces include the Carlos Bulosan Archive and the Jade Snow Wong Collection. Each of the interns got to leaf through some of these books from the 1800′s, and see early 20th century depictions of Asians.

1800′s books at the Library of Congress

Needless to say, after this adventure, we headed over to the Madison building to get our Library of Congress library cards. Now, when the weather gets too hot in DC, we can escape the heat by seeking refuge in one the library’s many reading rooms!

Related Links:

• Library of Congress Website
• Library of Congress – Asian Reading Room
• Library of Congress – Asian-American Pacific Islander Collection

Intern Molly Higgins (right) with author Marianne Villanueva.

I might be remembered as the intern who always wanted to take long lunches to see IMAX movies and sit on the roof, but my full name is Molly Higgins. I’m a first year student at the University of Washington, Seattle, pursuing a Masters in Library and Information Science. My academic and professional interests meet at the intersections of digital technologies, archives, indexing languages, community engagement, and Asian American representation. That is to say, I want to make sure that APA communities are able to control how their history is recorded and that those histories remain accessible.

My research, naturally, has grown out of these interests. For the past ten weeks, I have been working with the Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Spoken Word and Poetry Summit collecting interviews, photos, poetry, and other documentation of their biennial conference to post on their website (www.APIAword.com). The APIA Spoken Word and Poetry Summit is more than an arts conference. It’s a politically charged, community based, family reunion of APIA artists and organizers, who are equally committed to art and social justice.

During my internship with the Smithsonian APA Program this spring, I worked with the HomeSpun: Indian American Heritage Project organizing and evaluating the objects that have been gathered for the upcoming exhibit. This meant collecting, cataloguing, and licensing both physical and digital objects. Some of my favorite pieces were handwritten sheet music from Indian musicians like jazz pianist Vijay Iyer, and the earliest Indian cook book published in the United States (1940!). It’s been a great privilege to participate in the process of putting together the Smithsonian’s first exhibition on Indian Americans, even if my role has been a small one.

I also had the opportunity to help put together The May Project, the APA Program’s Tumblr blog project celebrating 2012 as the 20th anniversary of May being designated APA Heritage Month. The May Project highlights Asian and Pacific American Heritage through videos, photos, and stories contributed by (mostly) Asian Americans associated with the Smithsonian. The project is great not only because the stories are captivating, but because they show the range of identities, interests, and experiences that Asian and Pacific American individuals encompass. The May Project is up at http://themayproject.tumblr.com.

Interning with the APA Program has been a great experience. I even got to go behind the scenes of exhibit design, and see the Smithsonian’s 3D printer. With enough pictures, it can create a scale model of anything. I saw a scale replica of a Triceratops, and a set of human lungs!

Intern Jasmine Fernandez at the Baird Auditorium, National Museum of Natural History.

My name is Jasmine Fernandez. I am an Ethnic Studies major at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM). I am a board member of the Ethnic Studies Student Association, a registered independent organization operated through UHM. Our focus is to promote and teach diversity to the entire student body as well as its surrounding communities. Our involvement in the community includes volunteering, planning public events such as lectures and film screenings, as well as promoting the arts through live events such as spoken word and hip hop performances. Outside of school, I am an improvisational comedian. I have been involved in improv comedy since I started college. My interest in improv led me to expand it into a research project on Asian American Stand-Up Comedians at the APA Program.

At UHM, I applied for the Francis & Sarah Sogi Smithsonian Fellow Scholarship. This scholarship allowed me to intern at the Smithsonian APA Program for the Fall 2011 semester. My research project revolved around the history of stand-up comedy stemming from race-based entertainment, or minstrelsy, and how it has transformed into a method of identity formation for people of color.

The APA Program opened my eyes to opportunities not available in Hawaii. Through this program, I had access to all of the Smithsonian museums as well as their library facilities. Public and private events occurred on a daily basis and I tried to take full advantage of them. Some of my favorites include the opening reception of the exhibition Portraiture Now:  Asian American Portraits of Encounter at the National Portrait Gallery. I was given the opportunity to interview all seven artists featured in this exhibit. There were other events that related more to my home in Hawaii, such as Kip Fulbeck’s 100% Hapa public program. Through his presentation and performance, Kip analyzed identity formation for mixed race individuals. Being multiracial myself, this event really spoke to me on a personal level.

Working for the APA Program allowed me to see the integration of academics and public programming. My background in Ethnic Studies provided me with enough preparation for this internship. I recommend this internship to any college student and though Washington D.C. is far from Hawaii, the experience allowed me to grow as a student, a young adult, and a future leader. Through the Smithsonian APA Program, I learned new perspectives on what it meant to be an Asian American. This internship taught me educational and professional skills that I look forward to utilizing when I return to Hawaii.

Interns at the APA Program table during Smithsonian Teachers' Night 2011. From left: Tiffany Quebral, Jasmine Fernandez, and Kirsten McMurdo.

My name is Tiffany Quebral and I am a junior at the University of California, Irvine in sunny Southern California.  Go Anteaters!  I am currently a history major with a focus in Asian American Studies; interning at the Smithsonian APA Program was such a perfect fit and I truly enjoyed my time here!  The APA Program staff is supportive and enthusiastic about documenting the Asian Pacific American experience at the Smithsonian.  This optimism inspires me to continue my interest and studies in the history and contributions of Asian Americans.

While interning at the Smithsonian APA Program, I was given the opportunity to conduct my own research project.  I studied the history of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and how the concept of polyculturalism, conceived by author Vijay Prashad, could foster dialogue and methods of conflict resolution.

In addition to working on my research project, I was able to work on HomeSpun: The Indian American Heritage Project.  My work on this project included helping develop an online curriculum to compliment the exhibition Speaking Up! I also helped draft a call for oral histories of Indian Americans that will appear on the HomeSpun website.  Lastly, I was given the opportunity to research a subject unique to Indian American culture: Bollywood.

Through the APA Program, I participated in various public programs.  These include Teachers Night, South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival (SALTAF), a film screening of John Sayles’ Amigo, and a community focused event entitled Silver Spring Stories: A Conversation about Community and Immigration. These events heightened my interest in Asian American race and ethnic studies. These provided me with a greater outlook and a unique perspective regarding the current issues and challenges that face Asian Americans.

Overall, my experience with the APA Program was remarkable.  I hope that this experience will not completely come to a close as I leave Washington, DC.  I look forward to maintaining close contact with various staff members and to continue my relationship with the program in any way possible—even though I’m 3,000 miles away!