Portraits of Three Women of Color in a Museum Youth Program

• In Event: Informal Science Institutions and Equity: Future-Oriented Historiography of Research and Practice

Abstract

Nearly a third of science museums in the United States have some form of youth program, many of which serve as a tool for diversifying audiences (ASTC, 2009). However despite best intentions, deficit models for youth engagement often limit expectations of what young people, particularly young men and women of color, can offer these institutions. Rather than capitalizing on the rich perspectives that youth from varied backgrounds can bring to the institution, these models often work under the assumption that museums can offer poor, brown children something that they lack. Current evaluations of museum youth programs tend to use an outcomes based approach that frames success around academic achievement and changes to participants knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These approaches rarely engage with the narratives and identities that youth workers bring, nor do they account for institutional changes that result from youth participation. 

To address this critique, this study is embedded within a critical pedagogy framework (McLaren, 2016; Kincheloe, 2007), and addresses the lived experiences of young people as they navigate power dynamics in the workspace. “Eldora”, “Neethi” and “Seraphina” are three young women who grew up in the U.S. but have strong ties to their home cultures of Mexico, Trinidad, and Guyana,  and who work as science interpreters at a large museum. Each began their work at the age of 15 as part of an employment program for youth from minority and lower income communities, and have since grown into leadership roles. Using critical autoethnography (Ellis, 2004; Tilley-Lubbs, 2014) and portraiture (Lawrence Lightfoot & Hoffman, 1997), I explore the assets that each woman brings to her work, present stories that counter the dominant deficit narratives around diversity initiatives in museums, highlight microaggressions that persist in museum culture, and reflect on connections to my own practice. Through interviews and meetings across several months, I learn about the experiences of these three young women, and construct portraits of each participant that communicates some of the barriers that each has faced during their tenure, and highlights the ways that their unique identities influence their work. Woven throughout are reflections of my own work as a White woman who does equity-oriented work with Black and Latino youth situated within the walls of an elite university. 

As I analyzed power and privilege within the institution, and the roles that race, language, and culture play in the dynamics of the workplace, a number of themes emerged. Where We Come From, How We Belong and What We Know are sections highlighting the aspirational, navigational, linguistic and social capital (Yosso, 2005) that the women and their peers bring to the workplace to create a community that respects and uplifts it’s members. You Talk So Proper, Subtle Reminders, and The Upstairs People are sections that bring to light systemic forms of linguistic discrimination, racial microagressions (Peréz-Huber & Solorzano, 2014), visitor bias, and architectural separations between front line and administrative staff which perpetuate unintentional systems of oppression in museums. 

Author

• Andrea Motto, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University