Between Washington and San Juan de Lurigancho: Museums, Identities and Territories. A Fulbright project to encourage a mutual and intercultural understanding.

• In Event: Poster Session Group 9
  In Poster Session: Between Washington and San Juan de Lurigancho: Museums, Identities and Territories. A Fulbright project to encourage a mutual and intercultural understanding.

Proposal

How can museums play a role in civic education and strengthen community identity drawn to international education? In October 2021, four Fulbright scholars from Peru and the United States joined their efforts to develop a proposal for the Fulbright project contest to celebrate 65 years of Fulbright in Peru. This institution has benefited both countries by generating academic and cultural exchanges through programs and scholarships. Despite the pandemic, Fulbright Peru continued to encourage their scholars to work together and continue developing an impact on society. Thus, Between Washington and San Juan de Lurigancho: Museums, Identities and Territories was one of the winning projects to win a $ 2000 grant and implement virtual activities until the end of October 2021.

The initiative addressed three different needs—first, the role of museums and their impact at the local, national, and international levels. Second, the Fulbright scholars' mission is to join efforts, build bridges, and put at the service networks to make possible virtual exchanges between different communities from the United States and Peru. Third, positioning abroad opportunities for the participants and their institutions, especially in common marginalized areas where there is a lack of information or people experience more difficulties because of access to English or Spanish in both countries. Statistically, the United States Department of Education (2017) records that Hispanic college students represent 27% of first-generation students. This group of students is often unaware of scholarship programs and experiences such as the Fulbright Program. Also, this program is seen as part of the elite and far from achievable for first-generation students in college. For Peruvians, IndexStudies1 reports that only 1% of young Peruvians fulfill their dream of finishing studies abroad. Only 20% complete an application in the English language and 13% choose the United States as a destination for their studies abroad.

The project's goal was to build a space for exchange and mutual understanding between two different communities committed to museums' civic-educational role in disseminating knowledge, preserving historical memory, and strengthening local-national identities in their territories. The San Juan de Lurigancho district has more than one million people. It has rapidly urbanized over the last several decades, primarily due to Peruvians migrating to the city from rural Andean and jungle regions. This place also shares similar social issues (feminicide, teenage pregnancy, street violence, etc.) as other peripherical places in Latin America such as Ciudad Bolívar (Bogotá, Colombia), Iztapalapa (City of Mexico), Sol Nascente (a favela in Brasilia). On the other side, the project has a member from Washington D.C. who worked in Peru for one year. Washington D.C. has 689 545 inhabitants, according to the last Census (2020). This place is well-known for its power. This place also experienced problems of gentrification in neighborhoods such as Petworth and Capitol Hill. Superficially, it is hard to think about any connection between the two sites. But there are similar points regarding the community cultural richness of their people and the presence and impact of museums in each territory to promote local and national identity and work as educational institutions to preserve the community history and memory. Smithsonian museums are free for the public in Washington D.C. A group of people from San Juan de Lurigancho created an innovative project to have an interactive and virtual museum for everyone.

Therefore, this project promoted the meeting between two museums. The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (NPG), a renowned museum located in Washington DC, United States, and the Virtual Museum of Arts and Culture of San Juan de Lurigancho (MUVI SJL), the digital portal beneficiary of the Economic Stimuli for Culture 2020 of the Ministry of Culture, located in the San Juan de Lurigancho district. NPG and MUVI SJL have a similar mission to celebrate wealth and resilient history by portraying, remembering, and preserving the stories of the people and places part of the local and national community. At different scales, both museums are committed to being at the service of their communities through education and research. The main activity was a virtual exchange between museums teams, prioritizing identity to their work in museums in the context of the pandemic and the link between the museum and the community.

The specific goals were: 1) Generate a safe space for horizontal meeting, reflection, and exchange of practices between the MUVI SJL of Peru and NPG of the United States. 2) Co-organize virtual visits in Spanish and English to MUVI SJL and NPG, aimed at the targeted public (students, professors, directors of institutions) and the public in Peru and the United States. 3) Promote the work of the Fulbright Peru Commission and the impact of its scholarships and projects nationally and internationally. 4) Counteract stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination among Peruvians and Americans by knowing the territories' common problems and creative solutions.

As for the activities, the project offers virtual tours of each museum, reaching more than 140 participants in both events. The target audience will be general and focused on university students, directors of educational institutions, and community leaders from both countries. The first and second activities were held as Zoom events. The Virtual Museum of Arts and Culture of San Juan de Lurigancho (MUVI SJL) targets the U.S. audience, and the NPG virtual tour focuses on the Peruvian audience. These events were part of a series the team co-organized with interpreters in both languages (English and Spanish), with a team from Peru and the U.S., as part of a Fulbright grant project aimed at connecting Peru and the U.S. by facilitating an exchange between the MUVI SJL museum and the National Portrait Gallery of Washington, DC.

Author

• Jennifer Karen Ponce Cori, SCAE Grad Student, University of Pittsburgh