National Hispanic Cultural Center — Fausto Dozal, Week 1

 July 7th (Monday) was my first day at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC)! I met my boss, Elena, and was given a tour of the major buildings that make up the campus, with the exception of the actual museum itself, since it is closed on Mondays. I also had an in-depth conversation about different ideas as far as events later this year—as an intern for the NHCC’s educational department, I shared that the ‘Place-It Workshop’ from the 2025 Washington Week was a great activity and that something similar should be incorporated into their youth programs. Aside from that, I was presented with a task: research and provide a reflection of the NHCC’s website to understand if it has enough resources listed.

On July 8th, I continued my research and came to the conclusion that the NHCC’s website has a few broken links, and I shared my advice on what else can be added to the website. Following up on yesterday’s conversation, I am now pivoting my research toward activities that involve historical architecture.

On July 9th, I met up with the resident sound engineer, Kirk, and was given a tour of the performing arts building and the 3 different auditoriums that it houses. I also learned more about the work that he and his crew do, as well as how important it is to the center. Later on, I recorded a tour of Archives & Collections from Robin and learned more about the current process of digitizing records to make them readily available for the public.

On July 10th, I participated in a pizza party to get to know the staff of the NHCC better, and I began researching ways to engage with youth better. At the end of the day, Jadira provided me with a tour of the NHCC Art Museum as well as collections. The portrait of Francisco Villa by Francisco LeFebre stood out to me the most due to prior research that I had done on him and his connection to my family. In collections, Sleeping Giant by Eric Garcia stood out to me due to its vivid political messaging and significance to today.

On July 11th, I helped Elena prepare a room for a group visit to the museum, after which I received a tour of the Torreón, which is a building on campus with a painted domed ceiling called Mundos de Mestizaje, which was created via the means of a painting technique called Fresco.