National Portrait Gallery - Week 3

So week three marked a transformative point for our program. Portraits Alive! quickly tidied up loose ends and started performances when showtime finally came around. I helped put the finishing touches for the performance with our program pamphlet while offering audience members a Spanish or English version. My responsibilities this week centered around helping to facilitate discussions about personal definitions of civic duty and leadership during our morning workshops. From researching these nine historical figures featured in our program in my free time, I have found that all leaders have some commonalities. They move society and make society step even further ahead. It takes an entire being of a person to channel this sense of ethic. In my discussion I used the example of Martin Luther King Jr., a leader by all means. I mentioned that his charisma and his deliberate nature were only half of the explanation behind his leadership abilities in his struggle for justice. It was also the magnetism around this person that seemed to blur the lines of reality and allowed others to follow his passions as well. At the end of the day the students all understood that a leader is fearless in living his or her ethic and holds others accountable to a higher standard of excellence.

Please click here if you are interested in learning more about MLK Jr.. NPG has an online exhibit thats accessible to anyone. http://npg.si.edu/exhibit/MLK/index.html

Honestly, I feel fortunate to be able to have teens even consider this idea of leadership and apply it to their own lives. These discussions have also allowed the teens to gain confidence to speak in front of others and feel free to voice their ideas, which is a keystone for all leaders. Although all the students have a different story to tell, filled with hardships and complexities, especially in their lives, storytelling has put them in tune with their emotions and with themselves. Self-awareness is powerful because it allows us to analyze our purpose and our goals. My walks with the teens down to the Courtyard for lunch have been quieter lately because I believe that the teens have started to reflect on how they want to leave their legacy, just like the legacy left by the person they will be portraying for their performances in front of audience members.

I also wanted to note that this educational program wouldn’t be possible without the help of our playwright Tom.  He allowed the teens to understand the dynamic complexities of the individuals behind each frame. Our goal was to “offer our audience humanity” like Tom always reminded us. Our discussions about the power of diction in our workshop showed the teens how to make people hear them and not just listen. THe teens have worked hard to choose specific words that “grab people” in order to successfully “design a voice that could even be connected with”. With the energy of the portrait as the starting point, our greatest challenge in this whole process was avoiding autobiographical accounts but rather creating actualities of self. I especially enjoyed working with a student whose first language was not English. I could relate because at one point in my life (in preschool) I could not speak English! This week was powerful because it had such an applicative connection to not only for the teens' lives but also also to mine and my ideas of leadership.

I thought this theme of civic duty in our discussions matched perfectly with my Community outreach activity I had this week at Mount Pleasant library. The library is located in a large hispanic community and the library manager told me that this is the only library in D.C that has bilingual programs. It was awesome to encourage young latinos who were just like me how important it is to read and write.  The kids were lined up outside on a hot Friday morning to come specifically for our bilingual story time. The children were fairly young tots and so I was glad to be able to color with them after story time and talk to them a little more. I made many new friends and as we colored together many told me about their exciting adventures they had planned for the rest of summer. I made my way around the children center and made sure to encourage all the students to read their favorite books and find new favorites! I also made sure to mention how important it is to be good, to do good, and help other people.  I even helped my new friends pick out books to read and some even checked out Lado a Lado. That really made my day.

This is George and I coloring together. His favorite color is red and he is really excited about showing his twin sister the book we read. Fun fact, George can speak Spanish!

This is me reading to everyone. Now at first glance it might look like the baby in the corner is trying to make a break for it but.. I think she just wanted a closer look at the book .. or at least I'm hoping.

It was also wonderful to re-connect with Jasmin(YAP '13) and exchange our experiences at the National Portrait Gallery over home-packed lunches we brought with us. This is what makes YAP so special, you can hear about another’s experiences so similar to yours and get ideas and advice on how you both can change the world for the better, especially as Latina leaders. Jasmin then needed to make it to the Hilton afterwards for a LULAC conference so I was more than happy to drive her because she is my YAP familia.

Next week is Museum Week for all the teens in our program where the students have voted and will now visit different museums across the city so stay tuned. Our program makes sure to expose the students to different museum careers as well because that is wish of one of our sponsors the honorable Cynthia Blumenthal and her husband Richard Blumenthal, both commissioners of the National Portrait Gallery, and I think that's wonderful.