Museum Studies graduate student accepted into the Native American Summer Fellowship Program
April 19, 2023 - Talullah Begaye
Historically, Native Americans have been underrepresented in all areas of the museum world except in the collections. Alexis Lucero, who is a Museum Studies graduate student and member of the Isleta Pueblo, is hoping to change that. Thanks to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, Lucero will have the opportunity to help her community by being one of six fellows in the Native American Summer Fellowship Program
“We are receiving the training necessary to shift conversations and make our voices heard. Indigenous voices need to be at the forefront of conversations regarding cultural materials from Native communities,” Lucero said.
Her Fellowship will have her working with Collections Management and Director of Center and Collections Stewardship, Angela Segalla. It will be the first time Lucero will work with Native material in a collections setting. The Native American collection spans 10,000 years of Indigenous visual expression and was begun with the museum’s founding in 1799.
Lucero hopes to take the skills she learns in both collections and leadership back to Yonan An, the Isleta cultural center, to mentor and advise other tribal members who want to pursue careers in the museum field.
“It is important for Native people to have opportunities that train us to become the next leaders in the museum field. Programs like the Peabody’s are trying to address questions of power and the necessary shift in conversations to make our voices heard,” Lucero said.
In her undergraduate program, she was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and upon her graduation in 2022, she served as a Native American Scholars Initiative Intern at the American Philosophical Society. Currently, Lucero is the Hibben Museum Partner Fellow and works with Yonan An as an intern-archivist.
The Peabody Essex Museum’s Native American Summer Fellowship Program started as a part of a 2010 Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations grant meant to create more connection to Native American professionals. It matches fellows to available projects and the associated mentor/supervisor to develop skills, their voices, and centering their communities.
The fellowship is a shorter version of PEM’s long-term fellowship, which is 12 to 24 months long. The program has also won the EdCom Excellence in Programming Award in 2015 and in 2016 and 2019 received funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Lucero was inspired by two of her grandparents to use her education to support her people and to work in museums as a way of care-taking knowledge. Along the way, she met Mike Kelly, her mentor, who helped guide her into the field of archival practices.
She hopes that more Native students will see opportunities like this and take the leap to empower themselves and their communities.
