Hi, I’m Paula! 🙂

As a long-time museum lover, when Brenda reached out with the opportunity to apply to be part of the MTS team, I was immediately intrigued. I’ve always been interested in “untold stories” and the amplification of voices who historically haven’t been heard in different fields. For museums, this was a very clear area for me to explore: when working as an interpreter in high school, my supervisors and mentors were excellent advocates, especially for people who typically weren’t represented at all in the museum sphere. One specific observation that I remember hearing from a coworker was something along the lines of, “Older white men wrote all the stuff in this museum in the 1900s and it never changes. How are we supposed to connect with the information now?” 

From there, I realized (as so many other people have before me!) that this applies to almost all areas of our lives–if we don’t have access to a wider array of people’s experiences and stories, then we are limited to an all-too-familiar narrative, which, honestly, most of the time doesn’t click with a lot of people. The MTS project is one of these opportunities to uncover and publicize the stories of people who have been mistreated and silenced, and I am more than honored to be a part of the awesome team that’s working so hard to give those stories a platform.

I fell in love with the archives after touring the university’s shelves. The vast amounts of material in particular drew me in, the amount of information held on those shelves was staggering. 

The stories hidden within the shelves fascinated me as did their preservation. As a history major I knew the importance of reading, of remembering, of recording. That is how history is passed down and preserved. 

I knew I wanted to intern this summer but I struggled to find a position that really drew me in. Then I found this apprenticeship. It had each piece I was looking for. It gave me the opportunity to explore the archives, to help tell a story that needs to be told, and to work with a great team. The fact that MTS is so close to where I go to school also drew me in, as it gave me the chance to explore the history of my own community, especially history that was not properly memorialized.