A Tapestry of California
Summer Intern at Heyday Institute
Read about our summer research projects on the OutWest student blog. Throughout the summer, the Center's interns and Research Assistants will be sending in virtual postcards, snapshots and reports on their summer work.
There’s a romantic but dangerous belief about the American West. We see it in cowboy movies and old paintings and some retellings of history. It’s the belief that the story of the West is one of individuality, isolation, and self-reliance. When we look at the West more closely, though, we see stories of community everywhere. We find them in the evolution of tribal life (see my co-worker Vincent’s awesome blog “Being Ohlone in the 21st Century”), in the proliferation of public art, in the preservation of historic buildings, in the push for a better environment.
At its core, Heyday is a place dedicated to making these stories known to the broader world. It’s also a vibrant group of open-minded and open-hearted people. When we publish a book, we’re acting as midwives for someone’s dream, and we need everyone’s participation and care as we make that dream a reality. Even when we don’t have meetings, we talk to one another on a day-to-day basis to make sure we know what we need to do. We crack jokes, we argue, we eat lunch together, and we panic together.
In my ten weeks as an intern, I spent most of my time doing marketing (contacting possible customers) and publicity (contacting media). But as I helped with more books and projects, I found myself working with the majority of the staff. I talked to one person about mailing books to reviewers, another person about sending letters, another person about contacting stores, and yet another person about helping to build a new website. I sent hundreds of emails, mailed hundreds of letters, and met too many wonderful people to count.
Over time, I immersed myself in the dense patchwork of cultures and movements that collide at Heyday. I’d spend one day thinking about architectural preservation and the next thinking about Hetch Hetchy. No two books I worked on are alike, and each one gave me a unique lens to view California through. As I read and talked to people, I gained an entirely new appreciation of the vastness and complexity of my home state.
Deborah Miranda begins her memoir Bad Indians by saying, “California is a story. California is many stories.” And with every day at work I saw these stories unfold before me like parts of an infinite tapestry. California is the union of thousands of communities, and to spend time at Heyday is to see how those communities grow, change, break apart and come together.
Read more at the Out West Blog for Summer Interns »
