Teaching Interns What “Professional” Really Looks Like

Teaching Interns What “Professional” Really Looks Like

By Diana Delgado | Community Outreach Coordinator, City of Albuquerque Cultural Services Department | September 19, 2019

You can come from any neighborhood, any background, and every talent you have is valuable. 
You can come from any neighborhood, any background, and every talent you have is valuable. 
 
You can come from any neighborhood, any background, and every talent you have is valuable. 

As a first-time X3 mentor, I wanted to show the X3 interns that a “professional” can look like anyone. You can come from any neighborhood, any background, and every talent you have is valuable. 

As an artist, I have a very different background than my colleagues in the Cultural Services Department. I really cherish that part of my identity.

I was lucky to work with two X3 interns this summer: Kelly Contreras of Health Leadership High School, and Jesus Saldana of Siembra Leadership High School, along with three other college-age interns. During the first week, I asked them to answer some questions about themselves: age, school, special skills. The X3 interns’ answers were very bland, and felt very “this is what you say on your resume”. The older interns had already been with me for a couple of weeks and already understood the ways all of their skills could come in handy. Oh you have acting experience? You can be in a video with the Mayor. You’re a photographer? Everyone needs photos! Graphic designer? The most magical gift from the heavens!

It wasn’t until their second week when I discovered that Kelly is an incredible illustrator and Jesus is a budding rapper. Kelly was able to very creatively and beautifully reimagine the space in our office to accommodate all six of us, create schedules, and manage a huge, and I mean huge (it was eight feet tall), wall calendar that kept everyone on task. Jesus’s skills as a performer and a wordsmith charmed participants at community events, even leaving a lasting impression with world famous artist Theaster Gates!

Most surprisingly, I found out that they were both fluent in Spanish. It deeply saddens me that these unique skills were not something they felt were valuable enough to include in their answers. Art and culture is the air that Albuquerque breaths. Feeling as though you need to hide those aspects of oneself is a cycle that must be broken.

There was never a want for interesting work for the interns to do at the Cultural Services Department with 18 libraries, two museums, two performance theaters, a zoo, aquarium, botanic garden, family events, and a vast array of public art and monuments. At the end of the summer, the interns put together a presentation about how Cultural Services can better reach people in their age range. Presenting their report to influential leaders across many City departments, Kelly and Jesus had great insights and suggestions, such as reducing the cost of admissions for teens and students, creating a multi-pass for teens to get access to many locations for one price, and a scavenger hunt social media challenge to encourage teens to discover public art around town.

Not only were their presentations composed, articulate, and well researched, when Kelly and Jesus introduced themselves at the beginning, they each identified as an artist.

 
 
 

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