My first day at the National Museum of the American Indian

National Native American Veterans Memorial, Harvey Pratt.
Photo: Alan Karchmer for NMAI.

I thought I'd use this blog post to answer a few questions about my new job as a Visitor Information Specialist Volunteer at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, NMAI for short. I've only worked one shift so far, but friends have asked me about my duties and the museum more generally, so here goes.

What is your position exactly? 

I am officially a Visitor Information Specialist Volunteer, which means I help staff the Welcome Desk at the museum once a week, that's Wednesday morning for me. My basic responsibility is to greet guests and to help them have the best possible experience they can while visiting the museum by answering questions and serving as a liaison to museum staff to meet other needs such as accessibility services.

The Welcome Desk sits adjacent to the grand Potomac Atrium on the first floor of the museum which in my opinion is the most beautiful museum on the National Mall. I may describe it in more detail in a later post. Suffice it to say, it's a wonderful place to work.

Are you a docent? 

I am not a docent or any sort of museum guide. I'll have to undertake extensive training to qualify for that kind of position.

Do you have to know a lot about the museum and Native peoples for your job?

This was a concern of mine when I applied to be a volunteer back in July. It turns out that the job doesn't require any particular expertise. In addition to two orientation classes in late September and mid-October for the Smithsonian Institution itself (it includes 21 different museums!), we had a single day of museum-specific training. And much of that museum-specific time was devoted to important practical matters, like evacuation routes and procedures.

I must admit, though, that I am very glad that I visited the NMAI a number of times over the last several months. Those visits allowed me to learn about the layout of the museum and the exhibitions that it hosts. I'm glad I did. I was a lot more confident taking up a seat at the Welcome Desk for the very first time as a result.

Why is it called the Museum of the American Indian?

This much-asked question was specifically addressed in our training. The answer is pretty straightforward: when the museum was chartered by Congress in 1989 - construction was completed in 2004 - its collection was derived from over 800,000 objects assembled by George Gustav Heye (1874–1957), a New Yorker who quit Wall Street to indulge his passion for American Indian artifacts. The Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation transferred this collection to the Smithsonian with the condition that the name be retained.

Isn't that considered offensive?

One of the most important things I've learned from my visits to the NMAI and from my training is that Native peoples are diverse. One should not assume that they speak with a single voice, which is a mistake that I am inclined to make. Some may prefer the name "indigenous people" while others prefer "Native Americans," or, say, "First Nations" in Canada. I think that "American Indian" falls somewhere within this range of choices. But the real answer to this question depends very much on context and who exactly is involved in the discussion.

What was your typical interaction with visitors?

For those of you who visit museums often, you know the first thing you need when you walk in is a museum map. Not surprisingly, that's what most people who approach the Welcome Desk were looking for. As you can see here, the NMAI comprises 4 floors. Contrary to what they (or you) might expect, it is not laid out along conventional lines.

For example, there isn't an extended section for, say, pottery or beadwork or arrowheads, at least not on permanent display. Likewise, the museum is not organized according to an unfolding comprehensive historical or geographical story, although history and geography are important elements of the individual exhibits and there are Windows on Collections display cases on each floor that each feature a number of artifacts.

Instead, the NMAI is organized thematically as represented by a handful of current exhibitions like these. I think that one way to look at this is that the mission of the museum has to do more with the communication of the experience of contemporary Native peoples rather than with a presentation Native objects.

What was the most moving interaction you had on your first day?

Although the possibility was mentioned in our training, I had not expected that Native visitors or their descendants would approach the Welcome Desk several times looking for flags or artifacts relation to their tribal nations. It really helped me to appreciate how important the NMAI is to Native Americans and how proud they are to see themselves and their ancestors represented here.

Any surprises?

Although I had known that the NMAI's Mitsitam Cafe, which features the indigenous foods of the Western Hemisphere, was very popular, I had no idea that it was in itself a destination for many people visiting the National Mall. One couple approached the Welcome Desk looking for the cafe after asking for a recommendation of where to go to have lunch while they were touring the Library of Congress.

The problem is that, for the first time in 20 years, the Mitsitam Cafe is closed for renovations and will remain closed until late spring 2024. Needless to say, I had to share this disappointing news with a number of visitors. There's a coffee shop adjacent to the Welcome Desk that's able to provide a small selection of lunch items, but it can't compare to the full Mitsitam Cafe experience.

More to come

If this post turns out to be of interest to folks, I'll follow up with similar installments about the NMAI in the future.

The unexpected science subtext of George Miller's 3,000 Years of Longing

George Miller’s lavishly produced recent film, “3,000 Years of Longing,” could be described as a sort of Aladdin for adults. It is the retelling of a tale from Scheherazade’s 1,001 Arabian Nights set in our mythology-leary world. And, contrary to expectations, if one digs beneath the surface, a surprising story about science reveals itself.

That science will play a role in this reformulation is hinted at early on in the movie. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), a “narratologist” by trade, is arriving for a storytelling conference in modern day Istanbul. Her grip on reality is called into question when we watch her spy a diaphanous, gnome-like man trying to run off with her baggage cart at the airport. Unwelcome apparitions like him continue to appear, unbidden, at the conference’s keynote lecture where a distracted Alithea pauses to declare that the tales of gods and heroes of ancient times have been vanquished to the dustbin of history. According to her, scientific explanations now rule the day.

Given Alithea’s job as an expert on the art of storytelling, this declaration is a surprise. Shouldn’t she at least take some professional pride in the enduring power of ancient myth? Or maybe it’s that, as Alithea has grown older, these just-so stories have lost their appeal. Has tragedy in Alithea’s life drained the magic from her world?

Miller and his co-writer/daughter, Augusta Gore, appear to be setting us up for a tale which will pit the rationality of science against the enchantment of the supernatural. So we ready ourselves to have the hard heart of our cynical protagonist softened by an encounter with magical forces. Thankfully, the writers dodge this predictable storyline and, instead, offer us a story in which science and magic become willing collaborators.

So, when Alithea pries open an antique glass bottle purchased at the Istanbul bazaar releasing Djinn (Idris Elba), she is startled, but, surprisingly, not at all disbelieving. Alithea is not so much concerned that she may be losing her mind when Djinn appears as she is that she will, like a sucker, fall victim to his plea for her to get on with the business of making her three wishes. From experience as a scholar of storytelling, Alithea knows that giving in to this temptation will inevitably lead to a less than happy outcome, no matter how carefully she formulates the statement of her desires.

In order to dissolve Alithea’s skepticism, Djinn launches into his three-thousand-year story as a prisoner of an assortment of lamps and flasks. He describes how he came to be “incarcerated” the first time - by King Solomon, no less - as well as the relationships he has had with the mortals who liberated him after that. In the process, we discover that Djinn desperately longs for lasting freedom, and we also learn that he is capable of deep human attachments. Significantly, for our purposes, it is also revealed that Djinn is a being who is made up of electromagnetic waves. In other words,he is a creature of pure light.

Soon after, the role that light will play in the film is underscored by a set of text panels that flash across the screen briefly. This mini powerpoint presentation telegraphs a schematic history of Djinn’s universe which begins with a burst of electromagnetic waves  - let there be light! - and culminates with the emergence of biological compounds and then, presumably, Darwinian evolution. It appears that, whatever Djinn’s status as a supernatural being is, he sees himself as a participant in a world of natural phenomena. Far from being at odds with one another, in this view of the world science and magic are companionable fellow travelers.

But “3,000 Years” is not done with light yet. As Djinn tells his story, we learn that his most recent liberation, sometime in the nineteenth century it appears, was at the hands of Zefir, the young wife of a Turkish merchant. With a nod to “Faust,” Zefir wishes for all the knowledge in the world. What we see flashing across the screen as a result of her request is a high-speed montage of Zefir devouring book after book supplied by Djinn which contain the scientific findings of the age. 

Usually the graphics presented in such a montage are a mess of mathematical nonsense, a lot of random expressions yanked from a high school algebra text. But the equations that appear in the books that Zefir pours over are, in this case, the real deal. They faithfully retrace the development of the theory of electromagnetism that got underway with Michael Faraday’s experiments in the 1830s in London and culminated in the early 1860 with Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell’s unification of electrical and magnetic phenomena. Maxwell’s equations, as his system came to be called, was the first unified field theory of modern physics.

This sequence presents us with a tantalizing ambiguity: is Zefir simply reconstructing discoveries reported by contemporary researchers in the books Djinn has provided, or has she, in a stroke of genius, developed a theory of electromagnetic waves all on her own, beating the esteemed Maxwell to the punch? Maybe the famous handful of equations should rightfully be called Zefir’s equations?

This backstory having to do with the phenomena of electricity and magnetism continues into the final act of the film when Alithea returns to London with Djinn as her companion. Creature of light that he is, Djinn is acutely sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation that impinges on him. In fact, he is so overwhelmed by the ocean of radio waves, Wi-Fi, and wireless signals that he starts to become ill. (Admittedly, present-day Istanbul, the technological metropolis that it is, should have presented Djinn with similar problems.) Although he manages to maintain his composure in the face of this electromagnetic assault, it slowly begins taking a toll on his well-being.

At the beginning of the film Alithea telegraphs that a science vs. superstition confrontation may be in the offing. And, yes, Djinn’s composition as a creature of light, along with the electromagnetic origins of the universe, is clearly stated. Yet no review of the film that I’ve read takes note of these facts. In addition, the montage of mathematics including Maxwell’s equations streams by so quickly that it takes a trained eye - at least an eye that has been exposed to an intermediate undergraduate course in electricity and magnetism - to make sense of it. Somehow, though, I doubt that physicists were the intended audience for the film.

A possible explanation is that the writers inserted the Easter eggs having to do with electromagnetism as a message in a bottle of sorts into the encasing tale of Alithea and Djinn. And it could be that they expected the occasional viewer, like me, would pick up this bottle and rub it hard enough to have its hidden message revealed. If that is the case, then I count myself as lucky to have happened across “3,000 Years” and to discover, unexpectedly, the science story inside. Being a science nerd, a wish of mine was indeed granted.

Adding injury to insult: the negative public health implications of Republican-sponsored voter-suppression laws

There are all sorts of reasons being offered for opposing the GOP-sponsored restrictive voting legislation being enacted around the country in states like Georgia and Texas. Most of them have to do with the fact that these measures, contrary to the claims of their authors, are intended to limit access to the polls by eligible voters, in particular by voters of color. The anti-democratic intent of these laws is clear; they are little more than a sour-grapes expression by Republicans for having lost the 2020 elections fair and square and a desperate attempt to not do so again.

But little is being said about another important reason to stand against these new voting measures that aim to thwart mail-in voting, either by making getting a absentee ballots harder to get or by reducing the number of drop boxes to which to return them, or by limiting early-voting options which distribute the otherwise large pulse of election-day voters over an extended period of time. That reason is that these voter suppression laws will also put public health at greater risk.

As much as we'd like to believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is a one-off event, hopefully one we will be able place behind us soon, the fact of the matter is that it will more than likely mark the first in a series of pandemics that we will have to confront this century. This is due in part to the fact that habitat loss, either as a result of encroachment by expanding urban areas or environmental degradation, will bring wild animal populations in closer proximity to humans. The chances of the occurrence of zoonotic disease, an infection that jumps from an animal to a human, becomes more and probable. And the increasingly connected global transportation system ensures that any such spillover will spread as far and as quickly as possible.

We dodged the other coronavirus bullets of SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012 which had originated in non-human animals. And, even if it turns out that COVID-19's intrusion into the human population resulted from a laboratory accident and not direct animal to human transmission, we should in no way breathe a sigh of relief. These pathogens are coming for us. When they do, they may take the form of a more virulent version of the common cold, as has COVID-19, or a more deadly strain of the seasonal flu. In this regard, an H5N1 variant of influenza, the so-called avian flu, has been on our pandemic radar for years. It really is only a matter of time.

The emergence of a novel coronavirus in China in late 2019 and its rapid spread to other parts of the world served to remind us that these kind of pandemics can arise unexpectedly. In the case of COVID-19, its U.S. debut coincided with the run-up to the 2020 primary election season. It is useful to remember that, in a time before the virus became a political hot potato, election officials began taking steps to reduce the infection risk to voters in their respective jurisdictions. These steps were viewed as prudent public health measures plain and simple.

Notably, Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger took quick action to distribute absentee (a.k.a mail-in) ballot applications to all registered voters and wisely deferred primary election dates to better get a handle on how to operate in-person voting in the midst of a pandemic. Raffensperger, in spite of the fact that he had always been aligned with elements of the state's GOP-dominated government in their efforts to limit access to voting, recognized that the grave responsibility of reducing the impact of COVID-19 on Georgians going to the polls was in his hands.

And Secretary Raffensperger was not alone in this recognition; his counterparts in both red and blue states implemented similar measures, such as allowing for no-excuse absentee ballots and increasing the number and geographical distribution of drop-boxes where they could be returned. To the extent possible, especially given the short notice, these actions reduced the health risks to voters around the country who wanted to do their civic duty by participating in all phases of the 2020 election cycle. As dozens of legal challenges would reveal later that year, these voting changes were made without degrading the integrity electoral process one iota.

So, when all was said and done, as the last of the 2020 elections trickled into early 2021 with the Georgia runoffs for U.S. Senate, many states had accomplished the unexpected: they had made voting both more accessible and safer from a public health standpoint. It will be a head-scratcher for future historians who will ponder why such significant electoral achievements were dismantled almost immediately after their unalloyed success had been widely demonstrated.

Well, I guess they won't be scratching their heads about what motivated the Republican Party to turn back expansion of voter access. Due to cultural and demographic shifts in the electorate, the survival of that party has come to depend on anti-democratic measures like political gerrymandering and creating obstacles to voting by people of color. So there won't be much puzzle to the upside the GOP saw in rescinding pandemic voting procedures to renew established efforts at voter suppression.

What future historians will find puzzling is that the public health advantages that resulted from expanded absentee- and early-voting were so soon abandoned, especially since there would be a scramble to reimplement them when the next pandemic - and there would be a next pandemic - coincided with an election cycle. At a time when state officials and legislatures should have been working to refine and standardize approaches to voting that takes public health into account, they were instead preoccupied with dismantling the small advances they had made in this regard.

If you think that we reap benefits from socially-distanced approaches to voting only in the midst of a pandemic, you may want to think again. Although the Founding Fathers may have been visionary in many regards, ignorant of the germ theory of disease, they could not have contemplated that gathering large numbers of people to vote in enclosed spaces for an extended period of time in early November was a very bad idea from a public health perspective. It is the height of flu season, a reality that will likely stay with us for years until a universal influenza vaccine is fielded and widely administered.

The seasonal flu is responsible for 10,000 - 60,000 deaths in this country every year, not to mention many tens of thousands of more cases of serious illness and the hospitalizations that result from them. Its most vulnerable target is seniors, who turn out to be not only a segment of the population who vote in disproportionately large numbers but who also traditionally provide the lion's share of the army of volunteers that make in-person voting possible. Socially distanced voting measures will not only reduce the disease burden shouldered by the elderly but also by other vulnerable populations.

Admittedly, given the numerous state party primaries and runoffs, elections in the country are held at a variety of times of year well outside of flu season. But, as the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated, you don't need cold weather to encourage the spread airborne diseases. Indeed, the prevalence of respiratory illnesses in the fall and winter have less to do with the temperature itself and more to do with the fact that cold weather tends to drive people indoors. Why give these diseases a foothold anytime of the year by forcing vulnerable people into polling places unnecessarily?

Yes, it should be enough to retain or even extend expanded mail-in and early voting options as a matter of increasing participation in our elections at all levels and all times of the year. In spite of a small number of isolated incidents of voter fraud, as dozens of legal challenges have indicated, the 2020 elections have been the most secure and the most transparent in this country's history.

The bottom line is that recently enacted voter suppression legislation is the wrong way to go. Rolling back the very measures that made voting safer during the 2020 COVID pandemic is ill-advised according to public health considerations. It is these regressive laws that should themselves be rescinded to ensure that our electoral process is not only fair but also healthy.