By Valerie Vallejo
This post is from our 2026 Spring Internship series.
I completed my internship with the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing the history and cultural heritage of African descendants in San Antonio and the Southwest region. I worked in the education department, where I helped assist 7th-grade students at Essence Preparatory Public School once every other week or every week, depending on what was needed. They were taught about African American history while also introducing them to roles in the public history sphere.
Working in the education department, I had many responsibilities. There was not one overall project I had to finish by the end of my internship; instead, I worked on multiple tasks throughout the semester. The first task I completed was an activity and a worksheet about how to organize archival materials into a series for the students. Their activity was to create a series from a group of items we had provided, demonstrating how archival organization works. I was assigned to be in one of the groups, it was fun to interact with the kids and to answer their questions. Throughout the internship, I also created additional worksheets to help students begin thinking about their end-of-year project. The students’ final project was to help develop ideas for pop-up panels that represented their school.
As the project continued, the students at Essence Prep came up with several ideas for their pop-up panels and their overall project, one of them was conducting oral histories. Some of the students created interview questions for other students and faculty members to answer. We held a history harvest at the school so the students could conduct these interviews. The way we set up the history harvest was to have three students asking the questions to students and faculty that were in three different areas around the school. Two students interviewed teachers and faculty members while another student interviewed classmates. During that time we collected six or more oral histories.
Another aspect of their final project was to do a signature video. A signature video involved participants writing their signatures on glass while a camera recorded them. Almost every student in the 7th grade participated in this activity. While they did their signature video they also recorded their impact statement of how the school impacted them over the years.
The last task I completed for the students was to help start their pop-up exhibit. First, I typed up some of the students’ answers from some of the worksheets they did in March and April. Then, I started the beginning stages of the pop-up exhibit by adding some quotes from the students worksheets and the teachers oral histories. I also added some events to a timeline that was created before I got back to work. In addition, I included pictures from their website, instagram, and some of the pictures I took when I was at the school.
Those were the main tasks I completed with the 7th grade students at Essence Prep. The other responsibilities I had in the education department were to help with a summer packet. This summer packet is for SAAACAM to use with students attending a summer camp at a different school, where they will teach a different version of the same curriculum used with the students at Essence Prep. What I did on the summer packet was adding links to the program and as well creating teaching guides. I think it’s a form to see where the teacher needs to be for their class. Then I also made some small corrections on the packet which included dates, names and numbering order.
I did other tasks outside of the education department including helping the archive department with a donation pickup. The head archivist and I visited a house where someone was willing to donate movies, pictures and a hat to SAAACAM collections. It was different because I’ve never had to go somewhere to pick up potential items for a collection. I’m used to people coming to us with their items. I also participated in the Green Book Bus Tour for SAAACAM. I was there to help out with the small tasks and prep pack some items. Then the last thing I did was take pictures. I took pictures at Essence Prep and during the bus tour for SAAACAM to use on social media to help document their programs and activities.
During this internship, I learned a lot about how hard education workers work to educate students in different grades levels and with different learning styles. Since this type of work was different from what I normally do, it gave me more confidence in collaborating with educators and working in public history settings. I gain skills in creating a pop-up exhibit, preparing education materials and to continue my editing and organizational skills. Overall I had a great time doing my internship with SAAACAM. The people were awesome, the workload was good and everyone was there to help, if needed.
SAAACAM Website: saaacam
SAAACAM Instagram: SAAACAM (@saaacamtx) · San Antonio, TX
